Flow State Business

Redefining Friendship in Seasons of Growth

• Ruby Lee

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This one’s tender… and real.

I’m in a season where I feel a full friendship remodel happening. Not dramatic. Not reactive. Just honest.

You know when you notice the conversations that used to energise you are now draining you? Or when you catch yourself hesitating to respond… not because you're busy, but because the chat feels heavy? That.

In this episode, I’m unpacking the real-time journey I’m on with friendships—why it’s coming up now, what I’ve noticed about my energy, and the quiet but powerful call to start choosing more flourishing friendships instead of just functioning ones.

This is for anyone navigating friendship shifts… or sensing that a new season of connection is calling.

It’s tender. It’s healing. It’s necessary.


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 Hi guys. Welcome back to another Flow State Business Chat. Love these. I look forward to these every week, and gosh, it's seven 30 on Sunday night. I haven't done a Sunday night recording in some time, but I feel tonight is. Yeah, I just, I didn't wanna wait till tomorrow. And also inner a circle is opening tomorrow, so I've got all of my energy that wants to go there and in that space.

So I thought I would try and get ahead for the week and record. Now, of course, I'm sitting down, I know exactly what I wanna chat to you guys about today, and as I've done this, my next door neighbor decides to go out and jump, like not just jump into their pool, literally cannonball into their pool with.

Friends, and they're screaming out of joy and laughter, which I'm like, are you kidding me? I just sat down to record this and it's such good timing.  My microphone's so good. It picks up on all the things. I'm hoping it doesn't pick this up, but at the same time, like universe, you are so funny because the very topic that I wanna talk to you about is what they're doing out there,  and I presume that's what they're doing out there.

Anyway, it's a representation of that, but it is about forming friendships and the topic of friendships. The type of friendships that we know are potentially sort of withering away or fading out of your life right now, and or friendships that are hanging about and you are kind of tossing up whether or not it's worthwhile keeping them, you know, going for some time and seeing what's there as opposed to flourishing friendships that further your life purpose mission make you a more elevated human and all those aspects.

So. Anyway, funny how that representation came up because they are having an absolute ball out there and good on them. But if you do hear the random scream, you know what that is. They are just loving life right now and I love that. I love a nighttime swim, so I get it. You guys have fun yelling out my window now at them.

Anyhow, this topic, I. I was going through a lot of my archives to be like, when was the last time I actually spoke on friendships on the podcast? And I can't find, I, I've gone all the way back to mid 2023, so let's just say it's been a long time since I've dedicated an episode to friendships, let alone whether or not I've ever done it.

So. Oh, it's coming up in a big way and I actually feel it's part of my next up level, which is coming in hot just with the way that I've remodeled my life. You know, we sold the old house. We're in a new one. We're in the Dream Vision Board right now, and my business has completely remodeled from it being a fully active business to now literally like 60 40, 40% is passive unbelievable change in just a couple of months.

I know that I am going through  somewhat of a friendship remodel.  I don't know that, I dunno how else to talk about this, but I know I can't be the only one going through stuff like this right now. And I've been reflecting a lot lately and I wanted to speak this out loud because a, I definitely know that some of you ha are going through this, so it's nice to know others are going through it as well.

Secondly, you know, I definitely feel like when you speak things aloud. It has been sitting heavy in my body and I know that you'll understand and you guys are always my talk to therapist, and it will just help me process some stuff and in a deeper way, we can all move through life together. So whether it's the thing that you're going through right now, maybe it's not, whenever it is coming up for you, just search friendships on the podcast and you'll find this episode.

It's gonna find you at the perfect time. But I, I do really wanna say this, like the friendship remodel part, it's not dramatic. I'm just so not into that as a part of my life right now. I don't like the drama, which is funnily, part of the reason why I feel like I'm up for a friendship remodel. It's also not reactive, where it's just this thing where I'm like, oh my God, I'm over it.

And then I'm gone after, you know, the last call we had and you never hear from me again. It's just. Real, you know, like, ugh, and, and here's the other thing. I have just noticed that over the years that every single time I grow, literally grow as in the way that I have developed my personal development, for example, or the kind of growth that changes my lens on staff.

There's often this shedding of friendships, which come with it. And it's harsh. I don't like it. You know, I'm an only child, you guys, so if you, if there's any other only children out there, shout out. And I don't know if it's just me or if you guys that are only children also experience this, or you may have an only child, but I take friendships so, so, so seriously because when I invite a friend into my life.

It's the closest thing I can feel to having a sibling or someone really close to me that I can share all of my things and we are completely honest and open. We love each other regardless. So thinking about shedding friendships is really hard for me. It's quite grating and plus, it honestly sometimes pulls on the old wounds around being a people pleaser and not feeling as though. 

I'm being able to really please everybody and it's not the easiest thing like breakups in general. Friendship breakups are so weird. Don't you agree?  And sometimes like the things being shared, I. Aren't just, oh, you know, it's the old version of myself or I, you know, I'm just moving this out of my life and I'm delegating this part.

These are people we're talking about, and they've played such significant roles in my life and in your life. So I wanna talk about navigating that because it does have such a direct correlation to business. And lately I've just felt this so much more acutely. The everyday friendships, the group chats, the people I thought that were close.

There's definitely been a massive shift and I know that we've been through a clips season and I think that this is definitely a part of it, but I find myself feeling this subtle sense of dread when messages from certain friends pop up.  If you're listening to this and you're a friend and you're like, shit, is that me? 

You would know because I, you know, I'm, I'm responding to all of my really, really amazing friends, and then the ones that I'm not responding to as quickly, it's just I'm needing to just. Find a way to get in the right vibe or the right energy to even feel like I can respond to them. And that's not good.

Like, you know, it's like you wanna feel excited when you have your friends text or call and if you've ever screened your calls, obviously we've all done that. And like busyness aside, when you actually have time and you could probably pick up that call and it's that friend when you know that they're just gonna suck a lot of energy.

By just being on that call with them. That's what I'm talking about. It's like I'm just not excited to respond and I feel irritated by the conversations that used to light me up. And the number one thing, which I literally don't have a lot of room for in my life right now is gossip. I just don't have the energy to hold somebody else's problem with somebody else, you know?

And the second thing is just overdramatized drama that doesn't really need to be there. I wish I could give you guys a really specific example, but it's a little bit too close right now. I can't, but just know that in my head I'm thinking of this very specific example and this friend of mine was like, oh my God, you need to call me right now.

It's a life or death situation, like quote unquote, and it just wasn't guys. It really just wasn't, and it wasn't even close. I got myself all worked up about it, set some time aside, even pushed a call aside because I thought my friend really needed me. And it was just drama and it was just so much, you know?

So anyhow, that really actually fucked my energy for the rest of the day in the business. 'cause I got so pissed at that. Then I couldn't get back into flow for the rest of the day. And despite like every single method that I tried it, I guess sometimes the universe is putting stuff in front of you that you need to really look at and work on.

And that's why I'm prioritizing what my body is craving, what my soul can hold, what my energy wants to be elevated by. And I was reading a lot actually about, you know, how this works in positive psychology. My coach is a like he is. The go-to person for all things flourishing and he talks to me a lot about relationships and how it's one of the strongest contributors to our long-term wellbeing.

Just think about that. It's not just about having friends and you'll live longer kind of thing, but I. It's the depth of those relationships. It's the quality of the conversations, it's the alignment you feel when you are around them. It's the reciprocity. That's one that's really major for me. So what that means is when you make plans, your friend also holds the way of meeting those plans with you rather than constantly feeling like you are being moved around and constantly rescheduled.

Like if you've got friends like that that just don't hold an appointment as. In much belief as you like. It's that shit. I hate that feeling. You know? It's like we, we said we were gonna meet for a coffee on Friday and you've just swept me aside, you know, like emergencies aside. I mean, they just don't take that seriously.

So that's reciprocity. Anyway, um, Martin Seligman, he pioneered this model called Perma and Perma. Every single letter has like a different area of wellbeing. Basically it's a model of wellbeing and. Seligman talks about how positive relationships are literally one of the five essential pillars to a flourishing life and relationships.

Yes, in terms of your romantic relationships, but also relationships with your family and friends. And you know, when I read that, I'm like, this is what I'm after. Right now, I'm after a sense of flourishing friendships, not functioning friendships.  There's a massive difference there. And not just friendships that are surviving because they've been surviving since I was five years old, and there's that novelty and there's that nostalgia alongside it.

I have a lot of long-term friends that I actually don't have a lot in common with anymore, but we've just been friends since prep and grade one that they're just there. I want friends that I can flourish alongside with and  I'm finding them like this is the thing. I have, I'm thinking about, oh my gosh, I can see how good just butterflies thinking about them.

It's just so beautiful. I would say I've got five really close friends that I feel are in the flourishing container right now with me. Not to say like they have to be flourishing in their business. I mean like the energy of I flourish around them,  and then let's say that's the 20%, the 80% of friendships that I have right now are functioning  and sometimes great, but not always.

And. Just filled with a lot of uncertainty and I'm question marking a lot of those.  Oh, even just talking about this is really hard, but I know that you guys get it, you know?  So thank you for listening and thank you for just being there. I feel the energy of being held up about this. I actually feel your nods and I feel you going girl, like going through the same thing.

So thank you. So I've just been asking myself, are my friendships helping me flourish? Or are they keeping me safe slash small in a season that I've already outgrown? That's really hard to admit. Like do you have to ask that yourself? Who in your friendship group do you feel like you flourish around?  Who do you not?

And what's the percentage? 80 20 split. Like my goal is I want 80% of my friendships to feel flourishing, even if it means less friends and just more quality time and more quality friendships as opposed to what I have right now. And it's hard, you know? Oh God. 'cause there's just so much love there. You know, like one of the hardest decisions I made, you know, a while ago now, I was part of like a friendship group.

Who were all business owners and we're in a mastermind together, and I was in it for quite a long time. Like these women were really such a massive part of my life, and we'd grown businesses side by side, celebrated each other's milestones. And you know, somewhere along the way it stopped feeling like a space for the version of me that I am now, not because of anything anyone said, like how do you explain that energy, which is why friendship breakups are so hard.

But every time we caught up, I guess the beige flag for me was the conversation lent very heavily on a topic that wasn't important in my life, and it was. A season that most of them were in, but I wasn't in. So it was really hard to  feel conducive in that environment. And I was like politely nodding and smiling and making time for those calls, which sometimes went for one to two hours.

And I got not a lot out of it, apart from just a few laughs and things like that.  I said to myself, you know, I'm in a season of raising businesses. I'm in a season of deepening my mission, expanding my impact, and it started to feel like I was shrinking myself to keep the peace. So I made the decision to bow out lovingly.

On really great terms, but still, I was very conscious around the choice to walk away from something that no longer matched the pace or the energy of my own expansion. And even saying that out loud is so weird. Putting words behind it, I don't think I've actually spoken those words out loud. It felt at the time like I was equally being selfish, but equally being selfless and equally.

Raising myself up by doing that. So it was such a strange feeling. And then even before that, I was in another friendship group. That one ended quite differently. That one really shipped me up the wall because this was the group that didn't have the reciprocity thing. So the group really lacked consistency in catch-ups.

And sometimes they were calls, sometimes their in person. And um, yeah, people just kept not showing up to the calls.  I was the one who was managing the calls on my end, like you know, it was my Zoom link. I was the organizer on my Google Cal.  Or I would always like say, Hey guys, like let's, we've done three calls online.

Let's do, let's meet in person. 'cause we were all pretty close to each other about, close to about an hour's drive ish, you know, of each other. So I was like, let's go here. And I'd always organize like the restaurants we'd go meet at and, um, organize the bookings, all of that. And they just, some of them just never showed up or it wasn't consistent and it just was such a mismatch in effort.

It was a mismatching values. So that one actually was quite easy to kind of go, you know, I'm done. I did hang on for a probably longer than I should have, but that all in energy is a value of mine that I hold so close. I think that's also why I really value when my clients are like Rubes, I'm all in and I'm like, so am I.

But then, yeah, when it's like not in that way, it sucks. Like maybe you've actually experienced that, not so much in your friendships, but maybe you've experienced it. With your clients? I used to, this is years ago, like I reckon year one of my business  sign private coaching clients and they would get X amount of calls in their package and then they would take six calls with me and then not take the rest.

Have you guys ever had that? It is a very strange feeling, and obviously you follow up and you say, Hey, are you gonna take the rest of your calls? And then you get ghosted. Oh, that is just like, that sucks because your overthinking comes into play. You're like, did I say something? Should I refund them? Like, oh my God, they hate me.

Whatever it is, you know, it's just, okay, whatever that is, it's okay. Like I think that it is sometimes a gift. We don't see it as a gift at the time, but it's. Easy to end those types of relationships or just to walk away from it.  And in this, that particular example for me, with the reciprocity, that friendship group just really helped me realize that, okay, I wanna be surrounded by people who show up like me, who are all in.

And I want that, you know, like people who I'm not needing to chase. 'cause that's just weird energy. I don't like that. So anyway, I've been feeling this a lot and I. On the hunt, I think for  not so much more friends because, oh gosh, I don't know. Like it's a, it's an investment of so much time to make new friends.

Especially, you know, like when you're over 30, there is something that goes alongside with that, right? 'cause you've got young family and all these crazy schedules. But I just know like, here's what I know so far, what's been very eye-opening for me lately is the majority of my conversations that I'm in with friendships, especially in group chats or with certain individual friends, they are definitely in this sort of space of sadness or fear  or worry or anxiety of drama, of gossip, and I'm like, when did that happen? 

Like, when did this change? Because I swear about, you know, whenever it was like years and years ago when we first became friends, it was never about that. And they're complaining about things that are so out of their control, but not giving solutions around it, or not taking solutions around it. And again, I'm not saying that we all need to be sunshine and manifesting rainbows 24 7 'cause that's also just No,  that's just too much.

You know? I'm here for the real, real. I love the real, real. I love getting stuck into it. But when 80% of my energy is spent holding space for negativity. I have to ask myself, is this actually the group, the friendship environment that I wanna plug into every day? Is this really what the next version of me is holding in in a space that feels great?

And I think that's where the positive psychology lens really comes into assist. Again, like there's, I can't remember who, whose work it was, but it was. This book that I'd read when I was in the depths of studying flow science, and it was this theory that was called Broaden and Build, and it was showing that positive emotions literally expand our thinking.

I.  Especially in relationships and friendships like they help us in business or in our career, solve better problems, build better relationships all around, feel more creative. Because when you are speaking to friends, whether it be directly around like bouncing a business idea off them or not, when you feel expanded and broadened in that vibration and in that frequency, you come up with some really great ideas.

Or they say something and you're like, oh my God, that idea could definitely work for my business. You, you've helped me more than you realize, you know? But constant exposure to downward spiraling negative energies and frequencies that are just in and around you all the time. It must have the opposite effect.

It narrows, it contracts, it limits. And it just makes you feel so, shit. Like the example I gave you where my friend was literally like, you know, come like hail or whatever that thing is, like where she, her world was ending. I couldn't get back into it the whole day, you know? So for me right now, I'm not necessarily savagely cutting people off, but I am  absolutely recalibrating.

I'm turning the dial. I've just decided that.  And you know what? 80% of my conversations are currently draining. And I hate to admit that because in my business it's not like in my, in my relationship it's not. But my friendships, it's, it's like a red flag area right now. And I'm just calling in more nourishing friendships, more uplifting friendships, more expansive.

I don't want fake, I just, I want less friendships I reckon, but just more grounded in something bigger. Okay. Like, I think that's really where I've landed.  Did you like that? Okay. I feel like that was me speaking to myself like, okay, Ruth,  this is what we're going for.  Ay, anyway. I wanna speak on this because like every other part of my area is growing so fantastically and it is just so beautiful.

And you know, when you do the Wheel of Life exercise, I'm sure every single one of us have done the Wheel of Life exercise.  Oh my God. I just did not like the score I gave myself around friendships because it's also not fair on the new friends that I've made and the current friends that are just so elevating.

Like, it's, it's so unfair on them.  Like, I've spoken to some of my friends about that and they're just like, what? And I'm, they're like, how? And I'm like, I'm like, I don't know how I let that into my space, but it's in, in a big way. So this is me choosing to support my next level. I want Let's, let's do a whole bunch of, I wants, I want you to do your, I wants to, like, let's do our, our I wants in friendship together.

Like calling in manifestation, like perfect, ideal friendships. I want more laughter. I love laughing with my friends. Gosh. And I'm the type of gal who like, when I laugh, my whole head flicks back. Like I've hit brick wall walls so many times. 'cause I'm just throwing my head backwards. I want more presence.

I love deep energy. I'm a Pisces Moon. I want deep conversations. Just please. Don't tell me about you feeding your children and what you're feeding them and the recipes. Like I want, I love kids, you know, but I just wanna go deep and talk about really soul led stuff.  I want more talks about the future.  I want more talks about the vision.

I want to talk about stuff we're building as. Powerful creators in this world. I wanna be around people who believe deeply in their capacity to create change. I want people who are living in that energy, even when things aren't perfect. It's not about perfection,  but it is about holding this collective connection to what we know is bigger and what we know is available to us.

So I just wanna know.  Is anyone else going through this? Please send me through a message. And if you've just come outta something like this, please let me know how you've held the energy around it and that, you know, I, I know that obviously there's a through line, like, gosh, it sounds, talk about being dramatic.

That sounds dramatic, but just it's nice to sort of hear.  Girl, I've gone through this and now I've got three amazing friends that that's it. And it's just the best thing ever.  I need to hear those things. Okay. Um, but also if you are in a similar season and still trying to work things out, kind of like me, you are not cold.

This is what I have to tell myself. I journaled it today that I'm not cold for making these choices and I'm not being harsh, and I'm not being mean for setting energetic boundaries. I know that term can be quite grading on some people and it just kind of feels like a cop out. Like I just draw my energetic boundaries, but it is what it is and I, I'm not selfish for wanting something different, and I'm also not saying that I'm cutting those friends outta my life who are going through terrible things.

Of course not. I wanna be there for them. I. I just wanna shift the percentage of the conversations that I'm using, the energy that I'm using to hold them up and just have more of the uplifting, elevated ones, you know? Um, so that's my friendship remodel, and I'll let you know how I'd go and where I land on this.

And I know there, when I first moved to Queensland where I lived now, I definitely felt, this was three years ago. I felt like I had no friends. It's kind of funny now, like I'm, I have so many friends, but so many of them are just. You know, they, they need to turn off the frequency. Okay, let's go, let's do something big.

So anyhow, that's it. That's what I wanna share. And I do feel it's got everything to do with flow, everything to do with business. And we can't ignore these things. They're very real. They're in our life day to day. So with so much love and honestly a little bit of tenderness saying all of this is a tender topic, isn't it?

I'm choosing my expansion. Yes. And I'm holding space for whatever  friendships want to meet me here on my high flying disc. And I'm good with that. All right. Love you all so much. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here.  And um, oh my gosh, I always say this, follow the flow of what feels good and I'm doing that in my friendships.

Love you guys so much. Tchau.