How to Be a Good Friend (Including to Yourself)
What makes someone a good friend? We often think about showing up well for the people we love. But what if being a good friend also means learning how to receive care—and even extending that same compassion to ourselves?
Dan and Rachael begin this conversation with a simple story about a bus ride that never happened. What unfolds is something bigger: Why is it so hard to ask for help? What keeps us pushing through pain instead of letting others care for us?
Together, they explore what faithful friendship looks like: friends who know our stories, tell us the truth with kindness, and lovingly interrupt the patterns that keep us isolated. They also consider how we can begin to offer ourselves that same honesty, tenderness, and care.
As you listen, consider: What kind of friend have you become—to the people you love, and to yourself?
*This episode contains some explicit language. Listener discretion is advised.
About the Allender Center Podcast:
For over a decade, the Allender Center Podcast has offered honest, thoughtful conversations about the deep work of healing and transformation. Hosted by Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen, MDiv, this weekly podcast explores the complexities of trauma, abuse recovery, story, relationships, and spiritual formation. Through questions submitted by listeners, stories, interviews, and conversations, we engage the deep places of heartache and hope that are rarely addressed so candidly in our culture today. Join the Allender Center Podcast to uncover meaningful perspectives and support for your path to healing and growth.
At the Allender Center, we value thoughtful dialogue across a wide range of voices, stories, and lived experiences. In that spirit, our podcast features guests and hosts who may hold differing perspectives. The perspectives shared on this podcast by guests and hosts reflect their own experiences and viewpoints and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, or endorsements of the Allender Center and/or The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology.
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Episode Transcript
Rachael: Well, good people with good bodies. I’m here today with my friend and colleague, Dr. Dan B. Allender.
Dan: Dan B. It’s such a weird … Why did I ever put the “B.” into … I don’t know.
Rachael: Because academics do it and you’re supposed to do it.
Dan: I don’t know.
Rachael: Maybe you thought there were going to be other Dan Allenders out there and you just wanted to distinguish yourself, but…
Dan: We all make decisions that you look at decades later and just go, “Did I drink too much that night?
Rachael: Well, our topic today, like I think some of our best podcast conversations came out of an actual conversation we were having in the wake of a surgery that you had on your shoulder. If you don’t want those details shared, we can-
Dan: No, no. It’s just that’s reality.
Rachael: Well, actually our conversation happened in anticipation of your surgery and thinking through some of your post-op realities and a post-op appointment that you had where there was schedule conflicts with your beloved and other friends and family on how you were going to get to an appointment, which led to a very honest and playful engagement with how both of us may or may not lack imagination that care could be available to us or that we want care to be available to us and why.
Dan: To be more practical here. Yeah, I was going to have to go to a post-op and no one could take me there, but I only have about a 10-minute walk to a bus. So what I was going to do with my eight-day damaged repairing shoulder was walk to my bus, take the bus to the ferry, take the ferry over to Seattle and then go to my appointment. And a dear friend, you, said what to me?
Rachael: You are not going to take the bus. Are there any friends on the island that you have who could drive you to the ferry terminal? I think I more playfully said, so you’re going to get on a bus with strangers who don’t know you’ve just had shoulder surgery. And just hope you make it.
Dan: Yeah, that was closer to what you said. It was one of those moments where I can truly say it reflected something of what I know to be true in the Proverbs, Proverbs 27, “Like apples of gold and settings of silver. Is a ruling rightly given like an earring of gold or an ornament of fine gold is the rebuke of a wise judge to a listening ear.” It was like it seemed so reasonable. I can walk 10 minutes. The bus is a great bus. And the way you put it was good friends don’t let friends take the bus after they’ve had surgery. And it just made me laugh. It was painful to laugh at that moment, but also hilarious. And it reminded me again, as I began thinking about the goodness of what you offered me, another passage that I think is so important to underscore that Proverbs 25:5 “Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.” I felt so clear you were engaging me as a good friend, calling me to the fact that I don’t tend to at least historically have much kindness and regard for my body’s need for care and honor. So it wasn’t just the invitation to find a better way. It was also a conversation that opened up, “What is with you that keeps you from being far kinder and aware that your body needs care?”
Rachael: Yes. And as much as I would like to say I was just being a good friend and reading you well, which I think I was, it also takes one to know one. So I was imagining myself, I had foot surgery in 2015. It was a tiny, tiny bone, like the size of your tip of your pinky got removed from my foot and this was six months leading up to it where it was fractured and I had to use a knee scooter. But then the post-surgery having to drive, I could drive; whether I should have been driving is the question, but I could drive because it was my left foot that had the surgery. So I had a medical boot, but I had a knee scooter that I had to take to get into my car and I was thrashing my, putting my knee scooter up, chunking it into the backseat angrily, huffing and puffing into my car in and out. And I think that was just such a time of having to confront my own places of not just a lack of imagination, but probably more like a refusal, like a refusal to ask for care, to ask for help when it came to this limitation of my body, because I could do it. And that’s what I heard in how you were talking about riding the bus, that of course you could and it’s not that buses are bad. I was just imagining your arm, your shoulder, the way our bones hurt when they’ve been manipulated with just the slightest movement being on a bus with strangers. And yeah, it did not feel kind, wise, or good.
Dan: Yeah. And we can say that again, here’s something that bears on the border if not outright over of the word pride, but on the other hand, a long history of in so many ways, those of us who have known some degree of harm and abuse and trauma oftentimes manage our body’s suffering by level of dislocation or often a better word would be dissociation. And I do know I have a very high pain tolerance now, whether that’s a biological phenomena or if that’s more the structure of how I’ve avoided care. And when I think about my story, well, Becky and I, when we have managed illness, she gets very irritated in the past when I’m not well. It’s maybe the point of some of our greatest tension, but I’m good with that because I want to be left alone and a lot of that comes out of the context of a very absorptive and in some sense sticky presence my mother whenever I was ill would be even more intrusive and invasive. So I learned, I think as a really young boy to keep my hand up to anyone trying to move into my world when I’m not well. So there’s a story and a history and in so many ways what you said and disrupted is this long history of what feels like I’m fine and there is the pride. I’m fine. I don’t need help. But on the other hand, a level of almost intensifying the healing process by not taking good care. I think your story is a little different.
Rachael: Yeah. I would say like most things in my story, probably a little more disorganization in the sense of like two things feeling true at the same time, like a very loving, nurturing presence that because of one’s own story and trauma can’t fully be present in moments where there’s pain or need. And so it’s like having someone present who can’t actually offer the care and nurture that you need and in some ways not just dissociate but actively push away. And so it’s more of a confusion of like there might be a presence, but it’s not offering comfort. It’s not offering care. It’s not able to attune. A lot of good care and attention and tending. I just think in those moments where the pain is acute, where the need is great, it feeling more like the Still Face experiment that they talk about in psychology where it’s like the mom is present but not able to look at the baby and the baby gets really distressed. And so I think in some ways I’ve always had this commitment of like, I’d rather be alone, really truly be alone than to feel like someone is near, but I’m still very much alone.
Dan: Well, I recall after your surgery, do you remember this moment, you’re coming out of the large classroom and you’re on your little wheelie and you’ve got a substantial pile of books under your arm. Do you remember this moment?
Rachael: It’s maybe coming back to me. I just remember feeling so hostile toward everyone. So I’m like, wait, what did I do this time?
Dan: Well, again, if you can imagine you have one hand on your trike,
Rachael: My knee scootert-er, steering it.
Dan: Then you’ve got your other hand holding this literally seven, eight books and you’re trying to close the door to the classroom. And I just happened to be walking up at that time and I started laughing, which probably was a degree of insensitivity, or maybe it was the magic that allowed you to be enraged because at that point I just said, “Would you like me to get the door for you? ” And you were like, “No!”
Rachael: Yep, that feels about internally what I feel.
Dan: But this is also what I remember. There was at least an awareness of how ridiculous you were being. And so there was a creeping presence of a smile like, “Okay, go ahead, close the door.” I did close the door and then I said, “Are you going to your car?” And you said, “Yes.” And I said, “I’m not going to ask you to carry your books. If you won’t let me carry your books, I’m going to knock you down.” At that point, you did laugh. So I would argue in that context, the playfulness of saying, “I’m going to knock you down” is something close… Now, people could argue something close to Proverbs 27, I’m giving you a good word that allows you for a moment to take in what your heart, being and body needs, but your story is at war with. And I think if I can put it again, it’s exactly what you did on my behalf to disrupt my bus trip. Now, just to be clear, when I told Becky the story, she started laughing and she goes, “I’m not looking so good.” And I’m like, “Well, I’m not asking you to change this very important appointment.” She said, “I’ll take you.” So it did evolve to a point where I did have a ride. We had actually a lovely conversation. But again, what it stirred was both of us, meaning Becky and I, but I include you in this, we all have history, stories with regard to illness or another word with regard to dependency need that becomes a trigger with often, at least in my case, really foolish decisions that without a friend offering something of the gold of the right word, indeed wounds, again, I wouldn’t say it was severe, but you were wounding me, but for the sake truly of healing in some ways similar to surgery, it is a wounding. It is a cutting open, but not for harm, but for goodness. So at least what I want to do is to make sure you’re a good friend. Thank you.
Rachael: Yeah. Well, the feeling is mutual.
Dan: So talk to me about friendship. When you think about our friendship and your freedom to be able to mock me, playfully, kindly, invite me, expose me, call me, I think of that as at least a really significant portion of what a good friend is.
Rachael: Yeah, absolutely. And I don’t want to steal your thunder by talking about some of these categories of these archetypes of Jesus that we see in the text that you have developed so robustly in community and in many ways, like this sense of prophet priest, king, queen. I want to talk more about that, but I think exactly what you’re saying. When I think about a good friendship, it’s funny because in some ways I start about what it’s thinking about what it’s like to be a good friend to myself, that capacity to be honest, to have integrity, to bear tension, to want the absolute best for someone, to attune in ways, to bring delight, to bring honor, to be oriented towards repair. So obviously just some of the fundamentals of good attachment, a healthy attachment. But yeah, in some ways I’ve had the privilege of being up close to you both in the present and also to have the privilege and honor of holding so many of your stories over the years. And so in part, part of being a good friend is that capacity to hold both the beauty and the brokenness with tenderness and ferocity and honesty. And so that’s something I kind of just want to reflect back to you as we step into this conversation that in being invited to reflect on it, I just have deep gratitude for your friendship and in many ways am in awe when I think back that we’ve been in some kind of relationship, even though it started more as a professor/student for almost 20 years.
Dan: That’s wild. As soon as you say it, I’m like, it can’t be. It is.
Rachael: It is. Yeah. And the ways in which I think what we’re trying to put words to, it does develop over time and over many seasons, but with that deep capacity to, I think, bear life’s realities with that hope and intention towards goodness, towards healing, towards restoration.
Dan: I don’t know how we do friendship without the capacity to hold one another’s stories, yet I just think one of the great griefs I see in people is that their friendships don’t hold stories. Dear friend of mine, his sister died recently and they went with the whole family met and in the context prior to the funeral, he asked his niece how she was doing kind of a basic, like, are you kidding? That’s a basic question. How are you? Another one of his siblings said to him, “Don’t ask her. It’s only going to make her sadder.” And he was just literally gobsmacked, dumbfounded at the reality that as simple a question as how are you doing would be fraught with the fear of it inviting heartache, grief at an even greater level. And I think so many, well, for example, so many people who come to a Story Workshop or come to our NFTC training will often say, when I’m with my group, I’m with five people whom I did not know prior to this event who know more about my story than some of my best friends. And I just sit back and I go, I don’t get it. How is it humanly possible that you have spent time and energy, vacations, travel, and you don’t know about one another’s heartache, harm, but also glory and goodness where you have been heroic, where there has been profound movement of your heart and the presence of God, those are the kinds of things that I guess I still stand back and just go, how does that happen?
Rachael: Again, I think it’s where I go in some ways because you’ve said this phrase quite often, we can only take people as far as we’ve been willing to go ourselves. I think it’s costly. It’s costly to know our own stories, let alone the stories of others. And it requires us to grow greater wisdom, to grow deeper character, and to grow a greater capacity, to put words what you said, to hold pain and beauty together. And I think that’s why these archetypes of Jesus that we see in the text of prophet, priest, and king, this character of Jesus that we’re supposed to live into are core to friendship and key to friendship because that priestly capacity to rejoice and to weep and with particularity, to understand the nuances of it, to wait in the seasons. I think about how often in my friendship groups, especially in Seattle with all my friends from The Seattle School who were so committed to story, the amount of seasons where we were holding the height of celebration and the depth of sorrow in community together at the same time, that takes a different capacity of love, of waiting, of being present with. And again, if we haven’t experienced that movement towards us, especially in early formation of life, if that hasn’t been a safe thing to let our pain be held or is someone even going to be there to hold it, are they going to consume it? What’s going to happen? Which is kind of what we put words to our relationship to dependency and need. If we haven’t had a lot of taste of that being good and safe, it’s hard to cultivate and imagine that prophetic disruption and invitation to truth and honor and integrity that sometimes you need a friend to say to you, I’m experiencing this thing of you, or I’m concerned about this behavior, or have you noticed that you often respond this way to something like, what do you think that’s about? We don’t need people that just … I love all the scriptures that are honest, but if something just tickles your ear, it’s not trustworthy. It’s not necessarily good. So yeah, I would love to hear what you’d have to say about that.
Dan: Four or five days after the surgery, Tremper called and one of the things he said is, “How are you doing on your drugs?” And I said, I’m doing great. I had one day of moderate use of Tramadol, which is sort of a light level opiate. And I said, but I’m no longer using it. And he said, “well, given your history it’s probably good that you’re concerned,” but then he goes, “But given your maturity, why are you afraid to continue using it if you need it? ” And it was like, “Oh, that was a level of sweet attunement.” Yeah, I do have a history. I am concerned, but his naming, if you’re not using your opiates in appropriate way to really relieve pain because you’re afraid of your own past, you actually can handle this and do it well. And I’d already made the decision not to continue because I wasn’t in that much pain, but the reality of just being invited to look at brokenness, but also beauty, attunement to both. I know thematically where you’re likely to fail, but also know where you’re likely to be lovely and good and I can hold both. I think that’s what you are naming with friends that can grieve with you but laugh with you and that ability to in some sense really reflecting the Romans 12, “Weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice,” to me, those have always been the signatures of the interplay of death and resurrection. I can hold with you the tears of sorrow that death brings, but it also can bring the laughter that the resurrection offers. And I think that is where when I look at my friendships, when I look at our relationship, I don’t think I have friendships with people who can’t do both. I’ve got acquaintances. I’ve got, in some sense of the word, people who I would look at as, “Oh, they’re good friends,” but like that, not good friends, but I don’t want to be in relationships with people who can’t bring both and that’s a gift, but you’re also going that attunement has to be disruptive. And that’s what I think you were giving me was attunement, priestly care, but also that disruptive, prophetic, oh, you don’t have to take the bus. Can we disrupt the tendency you have to a form of independence and disconnection that you might actually feel somewhat proud of, but actually does not lead to not only good care for your shoulder, but more importantly, good care for your soul. And I think you have been in many friendships a very prophetic presence,
Rachael: Which has been a growth edge to be a recovering codependent to say, I’ve had a prophetic presence in friendships. But I think that’s what you’re putting words to when you actually get a taste of someone whose heart is for you and they want goodness for you and they know that this place of wound that is actually thwarting goodness needs to be disrupted to be seen in that way and known in that way is a taste of life that it changes you and it makes you want to be more generous. Now it’s hard because I think what some people might be hearing is like, well, I tell the truth. I tell it all the time. And it’s like, yeah, but sometimes you tell it in ways that are not kind and not actually for the other person’s flourishing, but for your own relief or your … So that’s why that priestly capacity to delight and to attune and to see what … I knew in that moment there was an opening for you. I also knew that needed to be brought with a lot of kindness and curiosity, not harshness or judgment. And there are ways in which we can tell the truth that are not kind of and it’s not the right time, right? Someone may not be ready or it’s not the right moment. So I think that queenly or kingly capacity to have a commitment toward creating a context for flourishing, it also has to be there, like an imagination that there is more goodness for someone that again, if we’re talking about death and resurrection, that death doesn’t have the final say. It doesn’t get to be the end of the story, no matter how familiar.
Dan: Yeah. Just to say it again, the intersection of, I need to know that there is something of tears on my behalf and that there’s laughter on my behalf and in that I can trust you when there is disruption. But I’ll also say that when Becky disrupts me, when you disrupt me, you know there’s going to be something in me towards you that wants to basically go, you poop head.
Rachael: Or as Evie has been saying from her classmates, “Tootie butt, you tootie butt.” I’m like, Okay, three-year-old humor, three-year-old scatological humor.
Dan: Yeah. Well, she’s three. I’m 73. It’s got a lot of…
Rachael: Poop head, tootie butts, right on par.
Dan: But that reality that so many people who say they’re truth tellers are just jackasses and that indeed without that sense of, you have held me in just joy, delight, sorrow, and it’s communicable. It isn’t just quiet, it’s been felt in our presence, then the disruption can lead to that kind of kingly, queenly, don’t you have somebody you can actually call to get you to the fairy? “I mean, that was a very queenly statement. It was a question, but it was also like, I mean, are you so bereft of friendships after 28 years in your setting that there’s no one in the universe who’d be willing to?
Rachael: I think I even said is there someone I can call? I bet there might even be someone Seattle side who’d be willing to come across and get you. It’s not that much. It’s just one morning of a lifetime.
Dan: I’m feeling what I felt then that kind of … Can you see on my face? I’m rougeing, which is a very uncommon experience. Yeah, there are people who would love to bring me to the ferry if Becky had not made the shift in her appointment, yes, there are people who would’ve taken me. But back to that, you’re setting a direction in order to invite not mere resolve, but in some sense creating a context at the elemental level of resolving a problem, but far more inviting flourishing. And I think that’s where the capacity to dream on behalf of a friend where you can see and know them, but imagine them even more mature. Imagine what it would be for them to become even more who they’re meant to be. I think that’s one of the great joys of a friendship is the ability to dream redemption on behalf of the other, which always requires dreaming redemption on your own behalf, which then creates the redemptive dream for us as a friendship. But I’ll also say our friendship has some complications that-
Rachael: Oh, let the record state.
Dan: Well, and let me say it’s not the same complications that I have in a relationship with my best friend, Tremper Longman III, but there are complications.
Rachael: Yeah. I’m just laughing because what’s coming to mind is our various seasons. When we shared an office at The Seattle School, man, you would’ve thought we were siblings in some ways with the way we interacted with each other. You thought you were my older brother and I wish your younger sister and we were both a thorn in each other’s side with a lot of delight and joy.
Dan: I was a thorn in yours that I know, that I acknowledge completely. The chaos that Becky has had to address over 49 years of marriage became part of the reality of coffee cups, cupcakes.
Rachael: It was more like when you’d come in and say, “What class am I teaching today?” And I would be like, “I have no idea.” Oh my goodness. But so much delight as well. Yeah, I mean, I think our complications have to do a lot with, I am much younger than you, you are older than me. When we first became friends, you were my professor and my boss because I was a research assistant for you. So there’s power differential, there’s gender difference, there’s age difference and we don’t agree on every reality of our world politically, culturally, socially, theologically, which I think used to be more normative for people in friendships, but does not feel like as much of a capacity we have in our world today. And I’m not saying I think I don’t need to nuance the crap out of that. I know I nuance a lot. It’s just that sense of like, I’m not saying you should just be in friendship with anyone who might have views that actually bring you harm. I’m just saying we have such a low tolerance, especially with social media algorithms to even be in conversation or to believe the best in someone who might locate themselves differently than where we do or even see an opportunity to grow together. So yeah, I think that there’s those things complicate. I mean, I think when we were processing this, I came to the realization that, yeah, I can count on my hand the older men in my life who have had the integrity, capacity and imagination to be in friendship with me without immediately writing it off because I was in very fundamentalist conservative Christian circles where that was deemed the pitfall to an affair or the setup for harm, which is why a lot of women can’t even be mentored into pastoral leadership because there’s not enough women mentors to mentor. So when we talked about this, I was like, yeah, I haven’t thought about that in a while.
Dan: Well, the reality for me is that I’ve had the privilege over almost 40 years to work with women, but men both who have been in relationship with a “older” mentor where that relationship became the basis of what some would call it affair, but whenever there’s that power differential, it’s always the mentor’s fault. Always a context in which the so- called younger person needs to address the harm even if a) there was something arousing or enlivening or something that felt like it’s my choice,
Rachael: That’s right.
Dan: The reality is it’s still an abusive context. So I think in some sense I’ve had a deep sensitivity to the relationships I’ve been in and with folks over my career to not replicate, but I think it takes more on your part to deal with an older man in a position of power, don’t you?
Rachael: Yeah. Well, I guess maybe there’s more threat or risk in the sense of, I mean, I think when you were the president of the school-
Dan: Oh yeah. I forgot.
Rachael: So you could have kicked me out. There were various way you could have fired me from this note-taking job or research job, could have given me bad grades, whatever. But I think what feels true is, and I’ve said this maybe, I don’t know if I’ve said it as clearly on the podcast, but one of the things I’ve always been grateful for you, Dan, in your mentorship of many of us, and I’m not saying you’ve done this perfectly, so none of us are perfect, it’s just your humility to want to keep growing and keep transforming. Because when I think about kingly, queenly, commitment to create context for flourishing, that takes a willingness to be transformed, to be in transformation. And I’ve noticed this for you and Becky both, this willingness and commitment to know there’s always more and to want to pass on I think it’s a rare thing to have mentors who want to give away what they have and not that you don’t have your own moments of ego or your own moments of threat, but you’re very generous in wanting to give away what you’ve steward and what you’ve developed so that the work, like you really do have a kingdom perspective of wanting this work to get in as many hands as possible. And so that humility and that kind of willingness to be in transformation opens the door for friendship when there is power differential and that integrity and honor to know there’s dangers and there’s risks also opens the door.
Dan: Thank you. And I agree and I want to go back that some of the work that we began with was you and another student were my research assistants to work on the book Sabbath. And in that context, I don’t know if you remember much of that, but you…
Rachael: I do. Some of it.
Dan: In particular changed the direction of the book and it was really disruptive because I actually at one point said, “This is how I want to approach it and I need you to find data to back it up.” It’s ridiculous, but it’s true. And you looked at me and you said, “So in other words, anything that contradicts what you’re saying you don’t want to hear.” And it was that first comment like, “Well, okay, essentially you’re an arrogant shit, but…”
Rachael: I had a lot of wounds with a lot of package. I was definitely testing the water. How fragile are you going to be here?
Dan: That’s exactly right. I think that’s the issue of how friendships develop is testing. My dear friend, Steve Call using other language talks about it as a bid. We make a bid. You were basically going, “Really? Anything that contradicts?” And I remember looking going, oh, shoot. No, I mean, maybe, but no. So I think again, the issue is we’re all struggling with some degree of compromise that we don’t want, I want to grow, I don’t want to grow. I want to be loved that. I want to be loved. I want to be known. I don’t. So honoring the ambivalence rather than being hurt or disappointed, but testing, making bids and inviting, can this relationship grow? And I think that series, certainly for me, watching your gifting, particularly not just in the incredibly high quality of thought, research and reflection, but you actually wanted the material of Sabbath to become part of the way you wanted to live. And I think there is flourishing in oneself in relationship with another either invites the other to grow with, or you find yourself internally going, this person doesn’t want to stay in the process. So I think that’s part of where even when there’s differential, even when there’s a power division, you can grow in friendships, you always have to risk them. And to the degree you’re not willing to risk a friendship, it’s already the design that the friendship can’t grow.
Rachael: Yeah. I’m laughing because I think I got a lot healthier in my time in Seattle because I think there was long seasons where, yeah, if I felt misunderstood or if things got too hard or maybe if someone did invite me to disruption, I just left. It was like I couldn’t handle it or I didn’t trust there would be goodness or I didn’t have enough imagination. And again, that’s so in storied in multiple stories, not just family of origin but development through high school and middle school, style of relating, all those things. And so I think for me, go back to my foot surgery, there was a moment where I felt like my friends did fail in the care I needed in the wake of my foot surgery. I also had a part to play in that for sure. But normally in that, that would be when I depart, when I pack up and move emotionally and sometimes physically. And there was this moment of like, I can’t do that. I don’t want to do that. There’s too much goodness here. And to be caught like that, I mean, I had to go back to therapy. So yes, we’re talking about matters of the heart that actually are quite deep. They’re deep, deep waters. And so when there is actual friendship developed, that is such a treasure and it just raises the stakes I think sometimes.
Dan: Well, I don’t want to turn in our last moment to sort of like, now here’s the application for you all. Which is my way of saying that is not what I’m going to do, but I think it’s one of the things where I would say, don’t settle for the convenience of relationships that are merely a killing of time, somebody to go to movies with, somebody to be able to play pickleball with and the investment into who are you? We were playing pickleball and you got really enraged. Brother, what’s going on for you? What’s getting triggered? Can I know you a little better because when you’re on the court and you melt down like that, again, I don’t like being with you, but I like being with you. What’s going on? So to allow ourselves to say, as people would expect if they’ve been listening to this podcast, your story really matters and your friend’s story really matters and attunement, disruption, containment, the capacity to have repair. And we’ve had our repairs.
Rachael: Oh yeah. That’s why I’m like, if people are hearing this like, oh, I’m like, no we’ve had … That’s why I’m like, if you saw some of them right now, she’d be like, are they brothers and sister? Because there’s like fights, there’s offense, there’s a need to say, I didn’t handle that as well as I could have. And yeah, I mean, as most good friendships have moments where there is a misattunement, where there’s real emotions that come into the room.
Dan: Or moments like, dammit, I’m taking the bus almost to spite you, but I will say again.
Rachael: I had other plans of disruption, so you could have threatened that. It would’ve been fine.
Dan: I have a good friend, so thank you.
Rachael: Indeed.