The Inner Circle

In this podcast, we explore the importance of close friends who both support us and celebrate life with us. In life, through establishing strong and invested connections with others, we can significantly enrich and enhance our overall wellbeing.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

If we're listening to this podcast,

Probably one of our biggest goals is to be happier in life.

And there's a lot of things that we can do actively to improve our lives.

But sometimes it's just hard to find peace and happiness in our lives.

There's a lot of things in life that are keeping us from being happy.

Sometimes they're little,

Like getting stuck in traffic,

Or waking up with a really bad headache.

And sometimes they're big,

Like being diagnosed with cancer,

Or having one of our parents die.

And the purpose of this podcast is to help us during these times,

When we're going through hard times,

So that we can find happiness right here,

Right now.

And today I want to talk about another thing that we can do that I haven't talked much about over the years.

Perhaps because,

Though it's not required,

It definitely makes our lives go better when it's present.

So today I want to talk about the inner circle,

Our friends and or family that support us throughout our lives.

People that are there for us,

Pretty much no matter what.

And they're really there for us in two ways.

When of course we're going through a lot of difficult times,

And we're going through a lot of difficult times.

Pretty much no matter what.

And they're really there for us in two ways.

When of course we're going through difficult times,

There's someone we can lean on and reach out to and ask for help.

But also when we're having joys in life,

There's someone we can share those joys with,

Laugh with,

And just find great beauty in life with these other people,

Our deep inner circle of friends.

Well first,

Who are these people and how many of them do we need?

I remember when I was an undergraduate,

I had a psych professor of mine tell me that we really have two choices in life.

We can have a couple,

Two or three really close friends,

Or we can have a lot of friends that are really not close to any of them.

And when he said this,

It really made sense.

Because if we're going to have close friends,

We have to reach out to them often and regularly.

And if we're going to have a lot of friends,

We're probably not going to go very deep with any of them.

And then about ten years later,

I worked with a young lady.

She was a high school student,

A senior.

She was going to be valedictorian of her class.

She was homecoming queen,

And she was incredibly popular.

People were reaching out to her all the time.

She had so many invites to do things regularly.

But she was coming to me because she felt so alone.

She didn't have any close friends.

She had a lot of friends.

But she really felt alone,

Knowing that she could really connect with and feel close to even those who had so many friends.

And I've seen it many times throughout the years.

People that have a lot of people that they would call friends,

But not very many close friends,

If any.

People that they would really reach out to on a regular basis.

Now these friends,

This inner circle of support that we love and they love us,

Doesn't have to necessarily just be friends.

It can be family members.

It might be a sister.

It might be a parent.

It might be a child.

It might be our spouse.

It's just people that we really reach out to on a regular basis,

That they support us,

We support them.

But it's also so much more than that.

We enjoy them.

We savor life with them.

We share our joys with them.

We experience joys of life with them.

But for someone to be in our inner circle,

We need to connect with them.

We need to spend time with them.

We need to regularly connect with them at the heart level.

Because these are our inner circle.

The people that both support us and the people that we enjoy the journey of life with.

So they're probably not going to be people that are overly critical of us.

People that are harsh towards us.

People that lash out at us.

That's probably not going to be the type of people we let into our inner circle.

I mean there's enough of that behavior in the world.

What we're looking for is people,

Mostly,

That we can just smile with.

Things flow very easily,

Very naturally.

It's like an old friend that we've had throughout our lives that we understand,

They understand us,

And things just flow.

It's easy with these people.

And because they're important to us,

We have to make time for them.

I think there's a tendency to meet people like this and let them slip out of our hands.

And it's not that we don't care.

We know they're special.

But what can happen is the other people in our lives are clamoring for our attention.

I mean let me use a very basic example.

Think of a mother who loves her children.

She's going to be attentive to them.

She's going to meet their needs.

But they have so many needs and wants that she puts her life on hold as she's raising her children.

And she's not getting together with her friends anymore and connecting.

I don't think this is the right choice.

Our kids grow up,

They move on,

And as a mother or father,

We have to make sure we're making time for our close friends that we enjoy life with.

Plus,

If all our kids see is us giving and giving and giving,

We're not teaching them the secrets and the benefits of that inner circle of friends that are so important in life.

We need to show them that this is a key element of happiness and joy in life.

Having people that we connect with,

And when we do,

We make time for them.

We reach out to them.

We call them.

We connect with them on a regular basis,

Not once in a while.

I know we have people in our lives that we deeply love and connect with very easily,

But we just forget to reach out to them.

We don't go see them.

We don't visit them.

They move away.

We move away and we just get out of contact.

I would not recommend that.

If they're important,

Make time for them,

For their benefit,

But for ours too.

So this inner circle takes time.

It takes energy.

But it's a great investment of our time and energy because it pays back in so many ways that make life just beautiful.

Because when we can laugh with them,

When we can cry with them,

They just help us navigate life's course.

Because it's wonderful to share our experiences with other people.

And it's wonderful when we have someone,

When life is tough,

That we can lean on,

That we can talk to,

That will listen to us,

And we'll listen to them.

Now there is one aspect of our inner circle that we need to be aware of,

And that's change.

Like in our own life,

Anything can change.

So when it does,

When we realize that that one person that was really important in our inner circle has moved on for whatever reason,

Then we need to take our energy and say,

Okay,

It's time to start cultivating a new friendship,

Someone that can be part of my inner circle,

That I can rely on and they can rely on me.

We all know examples of this.

When we were younger,

We may have had special friends in high school that aren't anymore.

And now we have new friends that are deep friends.

Or maybe we still have those friends from high school.

It's just life does change.

And when it does,

We adjust.

So we're doing two things with this inner circle of friends.

The one is,

If we don't have any,

Or if we want to have one more,

Then we're spending that energy to find them,

To meet them,

To connect with people,

That we can say,

Yeah,

This is someone I would like to develop a friendship with.

And if they seem ready to reciprocate,

Then we go to phase two,

Which is keeping that friendship alive.

And that's like anything in life.

To keep something alive,

We have to feed it.

And we feed it by spending time with them,

By reaching out to them,

By calling them,

By making them a priority in our lives on a regular basis.

And that natural feeding of this friendship will keep it alive,

Will make it last.

And if life does change,

As sometimes it does,

Then we adjust and we try to find new friends.

But make sure it really did change.

Sometimes there's just a misunderstanding.

Sometimes it just isn't being fed,

The relationship isn't being fed with time and energy enough.

So instead of letting it go too quickly,

Make sure that it really has died and it's time to move on.

Because sometimes I think we prematurely give up on a relationship.

One of my inner circle moved to New York State many years ago,

And I kept reaching out to him on a very regular basis.

And he at first was slow at reciprocating,

But when he saw that I really wanted to keep our friendship alive,

He reciprocates very well over the years.

And we see each other often.

And if you still don't believe in the power of friendship,

I want to talk a little bit about the 12-set program that many of us know by the name of AA.

And if you know anything about it,

Once someone gets addicted to alcohol or drugs,

Throughout history,

Prior to AA,

If you became an alcoholic,

You basically died an alcoholic and drank yourself to death.

But now with the help of 12-step and AA,

People are able to quit drinking and become sober for the rest of their lives.

And mind you,

If you've ever known anyone or had a relative that struggles with addictions,

Quitting alcohol or drugs is extremely difficult.

But one of the factors that I think that works so well with AA is where they have a sponsor.

A sponsor is someone they can reach out to 24-7 at any time when they're feeling like they're going to use.

And they can call that person,

And that person will help them not to use again.

I think this is a key element of AA that really works well.

And it's really based on the concept of that inner circle,

The people that we can count on,

That love us,

And will help us no matter what,

Or no matter what we've done.

So with our inner circle of happiness,

Friends,

What we're looking for is really two things.

Like I said,

These are people that when we're having a tough time,

Or if we've gone through rough times in our life,

Or even made some really unfortunate choices in our life,

They still can love us and accept us and be proud of us,

Because they do truly love our hearts,

Even when we've made some choices that we're not proud of.

But more importantly,

I think,

Than that,

These are people that we can smile with and love life with,

Which really is the focus of what we're working towards here on the Happiness Podcast.

It is so beautiful to watch the sunset,

But it's equally as beautiful to share that sunset with another person.

It is magnificent traveling around the world,

Visiting some of the art pieces in the Louvre or the National Gallery,

But it's also equally beautiful to be standing next to your soul friend and experiencing it with him or her.

In life,

It is good to be with others,

And it's good to have that inner circle that we can have experiences with,

We can laugh with them,

We can find joy with them,

And together we can support each other when we do go through hard times,

But I think more importantly,

That we can just enjoy life with when life is good.

So if,

After listening to this podcast today,

You think,

You know,

I could use a good soulmate friend,

Work towards that,

Find that friend,

Or if you have one already,

But you've been collecting it,

Begin to feed it again,

Reach out to them,

Start seeing them on a regular basis,

Realizing they're one of the key elements of life that make life beautiful.

So you're going to make time for them,

Because they'll make time for you.

It truly is one of the best investments of our time,

And if we take the time to cultivate and keep that friendship alive,

That inner circle alive and well,

We'll find life is truly,

Each and every day,

A beautiful adventure.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

If you are finding these episodes helpful,

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And until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Lovely session 🫶🏾🤘🏾👌🏾

Loved this. 🌺🌞

I loved this breakdown and reminder how important it is to have that one circle of friends. ❤️

Just what I needed to hear. Thank you!

Just what I needed this morning to help put our family situation into perspective with a difficult person we have to deal with. Thank you !

Excellent advice. Friendships are to be valued & role modeled so our children also see that value having true close friend(s). 🙏🏼🌈🙏🏼

Important reminder. 🌹

Thank you very much 🙏

A good reminder to value and nurture our close friendships.

While I disagree with some things you e said in here, over all you make a valid and sweet point about nurturing friendships. Sadly not everyone feels it’s worth the effort and, since I’m a giver, I’ve had to learn to disengage from those who can’t be bothered. It’s very sad.
Thank you for a great podcast Robert.
🦋🐾💐🙏🏼🌺🌸🙏🏽✨