On this week's episode, we take some time to reflect on the people we feel closest to.
Welcome back to another episode of Inner Warmup. My name is Taylor Elyse Morrison, founder of Inner Workout and you as always are our expert guest. Thanks for being here today. Before we get into the interview, this is something I did right before hitting record - notice where you're holding any tension in your physical body. For me, I was holding some tension in my forehead. Do something to soften or release that tension. I gave my forehead a quick massage, you might send a breath to a certain place, might scratch an itch that you've been ignoring. Lovely! Okay, let's get into it.
So the question on the table today is who do you feel closest to? We've been looking at relational shifts this month and this question is a poignant one. As I was reflecting on this for myself, I'm not gonna lie, I had a flashback to like middle school or early high school having MySpace top eights. And that is not the purpose of this question. I'm not trying to get you to rank people...this is my absolute closest relationship, this person, I don't care about them anymore. But rather, it's an easy, I won't even say easy, but it's an opportunity for you to notice how your relationships have shifted. Because once you can identify who you feel closest to right now, you can kind of look back to a year and a half ago and see if that would have been true.
I'm not going to list out all of my friends on this podcast episode but what I will say is that I noticed a deepening in relationships that were already relatively close. So I think of my partner who I've been with since high school, my parents, some of my close friends. There was this extra layer that was added over the course of the pandemic and also just the things that have happened in life and in business since March of 2020. For me, some of that closeness came because I was forced to ask for help and support in ways that maybe I was too prideful or too toxically independent, honestly, to do that previously, but this situation that we all lived through really forced me to do that.
So I wouldn't say there was a huge shift in who I'm close to you, but I feel much more close to them. And I feel like I know new things about how the people in my life give and receive love. And even though some of it's had to be virtual, I've been able to create new memories and experience some really big joy and some really big disappointments as well. So yeah, for me, there wasn't as huge of a shift as I might have thought. But I will say that there are a couple of relationships that kind of came into my close circle that maybe before those people were acquaintances, and it goes back to like this asking for help, this willingness to be vulnerable, this willingness to be open, that made that shift for me. So I feel like I have more reflection to do around where I could incorporate more of that closeness, how I could use some of the tools that helps me deepen those relationships into other relationships. Everyone doesn't need to be my closest friend but there are probably some relationships where I'm keeping people at arm's length because I'm not willing to open it up and show some of the cracks. So that's been a learning for me and as with many things will continue to be something that I experiment with an explorer for the rest of my life, but I'm thankful that I got to sit with this question a little bit and, and learn something new about myself because that's the point, right?
So now I'm going to pose this question to you, who do you feel closest to? Remember, it's not about ranking, just a starting point. Let it take you wherever it will. You listen to me answer these questions, you are definitely aware that these questions can be a winding road so go ahead and take your own winding journey.
Thanks for letting me join in on your reflective journey. Something that just came up for me that I'd love to explore more is, what does it even mean to feel close to someone? I'm wondering, what are the lines of demarcation that let me know like, oh, I've entered into another level of richness of depth in this relationship with another person. Is it certain things that they know about me? things that I'm willing to share? things that I'm willing to do in front of them? That's certainly something that I want to observe and explore in my own life. And that's interesting to you. Make sure that you join our free online community. Let's have some conversation around it. Thanks for showing up. Thank you as always for your time and for your expertise. Take care!