S2, Ep 10 Dial Emma: Guilt in Friendship - how do I stop feeling guilty for moving away from my friends?

Friendship Therapy

Emma Reed Turrell

Society & Culture, Relationships, Mental Health, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 September 2024

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome back to Dial Emma from Friendship Therapy! This is where you get to dial Emma, with your dilemma (see what I did there?!) You share your friendship concerns, and I share my reflections as a therapist to give you the tips and tools you need to build better bonds.

This week, we meet a listener who is grappling with feelings of guilt after moving away from their hometown - especially when the friends they left behind make comments about how little they get to see each other, and how they wish things could be different.

We can all recognise that the feeling of guilt is only appropriate when we have done something objectively wrong, but how can we put this into practice in our relationships? How can we repair, when there was no wrong to begin with? How can we understand the difference between what we're choosing to hear, and what is actually being said?

In this episode, Emma encourages this listener to get curious about their metric of friendship in order to find a way forward that meets their needs and that of their friends. Emma also explores some of the deeper emotions that might be hidden beneath the feeling of guilt, and reminds us all that we are not responsible for remedying how other people feel about the decisions we make for ourselves.

What advice would you give this listener?

If you’ve got a friendship dilemma, drop us a voicenote on Instagram @friendshiptherapypod!

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Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.

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Social media:

Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell

Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod

Email: [email protected]

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Big Wicks event is now on. From tiles to flooring, doors, kitchens, bathrooms and more. We have everything you need to help you start your next home improvement project.
0:15.0	Shop the Bidwick's event in store and online now.
0:20.0	Welcome to this episode of Dial Emma from Friendship Therapy, the part of the show where you get to
0:26.8	well Dial Emma with your Dile Emma. Yeah, you see what I did though. You share your friendship
0:32.0	concerns and I share my reflections as a therapist to give
0:35.2	you the tips and tools you need to build better bonds. Okay, enough from me. Over to you.
0:49.0	Hi Emma, my dilemma is around guilt within friendships. I moved away from home and my family and my friends of 10 20 years still live there and I
0:56.0	feel consistent guilt across all those friendships because I feel like I don't spend
1:00.5	enough time with them I don't see them enough and that feeling of guilt is usually exacerbated by
1:06.0	when they say things like they would like to see me more and in those moments I
1:10.4	want to say thank you I love you but I can't do any more than I already am and yet I
1:16.8	feel too afraid to say it because I'm worried that I'm going to upset them or hurt them
1:21.6	now I'm assuming that they would even be upset by that. They may not but my
1:25.5	fear is that they will be and the guilt that I would feel would be immeasurable. I don't want them to think
1:31.5	that I don't love them or that I don't care about them.
1:34.0	Any advice you have? I would really appreciate.
1:37.0	Thanks Emma.
1:38.0	Do you know guilt's a funny thing because so many of us have been taught for so long to feel guilt or at least to understand a feeling as guilt?
1:52.0	Well I really haven't done anything wrong.
1:55.0	And guilt as a feeling is only appropriate
2:00.0	if we have done something objectively wrong, you moved away.
2:07.0	What you're describing could be more accurately
	...

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