Episode 35: Why Calling Your Friends Is Essential for Social Wellness
- Tina Boogren
- May 3
- 7 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Description: Life gets busy, and somehow the people who matter most to us end up at the bottom of the to-do list. We stay in touch through texts and social media, but something those quick exchanges can't replace is an actual conversation with someone who knows you. This week's invitation is simple: reach out to a friend and schedule a real time to talk.
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Transcription: Hi, and welcome to Everyday Wellness with Dr. Tina H. Boogren. I am your host, Tina Boogren, and I'm so, so grateful that you are here. I hope that you are doing well, taking really good care of yourself and implementing all sorts of the invitations that we've had recently. Perhaps you were able to read a little bit in the morning last week. And I want you to pause and think about- did that make a difference? Is that something that you feel like, “Ooh, that, I could really get behind? I'm going to add that.” Or maybe it feels like depending on what season of life you're in, it might not work for you right now, but maybe it will. I know many, many, many listeners are educators and you might get a little bit of time this summer that looks a little bit different than during the school year. And so maybe that's something that you want to kind of like, “Oh, I'm gonna set that to the side and think about that, um, when my season of life changes.” So I'm just so happy you're here.
Let's go ahead and get ourselves really grounded. Maybe put your feet on the ground, uh, look around and maybe, just say silently or even out loud, a couple of things that you can see right now. Go ahead and drop your shoulders and drop your, unclench your jaw, and go ahead and take a couple deep breaths to just get yourself fully, fully present as you listen to this.
Wonderful. This week's invitation is to schedule time to talk to your friends. Now this invitation may not be one that you need to work on as much as I do, but that, um, this is something that just feels so crazy to me when I think about this stage of life, is that I actually have to schedule time to talk to friends. I think back of like teenage years when we talked on the phone all the time, and listen, I am not someone who really enjoys talking on the phone. Many, many people are giggling right now that know me so well because I am not, notoriously, I am not known for being much of a phone talker. If I can do it via text or an email or a carrier pigeon, I would rather do that. But I will tell you that as I get older, I am appreciating more and more and more the actual phone call, especially with friends. And you know what? Our lives are hard and busy and we just sometimes have to flat out schedule it to make it happen, and that's okay.
You know, it's, I think it, I don't know, in my life, I feel like the days of just picking up the phone and calling someone, I don't tend to do that. Maybe it's the planner in me. I don't like the surprise. Maybe it's because I'm not really a phone person, so I kind of need to be prepared. But I will send a text to a friend and yeah, we'll do the back and forth kind of check-in, and that's great, I love being in constant contact, but there's something that feels really different about the actual conversation via the phone with one another.
Now, of course you can do this via Zoom. I've got a bunch of friends that I use Marco Polo with, but it is just not the same as an actual conversation. I have my best friend that we- she lives in Fort Collins. I live in Denver. We meet about halfway and we take a walk together as often as we can, and that in-person conversation feels so good. But we also just schedule time to talk. So I have a couple best friends that are back at home in Iowa that we schedule time to talk. My friend that lives in Fort Collins, Fort Collins, we will schedule time to talk if we don't have that in-person time together, and it just makes such a huge difference. That connection feels so different.
In this day and age of tech technology where we have access to so many ways to be connected, which is wonderful, it can feel still a little bit shallow. When we are just texting, because there's just something about, there's just so much that you can type in that little box. Um, you can take it one step further and leave a voice memo, which feels pretty good. You can take it one step further and use the Marco Polo app. I do that with a couple of girlfriends almost daily and that is wonderful. But there is something to be said about just the actual conversation.
So I want you to think about if this appeals to you. Maybe there's someone that you just. Been meaning to catch up with and you keep thinking you'll call them or you'll see them and you haven't, and I want you to reach out and I want you to say, “Let's schedule a time to talk.” Maybe you can do a walk and talk together. That's something that I love to do with friends, whether that is in person or you're just both on the phone with each other taking a walk. It's amazing. Whenever I do that, I always come home and I'm like, oh my gosh, I walked. three miles or four miles. I didn't even realize that I was walking because I was so into the conversation. Or you're just sitting down and finding time, whether that's in the evening or time maybe you have time in the morning on your commute to work, or you're gonna set aside some time on the weekend and really set aside time. Give yourself 15 minutes, a half hour, 45 minutes, an hour if you can, and get fully caught up.
That personal social wellness piece is so essential and I will trick myself sometimes into thinking that all my social connections are fine because I got all these text chains going with different people or different emails or sending funny memes to one another or you know, connected via some social media app. But the reality is, that is so very different. And the older I get the more important those strong relationships are, especially with girlfriends. That scheduling time to have those talks with one another really, really, really matters.
And that's what I want you to play around with this week. It's not a hard one, I don't think, although for some of you, it might be hard like me, just because we don't like talking on the phone. But once we get over that first, like 20 seconds, it's good. And I know every time that I hang up the phone. Having spent time with someone that I really care about, I just feel lighter. I feel different. I feel more connected. We know, again, how important relationships are. We know that the quality of our relationships is in direct correlation with our own level of happiness. And sometimes what happens is we get really, really busy, especially this time of year, whether you are a parent and educator, anyone, it’s just a busy time of year as we start looking ahead to those summer months, and what oftentimes gets let go of, I think for many of us, is that social wellness piece. We just feel like that feels like an extra. And as our to-do lists get longer, those extra things kind of get pushed off to the side, and so let's not do that this week. I want you to send the text with a friend to a friend saying, let's find some actual time to talk and go back and forth as many times as needed to find a date and a time that works for both of you. Get it on the calendar, and then hold true to that just like you would a doctor's appointment.
And then I want you to see how you feel afterwards, and I bet it feels pretty good. I'm gonna do the same thing this week. I've got one specific friend that I am thinking about in Iowa that I am going to finish recording this podcast, and I'm gonna send a text and say, “When can we find time to catch up?” And that's gonna feel really good. I think this is gonna be a great social wellness invitation for our week. I hope you, I hope you join me for this.
As always, we're so grateful for you, Adrienne. Ugh. We're so grateful to all of the work that you do behind the scenes to make this happen, to get those social media posts out to remind us of these episodes. I just thank you so much for taking care of me so beautifully, and this whole community. Thank you to Solution Tree and Marzano Resources for all the gifts of being able to do this work that I love so much and to you, my badass Everyday Wellness Squad member. I'm so grateful that you are here. As always, if you love the podcast or take anything from it, if you could share or leave a review, we would really appreciate it getting the word out, and I can't wait to see you over in the Facebook group where I'm going to have posts every single day this week helping to remind us of this invitation so that we can stay connected to it. Make it a great week, you guys. I love you.
If this episode resonated with you, find more social wellness episodes here.
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