Ali and her mom, Jen, dig into one of those topics every woman hits at some point — what do you do when a friend keeps coming to you with the same problem, the same chaos, over and over again, and nothing ever changes? Is it okay to say something? Is it okay to walk away?
They get into the real mechanics of how to handle it: the art of the redirect (yes, just change the subject), why timing matters more than you think when it comes to hard conversations, and why bringing something up when someone is mid-spiral almost never works. Ali draws a surprisingly parallel between managing deeply feeling kids and managing deeply feeling adults — turns out, the Dr. Becky approach applies way beyond toddlers.
They also talk about the stuff nobody warns you about: the cost of being everyone's sounding board, why you should never vent about your partner to your friends, the damage that gossip does even when someone "promises" not to repeat it, and why a good therapist will always beat a group text for working through your shit.
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Refined & Unhinged: @refinedandunhinged
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Ali: @alistricklin
Jen Dryden Hess: @jendrydenhess
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