[00:00:00] Emily: Most people have a lot more nuanced views than they allow themselves to think about. I think especially because of social media is presenting these images to us, what you would drink if you think this way, where you would vacation. We’re all so much more nuanced. We don’t all think one way or the other about almost anything that we’re forced into these thought patterns that are not nuanced. It is so much healthier and wiser. And that’s a kind of the Buddhist belief that is now in Western psychology, which is mindfulness, which is being able to kind of sit with many ideas at once.

That is what is healthy mentally. It’s healthy, critically thinking wise and being around people with different views allows true nuance if we’re not feeling threatened by the other person’s views.

[00:00:44] Nina: Welcome to Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship. I’m your host, Nina Badzin. Today’s topic is one I’ve touched on here and there, and it’s one I get letters about often. And that is managing differences of opinions with friends. An obvious area is politics. There are even smaller differences that can get between friends, like parenting. One that comes to mind, just a small one, is when some parents give their kids a phone or an Apple watch years before another friend.

It’s not as divisive as politics, but it’s actually a daily difference in opinion in how you and your friend may have chosen to raise your kids. So many examples. I mean, we could go on and on. Do we allow our differences to be a strength in a friendship or a weakness? You know, I will advocate for that difference being a strength, which does require a lot of empathy for the next person.

Here to talk about developing that empathy and managing these potential differences is therapist and author, Emily Locker. Emily’s novel, Running Mates, is one of the best fictional versions I’ve read of friends with differences, political differences in this case, making it work. Not without a lot of hiccups, of course. I will let Emily tell you more about the book and we will lean into her professional work as a therapist for some advice for us non fictional people.

Emily lives in Washington, D. C. with her husband and two young sons. And there is another major fact that I need to tell you about Emily. Emily is my second cousin. We share great grandparents, right, Emily?

[00:02:10] Emily: Yes.

[00:02:11] Nina: All right. Well, Emily, officially welcome to Dear Nina.

[00:02:14] Emily: Thank you. It’s thrilling to be here with my cousin, with my darling older cousin.

[00:02:18] Nina: on the cousin thing, we do need to start with that because actually it’s almost its own topic, which is the potential friendship that could happen between cousins. And I’m going to say something just totally honest. Emily and I don’t know each other really as adults that well outside of social media, but it makes me so sad because I know we have so much in common.

We totally enjoyed each other as kids, but I grew up in Chicago and Emily grew up in Washington DC in Georgetown, which was always so cool. And we just didn’t get to see each other a lot, but our moms who are first cousins were closer. Do you remember it that way?

[00:02:50] Emily: Absolutely. They also grew up in Rochester together, right? Their parents were very close.

[00:02:55] Nina: Yes, my mom is always flying around to your mom and your aunt’s and uncle’s events. So your mom’s one of four my mom’s one of three. And so they grew up in Rochester, New York, together. Did your grandma and my grandma live close to each other? I don’t remember.

[00:03:11] Emily: Think it was maybe like a 10 minute drive. It was, it was very close. I think they spent every Friday night together. Right. That was my understanding that they had dinner

[00:03:19] Nina: Okay, for real I do not have an image of my mother growing up with Shabbat dinners I wonder if that was just your leg of the family.

[00:03:27] Emily: I think maybe it’s also because my grandma, she was the most positive person in the entire world. I don’t know if you remember that. I know your mom was very close to her. Her worldview is through sharing these kind of close happy memories. She was in total denial anything bad ever happened, but she saw the world in a truly beautiful way.

[00:03:43] Nina: I remember your grandmother so well, I mean she was a wonderful mother, grandmother, and even aunt and great aunt, so she would have been my great aunt. Whenever we came to Rochester, I mean, she came with presents your grandfather, for me, he was uncle Arnie.

Oh, I just love it. For listeners, I know this is so random, but I want you to think about your cousins. Some people are so close with their cousins. My best friend, Taryn, who I’ve had on several times, grew up in Chicago with me, and she had lots of first cousins in town, and they were so close. I was always so jealous. And I have fantastic first cousins, but only a few of them. And, I think of my cousin, Jackie, who grew up in Rochester, she and I also have tons in common. And she’s my first cousin. She’s your second cousin as well.

We’re only about a year apart and we’ve grown closer over social media as adults. I mean, she sends me friendship related stuff all the time. We read a lot of the same stuff, but it makes me sad that we didn’t grow up together. I was jealous of your family because you had a lot of first cousins.

[00:04:39] Emily: And side note, Jackie’s dad set my parents up.

[00:04:41] Nina: I didn’t know

[00:04:42] Emily: Yes, so, so that’s why I’m here. But my cousins on my mom’s side, we’re all a year apart, except for there’s two little ones who we still love dearly. Again, going back to my grandma and grandpa, They set a tone, right? It’s, you know, they have all 17 people in their house. And now we all laugh at this. My mom and aunt Sally are always like, how did she do this?

now that I’m a mom, she would just do everyone’s laundry. Everyone would make a mess. No one would help, never complain. full of energy and smiles. So, I think they set that tone and, you know, it was, truly special. But Nina, I have a great memory of you , I don’t know if I was in high school or middle school and you were in college, I was visiting WashU. I’d never been on a college campus before and you were getting ready for a date with Brian I thought that was the coolest thing ever.

[00:05:20] Nina: It would have been my senior year and it would be an apartment in St. Louis. We met when I was a senior and then we got engaged a year later and you were at my wedding, you? Yes.

[00:05:27] Emily: Yeah. I think that’s my first memory of being at a wedding.

[00:05:29] Nina: It was one of my first weddings I’d ever been to, like I was young and I didn’t have a lot of wedding experience. I have a memory of you and Margo, your sister, because I spent a summer of college in Washington, D.C. in Georgetown, and I came over for dinner several times. And I remember your parents would take me out with you guys and we’d go to the bookstore. I just loved Georgetown. I thought your life was so cool and urban. You had such a cool house. Maybe watch TV in your house or something. There might’ve been a show we were both into. Could have been like Dawson’s Creek or something like that. those were those years in those late nineties. That would have been around 1997.

[00:06:04] Emily: We lived in Glover Park, which is right next to Georgetown, which is not quite as cool, but still very urban and cool. and we could walk to Georgetown. I do, I have clear memories of you in the living room on those dinners and we were all sitting around and you felt so cool and grown up, youknow, now, you know, as you get older, the age difference is less, right? But at that time, it felt bigger. Yeah.

[00:06:20] Nina: and you and I have reading in common and always did. back then, we both loved books, both big readers, we’re both writers. I remember you wanting to be a published author. I was so excited to see that this book was coming out and I’ve been talking about it  a lot on social media.

I was very relieved that I loved it because there definitely was that feeling of like, oh not just with you I feel this way about a friend too you know, a friend comes out with a book and you’re like I really hope I like it and I loved it. Can you tell people about running mates is about?

[00:06:50] Emily: Running Mates is a modern day Romeo and Juliet. It takes place in a fictional town in North Carolina where half the town is liberal because there’s a small liberal arts university and half the town is conservative because of the Southern influence and the main character, Anabel, who has very liberal parents, very liberal friend group, falls in love with the Republican senator’s son Gabe. It’s a story about how they kind of come from very different backgrounds and how they fall in love through a running club.

[00:07:16] Nina: Gabe is Cuban American

[00:07:18] Emily: Cuban American. Yes.

[00:07:19] Nina: So were you nervous to write a book like this? Like I’m even nervous to talk about it.

[00:07:24] Emily: several things made me very nervous, but I think at the time I I was a little naive when I was writing it, but it wasn’t until I got into edits and my agent was giving me feedback and the publisher and some friends were where they were like Annabelle’s being really mean to Gabe or you say Republican Democrats like 30 times it’s a huge turnoff.

The words are triggering, especially in the modern day, and how do I tone this down, and, in the book, the north side of the town is the Republican side, and the east side is a liberal side, and I end up using that to avoid saying Republican and Democrat too much through the book.

[00:07:54] Nina: You did a good job of that. North side. East side. That worked. One thing you did that was so incredible, it’s something I haven’t seen in fiction or nonfiction. You did a wonderful job not vilifying either side, which I think is hard to do.

I mean, I know how you grew up. I think it would have been really tempting to vilify the conservative side. Frankly, I think a lot of people do do that and whether it’s an articles or podcasts you humanized both of the characters and their families. That is what makes this feel like a hopeful story that we can learn from. We’re not going to get too deep into the book itself. Cause I know that is just coming out and people won’t have had a chance to fully read it and I want them to, and I don’t like to give spoilers on my podcast because then it’s kind of takes the fun out of reading the book. I’m curious your process, you talked about it a little bit, but a little more of having to keep editing it so that it wasn’t so black and white.

[00:08:49] Emily: so I did my first edit in New York and in New York, I think I was still around really like minded people constantly. We can tell some stories about this later when we talk about parenting differences, even between DC and New York and what it was like to come back.

I moved back when my, when my oldest was starting kindergarten, my youngest one was starting twos. But in New York, I was still, even more like minded because not only were people thinking a certain way, but there was tons who kind of had a similar personality, talks about their feelings, tells it like it is, so, moving back to DC, which is a little more buttoned up and I moved into even just a mile down my parents in a slightly different neighborhood, which is a little more preppy, I would say, than the neighborhood I grew up in.

I was at my son’s nursery school and in our class, there was, one of the dad had been President Obama’s speechwriter, and another dad had been Mike Pence’s speechwriter. And I was sitting there like, how is this gonna work? This is crazy, but a couple months in, there were class cocktail parties. There were playdates, and everyone got along so well.

I have this memory of the Mike Pence speechwriter, when one of the moms got pregnant, he, personally, the dad, made her lactation cookies. And I just remember watching that, and being like, it’s just not a caricature would be of that, and it was just a really warm, loving class, and everyone was really close, and it was. And that kind of really helped, I think, that process.

[00:09:57] Nina: Oh, I love that story. I’m glad you told that, you don’t know that things like that are happening in the world if you only watch a certain kind of show or a certain kind of news or only read certain kinds of articles. It just feels so divisive out there. When this episode comes out, it will be February and we’re heading into another election season.

I mean, it’s just going to be, I really dread it. I know I’m going to get all the letters. I get them now and I avoid the topic. Admittedly. I avoid the topic sometimes in my own life. I have people of all different kinds of politics. And I think also because I. run around in slightly more religious circles than you probably do.

I see a lot of different opinions on, things. Everyone doesn’t agree on, everything. And I have learned also to have a much more nuanced opinion, which I don’t talk about that often on the show, because I just don’t want to get into it. I mean, I’ll be in certain conversations.

Not necessarily with close friends, I think they know me, but I’ll be in certain kinds of things, a lot of times in the writing communities I’m a part of, and it’s like, everyone just assumes everyone thinks the same thing about everything. And the assumption is, if you’re a good person, you think X, and if you’re a bad person, you think Y, and it’s so almost childish.

[00:11:06] Emily: Absolutely. I even have started to think, and I see this in my practice, too. Personally, too, when I moved back to D. C., I had this experience, and I see my patients, especially my college students, talking about this. Which is, it’s not just if you’re a Democrat or Republican there’s cultural, what you wear, what brands you wear, you know, what water bottles you drink, what cars you drive, you’d be like, Oh, they have a Subaru. They’re a Democrat. Oh, there’s a Land Rover. They’re a Republican. So it starts to become a true identity. And I think that is making everyone so closed. You kind of lose a sense of what you truly like, and I think it’s interfering with people’s kind of personal development in a way.

[00:11:41] Nina: Oh, that, yes. Well, your book addresses that really well, the personal development piece. I actually really appreciate it. Thank you. The number of times in the book, and this is not a spoiler, but where the more conservative character basically says to the more liberal character, do you even think for yourself or do you just do what your friends tell you. She has to stop and ask herself a few times. Actually, one example I think is worth talking about it’s a good one that is not so charged is about the bookstore, her favorite bookstore, where there’s an issue with the workers potentially unionizing. Can you just explain that a little?

[00:12:18] Emily: Yes. When I wrote this book, I had to have Annabelle, the main character, kind of have a break with her liberal friend group. There was some issue they had to disagree on and she loves this bookstore. It’s an independent bookstore in the town. She’s very close to the owner. The workers want to unionize and the owner feels that would collapse the store that they can’t afford a union.

They’re just a small store. The east side of the town wants to start protesting to make sure to kind of promote workers rights. She’s not comfortable doing that. And there’s a rift because of that. And so, she kind of it feels very uncomfortable about the rift and kind of secretly goes to the bookstore and tries to help but she’s very uncomfortable about the whole thing and that’s one thing male protagonist watches her do and helps her kind of sort out.

[00:12:55] Nina: It’s a good one because it would be a perfect example of a time when okay, if you’re on this side of the political fence, yes, you’re gonna always say 100 percent workers rights. And here’s this small business that will collapse under the demands that this one group has. They have to find some middle ground, some kind of negotiation.

Back to real life, what would be some parenting things that you see? It doesn’t even have to just be parenting, but parenting comes to mind. I have four kids. You have two. It does come up a lot. How sad that our kids will never know each other. I just actually got a little sad. I mean, it’s so that would be third cousins, right? That’s just like one step too far. If you don’t live in the same town. I do think if you live in the same town, it doesn’t matter. I mean, we do stuff with cousins that are on Bryan’s side, maybe their fourth cousins, I don’t even know. It doesn’t matter because we’re here. but anyway, parenting and all that. Do you see some of that coming to your practice?

[00:13:47] Emily: In my practice and my personal life. In my practice, what’s really interesting is that you’ll have people do things with other families or go on vacations with other families. When you go on a vacation with another family, you’re really seeing everything. I’m gonna talk about a younger kid situation with babies. Some people, the kids are on the adult schedule. we’re not gonna be, religious about a two o’clock nap. And other families are, and I’ve seen such rage around this issue, like true rage, like that no one could go, you know, to the beach because Jimmy had to come back for a two o’clock nap, or the dinner reservation had to be at five o’clock, but adults don’t want to eat at five because the kids have to, be head on the pillow at seven.

And this other family wanted to be, it’s vacation, a little looser, everyone will be fine. We’ll throw them from the iPad if we need to. The tension around these things, it bubbles up because I think it’s not just about having to eat earlier. It’s about a way you are raising versus the other one.

And it feels like a commentary on your own life and that you suddenly feel very different from those friends.

[00:14:43] Nina: That’s so well said. So how would you tell a patient to handle a situation like that? That’s a good one. I like talking about one that’s not so politically charged because we are not every day walking around having political disagreements with friends.

I know, social media would have you believe that, but it’s some of this other stuff that actually gets in the way of real life. Vacation’s a great example. So, yeah, what would you tell this patient who’s like, I went on this trip with my friend and. they’re barely talking now.

[00:15:09] Emily: I think I would say first, and that’s what I always say, is that what is the priority here? Right? Because you’re not going to be on vacations with them every day of the year, and maybe you won’t take another vacation until everyone’s a little older. What is it that you enjoy about the friendship?

And you have to re remind them of that to re center. And that you kind of say, this is, it’s called Dialogical Behavioral Therapy. It’s a specific type of therapy, but this is what they say. And I repeat this, you I don’t do a lot of DBT is that there’s three things to consider in an interpersonal relationship, whether it’s the barista at Starbucks or a friend or a boss is your relationship with the other person, your self esteem and your objective.

And you should not always be picking your self esteem. I’m right. You’re wrong. In fact, you should, unless you’re being harassed or stolen from, you should probably not usually pick that because it’s just not effective. What’s more important, the relationship in this case, or being right about how to go to dinner at a normal time?

You have to do that in a gentler way than I just said that, but kind of center that, them to that idea that the friendship is more important. And who cares about this five o’clock dinner, right? And that we’re going to prioritize. Sometimes in prioritizing one goal, we have to let another one go.

[00:16:10] Nina: That’s good advice. I wish you could be my therapist. I know that would be like probably not possible.

[00:16:16] Emily: not possible, but as I say to my son, Alex, you can talk to me for free and other people have to pay me so

[00:16:20] Nina: that’s right. You know what’s so funny? One of my daughters told me yesterday a piece of advice that a camp counselor a couple of years ago gave her about friendship. And I was like, Yeah. Oh, I didn’t know you’re interested in advice like that. I know somebody who talks about that topic a lot and she like rolls her eyes like she does every other day at me.

But maybe one day they’ll discover a treasure trove of friendship advice from their mother. is there another example you can think of that people bring to you or that you see in your own life? Where you have to overcome differences, something not political. And we, could address some political things too, because I know my listeners want to hear that.

[00:16:57] Emily: I can tell a funny personal story about moving back to, to DC from New York. Everybody calls everyone by their first names. it wouldn’t even be a question. I’m Emily. My husband is Dan. No question. In DC, you’re back to a Mrs. and Mr. culture. Now, again, in my neighborhood, it was first name, but in where I live now, everyone was Mrs.and Mr. So, I have, two strong minded boys, they’re used to calling their teachers by their last name, but never have they called a friend’s parent by their last name. And when we get here, everyone’s, Mrs. Robinson, Mr. Peters, and they hear us call them by their first name.

So they’re like, Hey, Peter. you know, can I come over today? And I’m like, say, Mr. And he answered to Peter, mom, what’s the problem? But then vice versa, these kids are calling me miss block. I’m like, no, no, just Emily. So they go miss Emily. I’m like, just Emily. And so what’s happening is, which is kind of funny is we’re all being called by names we don’t want to be called by.

It’s a larger reflection of parenting values again, which is, I think how I was raised and how I parent is a little informal. and at first, when I moved back, I was like, I’m a therapist. My dad’s a child psychologist. Obviously, my kids are going to grow up securely attached and your kids are going to be scared of you.

But several months in, I noticed some things that humbled me a little bit, which is, huh, when we’re all out to dinner together, two of these boys are ruder than the rest. And those were my two boys, right? There was ways that these kids had really much better manners in mind and manners are really important in how you get going through childhood and getting kind of positive responses from adults.

And so it did humble me and I did get a little stricter and I think, I’m a better parent for it it was humbling, both as a therapist and as a someone who, even though I grew up in DC, I feel very identified to my New York self,

[00:18:31] Nina: You were there a long time.

[00:18:33] Emily: 16 years.

[00:18:33] Nina: I identify with this one a lot. If any of my friends are listening to this, they will laugh. So in my household, this has been, not my parents household, I don’t even know what we did growing up, to be honest. It was a mix, so in my family with Bryan, this has been a real sore spot. This exact issue. Bryan grew up in Edina, which is a suburb of Minnesota that, and in a time, I mean he’s four years older than I am even, everyone was Mr. and Mr. Was not even a question. We raised our kids there for 17 years, and everybody in the neighborhood was Mr. and Mrs. for sure. In our Jewish community, not the religious part of the Jewish community, because we’re sort of in between. I mean, we’re a little more observant, but we’re not Orthodox. But we do spend a lot of time with Orthodox people. It is Mr. and Mrs. in our other Jewish community, which is where we spend really most of our social time, everyone wants to go by first names.

Bryan was not having it with the first names. He is Mr. Badzin, number one, he is absolutely Mr. Badzin. He will correct our kids friends. I like want to crawl under a table when he does that. I started out as Mrs. Badzin for a while, especially with that Edina influence, and I was a teacher.

I was an English teacher before I had kids, so it’s not like I was uncomfortable, I was Mrs. Badzin, because I was already married when I got my teaching license, whereas most of my friends, my Jewish friends, in a million years would never be Mrs. They’re always, that’s my mother in law it made them feel old when I would hear other kids call people by Mr. and Mrs. I was like, Oh, that kid has good manners. I definitely felt that way. I wasn’t like, Oh, that kid’s stuffy and formal. I was like, Oh, somebody’s parents passed something useful along. I wanted my kids to sound like that, I guess, so I let Bryan like do his thing.

But what we have come to is we do let the adult be called what they want to be called. Bryan and I had to negotiate that. and a lot of our friends, they call the wives by their first names because they don’t want to be Mrs. And I have their kids call me Nina. Cause now that they’ve gotten older, I mean, it feels ridiculous.

I’ve known these kids at this point, you know, I have teenagers. I’ve known these kids for a long time. I’m not going to have them call me Mrs. Badzin. But if a new friend comes over, like one of my younger kids, and they have a school friend yet, then I’m Mrs. Badzin. It’s funny. I have like many identities, but I hear what you’re saying on all these kind of judgments and differences. And I used to get really self conscious about Bryan making a big deal about it because I didn’t want people to think we were judging them. Because like, what do you do in a household when their kids, they’re using first names for all the parents, but we’re making our kids say, Mr. and Mrs. Aren’t we sort of being like, we’re raising our kids with better manners. It’s still awkward. I’m feeling awkward even talking about it.

[00:21:03] Emily: And I think when I’m thinking when we’re talking about this is that true manners would be respecting what the person wants to be called. And I’m not doing that really. And my, dear friends in DC who will laugh when they listen to this about Mr and Mrs. Neither of us are respecting what the other one wants.

And really what is managed is this is what this person wants. We’re going to respect that. That’s a simple idea. We all know that, but it gets so lost. Parenting is emotional. Current times is emotional. And I think we know what to do. And it gets lost with all of these, kind of deregulation we feel as parents, as people, as citizens right now.

[00:21:35] Nina: It’s very hard to talk about almost anything like back to the phone, social media example, like I brought up in the intro, it can be a real conversation stopper. So sometimes people ask me, I have some younger friends And I had kids on the younger side, so like I’ve been through some things, like I have a 19 year old already I’ve been through stuff that, people just haven’t been through yet.

I’ve had this question. How old are the Badzin kids when they get a phone? And I tell them, going into seventh grade. No social media. We take off everything on that phone for the first year. you can have the weather app and you can use FaceTime and text, but no Safari. We don’t want them walking around with like a little computer. An iPhone’s just so nice because it’s a screen and it’s easier to use. But, I know how to turn off all that stuff. That probably makes me sound unhinged. It’s a conversation stopper, not in a good way, because what happens is I say that, cause that’s the real answer. And then the next person might be like, Oh, and I can see they’re feeling funny because they gave their kid an Apple watch and a phone in fifth grade. And it’s got all the things. I mean, it’s got Safari, it’s got social media, maybe it doesn’t have social media in fifth grade, but plenty of kids are getting social media long before, you know, maybe I’m letting my kids. So we’re kind of at a standstill because even though I have not said anything about your kids, it feels like a judgment.

[00:22:46] Emily: no, it’s really hard to sometimes in having honest conversations about how you do things, it is a judgment on how someone else does things. And I’m curious what it’s like when we all have older kids where for your 19 year old, right? There’s probably less of that between you and your friends about 19 year olds, because you only have so much control. It’s probably worrisome to have a 19 year old, just because you don’t have as much control. And that’s easier to bond on than what we’re doing to parent them.

[00:23:09] Nina: Yeah. But you would be surprised. I mean, you still can get opinions. My son’s on a gap year because he’s on a gap year and then he’s going to college next year, he’s grown a little bit about college and what he wants to do. And does he even really want to go for all four years?

Would he rather finish later online? Maybe he wants to get on with it already. People will look at me in our community where college is like, the most important, you know, thing they can’t even think otherwise. Why would you even allow him to think that he can’t go for four years?

I’ve evolved. I would have thought that too, a couple years ago even. But I’ve seen a different way. And, yeah, so even with the older kids stuff, if you’re going to do anything different than your community, it can feel like you’re being judged or when you say the things that can feel like you’re judging others.

[00:23:52] Emily: Absolutely. I even see that in DC. There’s a big thing, especially in my neighborhood about most people use the public elementary school and then middle school, it’s a huge thing. Are you going to stay in the public school system? Are you gonna go to private school? And people start talking about this in kindergarten and there’s an immediate tension in everyone, cause everyone’s decision scares someone else and makes them question their decision. It’s a very complicated decision. Everyone’s clenching their fist and starts to spin in their head and you can watch this happen, right? And it’s wonderful to be in parent community. So wonderful and so important, but these are really, vulnerable times and we’re making decisions with other people the same time and it brings up a lot.

[00:24:28] Nina: In the book, and I know you do it in your real life. You don’t necessarily use the word empathy in the book, I don’t think, but it’s like a real show don’t tell, You show so much empathy between the characters. There’s line I want to read to you and to the listeners. Again, Gabe and Annabelle are the two characters that become close, even though Gabe is from the North side.

Annabelle’s from the East Side, meaning Gabe is, and there was no other way to say it, a Republican, and Annabelle’s a Democrat. They fight a lot. I mean, about, you know, real things. Gabe says, We can decide our differences are either a strength or a weakness. If it’s a strength, we keep trying, and if not, we end it. That is such a summary of the whole thing. I think in these friendships, either you’re going to acknowledge that there are differences and lean into it and learn from each other, or you’re going to have to not be friends. I don’t really see any other way.

[00:25:18] Emily: absolutely. I agree. And I think empathy can only happen when we feel truly secure, If we feel totally secure, for instance, in what I just said, and I’m going to send my kid to public school, I want them to, have whatever experience that is, then I will not feel threatened if my friend is going to Sidwell friends or, you know, that’s a prestigious private school in DC, I will understand why my friend made that decision. I will be happy for them. It will be separate from me. Any insecurity I would have about sending my kid to public school instead will come out. It will interfere with empathy. So I think when we struggle with empathy, it’s a lot of from our own insecurity, our own confusion.

One thing we do teach in session and therapy is the way to avoid that is, of course, we’re always going to be some negative feelings, some jealousy. If you can know you’re feeling that way and label it, you’re less likely to be passive aggressive. That is the whole piece of of oh, wow, I’m feeling a little jealous at the thought of this person, hobnobbing around with whatever I imagine the private school set to be.

If I can say in my head, I’m feeling jealous, I can. acknowledge that and I won’t take it out on my friend. That’s a lot of the work is just to be able to name authentically what you’re feeling. Not to say it to the other person though. You only want to say it. You want to know it yourself and be like, then act as you would want to to a friend.

[00:26:30] Nina: You really need to talk to everybody in the whole world and be everyone’s therapist this whole year coming up what I love that you did in the book is that Gabe and Annabelle don’t change their mind on the big things. I mean, they, maintain their own individual values and things that are important, but they are able to see some things from another character’s point of view and even influence people in their own lives.

So that’s kind of what I’m getting at. If you only stay siloed in these little things, even on parenting stuff. So take it away from politics. If you only ever talk to people who give their kids Apple watches in fifth grade, then you have no idea that there are people out there that are waiting and maybe you want to wait but you don’t know that that’s an option.

You don’t know that there’s people doing it a different way. Politically too. Maybe you’ve never thought of things from another point of view and you’ve vilified all these other people because you’ve never spoken to a human being who has a difference of opinion based on their background and their experiences. They’re not just basing that opinion on some idea that fell on their head one day. I mean, it’s like real life experience.

[00:27:32] Emily: Absolutely. And I also think that most people have a lot more nuanced views than they allow themselves to think about. I think especially because of social media is presenting these images to us, these 360 images of what you would drink if you think this way, where you would vacation.

All so much more nuanced. We don’t all think one way or the other about almost anything that we’re forced into these thought patterns that are not nuanced. And it is so much healthier and wiser. And that’s a kind of the Buddhist belief. It is now in Western psychology, which is mindfulness, which is being able to kind of sit with many ideas at once. That is what is healthy mentally. It’s healthy, critically thinking wise and being around people with different views allows true nuance if we’re not feeling threatened by the other person’s views.

[00:28:12] Nina: That’s the most perfect place to end. I don’t even want to water it down or sully it with anything else. I think it might even be my beginning quote of the episode. Thank you, cousin Emily, so much for coming and talking to me. And see, now I even get to know you better as a real adult. You’re so smart.

[00:28:30] Emily: at the same time, you know, I feel like I, even though we haven’t seen each other in so long, I feel like I know you and like, it’s so comfortable for me to be with you because they do feel similar to you, so familiar, you know? So I think that’s probably because we are cousins and, it just, it feels so easy.

[00:28:42] Nina: I think we even could be sisters. I mean, I sent a couple people, your Instagram of you taking your books out of the box. And I was like, couldn’t this be my sister? Everyone’s like, Oh my gosh. Yes. I mean, I see it too. Everybody run out and get this book. It’s a young adult book technically, but it is for sure a book adults would like.

Running Mates, Emily Locker is the author. I hope you will go find it. And I think you will have a lot to talk about. It’d be a great book club book and you have to be willing to talk about other politics though if you’re going to read it. I hope you will. Everybody, come back next week, when our friendships are going well, we are happier all around.

One last moment of your time. If you got anything out of this episode, and I hope you did, it is a great idea to share an episode with a friend, especially if it’s a topic you want to talk about with that friend. Maybe it’s a topic that’s hard to bring up. And I would love if you left five stars and a review wherever you listen. It helps others when they’re looking for shows about friendship to see that there are people listening to this show. If this is your first episode, welcome. If you’ve been around, thank you for being with me.

We’re all just out here trying to be better friends, better people. Those are usually one in the same. See you in a couple of weeks. Bye.