Female Friendships In Midlife
Episode 5 season 6: Susan Barrash on Sisterhood
Navigating female friendships at midlife can be challenging, especially for highly sensitive women. Host Elizabeth Cush and author Susan Shapiro Barash tackle the topic in this episode of the Awaken Your Wise Woman podcast.
“Seventy-five percent of the women with whom I spoke said that it’s harder to leave a best or closest female friend than it is to leave a romantic relationship or a marriage.”
Show Notes:
Are you close with your sister, or do you have friends who feel like sisters to you? Do you have a female friendship that feels like it’s not working any more, but you’re not sure how to heal it or end it? As a highly sensitive woman, you may feel these friendships—and any conflicts—more deeply than others do. And have you ever stopped to wonder how our culture affects it all? In this episode of Awaken Your Wise Woman, host Elizabeth “Biz” Cush, LCPC, a licensed professional therapist, founder of Progression Counseling in Maryland and Delaware, and a mid-life women’s coach, welcomes Susan Shapiro Barash, author of Estranged: How strained female friendships can be mended or ended, 13 other non-fiction titles, and four novels. Listen in on their conversation about friendships, the importance of community for women and how the patriarchy and capitalism have impacted our sense of how our relationships should be and how we interact with other women.
Listen and learn:
How do you move forward when a long-time friendship doesn’t feel aligned anymore?
What are the downsides and upsides of leaving a friendship that’s no longer working
Why it can feel harder to leave a female friendship
The two primary ways that female friendships end
How to tell when it’s time to move on
What makes some friendships feel so competitive—and how it affects our sense of safety in other relationships
How mirroring affects our relationships as we move through our lives
The changing role of shared values in recent years
What you need to know about the hierarchy of friendships
Suggest topics for Biz’s podcast and newsletter
See how to review the podcast
Learn More:
Susan Shapiro Barash’s website
Susan Barash/Susannah Marren on Instagram
Susan Shapiro Barash/Susannah Marren on Facebook
Biz’s Guided meditations on Insight Timer
Other episodes you might enjoy
Building a Highly Sensitive Community
Resources mentioned in this episode
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