The Overlooked Piece to Deeper, Better, Stronger Friendships
We’ve become very interested in attachment theory—and there’s a good reason for it, believes Marisa G. Franco. The framework gives us a better understanding of why people are how they are, why we “attach” ourselves to certain folks, and how understanding this can strengthen our relationships. It’s a concept Franco, a psychologist and friendship expert, covers in her 2022 bestselling book Platonic.
But what if we’ve been missing a huge part of the puzzle? What if in seeking good relationships and friendships and doing the work to “fix” and sustain them, we’ve been sacrificing our own feelings and needs?
Enter self-attunement. This is one of the fascinating ideas Franco explores in her forthcoming book, Worth. She posits that by turning the spotlight inward and listening to and honoring what you’re feeling, a new world of relational harmony unlocks, one that honors who you authentically are.
Whether you are seeking to make new friends, deepen rapport, mend an existing relationship, or even end a friendship, Franco makes a compelling case that the essence of genuine connection starts with the one you have with yourself.
A CONVERSATION WITH MARISA G. FRANCO, PHD
In your forthcoming book, you write about how in a past relationship, you tried to fix the relationship, but in doing so, you abandoned yourself and what you needed. Tell us about the learning that came from that.
Particularly for people socialized as women, we are taught to put being in relationship with others over being in relationship with ourselves. We’re taught to be conciliatory and to be very considerate of others to the extent that we can feel burnt out and resentful. And then when we have those feelings, we think, I’m wrong for feeling this way. I should be more gracious. I should be more generous.
Many of us are trying to live up to these societal ideals of, What does it mean to be a good partner? What does it mean to be a good friend? What does it mean to be secure in my connections? And what happens is that we’ll often try to live up to those ideals more so than be authentic for what we’re feeling and where we’re at a particular time.
How have you observed people abandon themselves in a friendship?
I was at an event with another friendship expert, and we heard so many stories. One woman who had a miscarriage said, “Am I a bad friend because I don’t want to go to this baby shower?” Another woman had a friend who ghosted on them, but they still saw that friend posting on Instagram, and they asked, “Am I being unreasonable that I’m upset that she hasn’t responded to me?”
I saw firsthand how these women felt so compelled and coerced into trying to give endless grace to other people that they literally felt estranged from how they actually felt. Or they were trying to push away how they felt. That is how we can abandon ourselves in relationship: When we try to live up to a role or to an image, and we estrange ourselves from how we feel in the service of living up to that role.
This underscores how we can do all the work—the inner and outer work—and follow the wisdom of what it takes to be a good friend or partner, but at the end of the day, we feel how we feel, and our feelings are valid.
Yes! I love what you’re saying about “we feel how we feel,” because there’s so much advice on relationships. It [says] to show up this way, make I-statements, co-regulate your partner… This isn’t bad advice, but the first step, before you take any of this advice, is to check in with yourself and to be clear on:
- Can I actually do this?
- Can I actually co-regulate a partner if I am so dysregulated?
- Do I need support?
That was my own story at the start of the book. I was trying so much to regulate him that I was ignoring how much it was affecting, harming, and hurting me. So, we feel how we feel—and that means the first step of trying to be in a healthy relationship is to acknowledge how you feel and align with it. It’s to not shame yourself for it or try to push it away.
Bring us deeper into that, Marisa. What does it look like to truly acknowledge how we feel, especially when we are triggered?
What I have learned is to slow down in moments of urgency. When you feel like you’re really moving fast to repair a relationship or to pretend that you’re okay with something, urgency is often a sign that we are trying to escape our feelings. Urgency is a sign to pause and tune in, and say, “How am I actually feeling at this moment? Is there an emotion I’m trying to escape through a certain act or behavior?”
In the book, I talk about how a friend had texted me to hang out. This friend and I had talked [previously] about hanging out in a friend group. When she texted, I responded that maybe we could invite some other people, as we’d been talking about hanging out as a group. She responded, “I would prefer to hang out one-on-one.” In that moment, I wanted to respond quickly by saying, “OK, yeah, let’s do it!” Then I realized that I needed to slow down. Instead of quickly people-pleasing, my slowing down allowed me to tune into what I was really feeling:
- Was there something making me feel rejected because she dismissed my suggestion?
- Was there something making me feel dismissed?
I let myself feel that. I let myself attune to that, sit with that, and notice how it was manifesting in my body. Then after I sat with it, I considered, What do I actually want? I noticed that after I sat with my own feelings, I had more flexibility for other people in a way that’s more authentic and genuine. I ended up saying, “Okay, cool. Let’s hang out one-on-one,” and it came from an authentic place, not a coerced place.
So it’s about slowing down in times of urgency, noticing what you’re feeling—even the minutiae of how you’re feeling—and attuning to yourself. In the research, this is called sensitivity and responsiveness—acknowledging how you feel and doing something to meet the needs of what you’re acknowledging.
How does this process of self-attunement benefit our friendships in the long run?
Doing this process of self-attunement allows us to find more peace in our relationships and our friendships, and not have them be so defined by these negative feelings—feelings that are such a normal part of intimacy. And it allows us to feel more authentic and genuine.
If you struggle with wanting to withdraw from a friend, with resentment in a friendship, with insecurities in a friendship, or with any negative emotion that is natural and normal to happen in a friendship, these are all emotions that we can attune to. When we attune to them, we can either feel less of those things, or if we’re continuing to feel those things, we can ask [ourselves] what we need not to feel that way in the friendship.
Because having a friend is different from actually feeling connected, and when you’re attuned to yourself, and you’re navigating the friendship in a way that aligns with self-attunement, you’re going to feel genuinely connected to the people around you.
Lastly, you’re forthcoming about how this practice can also offer insight into whether a friendship may need to end. How have you seen this?
As I’ve attuned to myself more, there’s also been more friction.
Before, I tended to be more conciliatory, even when it required me to sacrifice myself, but [now it’s about] trying not to overfunction in that way and instead sit with the fear of abandonment if that comes up. And it can be very hard to sit with and allow those feelings, but what it means is that I’m not willing to be in a friendship where I feel like I’m the only one working on this repair, or the other person isn’t approaching this in good faith, or they’re communicating with me in a way that seems like intentionally trying to cause harm. I’m not willing to be the quote-unquote bigger person. I feel that, especially as women, we’re often oppressed by this idea of being the bigger person. So, some of my friendships have fractured because of that, and that is sad. I still have to grieve those friendships.
Finding a place of greater attunement and authenticity in your friendship doesn’t just lead to continued connection. But now I see that the cost of authenticity is that sometimes relationships cannot tolerate the truth of who you are—and so maybe those aren’t your closest friends. Maybe they’re not your friends at all. Or maybe it’s just at a different level of connection that works better for you.
Marisa G. Franco, PhD, is a psychologist, New York Times bestselling author, and TED speaker known for digesting and communicating science in ways that resonate deeply enough with people to change their lives. Learn more at drmarisagfranco.com.
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