Interview with Caroline Fernandes by Bri Ryerson, Wellness Operations Intern

Caroline Fernandes is a psychotherapist in Atlanta, GA that helps others understand the meaning of life events and experiences to lead towards healing with her holistic psychotherapy center InnerVision Holistic Counseling. She uses a holistic approach to tackle childhood, developmental, racial, and spiritual trauma. She also helps navigate grief, depression, loss, betrayal, shame, sexual concerns, forgiveness, attachment, abandonment, and vulnerability. Caroline is trained in cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), dialectal behavioral therapy (DBT), brainspotting (BSP), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), neuroscience, psychodynamic therapy, planning, and strategizing. She also facilitates mindful processing as well, and is a holistic wellness life coach and consultant. You can find out more about Caroline through her website InnerVision Holistic Counseling or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Everyone needs someone they can laugh with and cry to, isn’t that what friends are for? Friendships can bring extreme value to your life and create a healthy and positive support system for your toughest life challenges. However, not all friendships are positive and healthy. How do we know when to walk away, and what is the next step?

How to Know When a Friendship is no Longer Serving You

How do we know when it’s over? Caroline says to “look for signs that you no longer feel heard. Sometimes we feel too familiar with others… and we finish each other's sentences.” This leads to a loss of individuality and can turn into unhealthy people pleasing. It is important that you feel heard and validated in your friendships because it can create feelings of being unsafe if not. If our personal expression is starting to fade within the friendship, that is a key indicator that we are unable to express our thoughts and feelings. Learn to recognize these signs and tap into how you truly feel when you are around that friend. 

With that being said, sometimes friendships are no longer serving us because we have simply grown out of the friendship. We need to have dependency on our friends, in a good way, as we are finding ourselves through the progression of life. Caroline explains that growing out of friendships is similar to growing out of clothes. “We outgrow relationships based on the time period and the stage in our lives. We outgrow clothes as we grow up when we are kids… do we give the clothes away to make more room for other things or hold onto it even though it doesn't serve us?” and if our needs are no longer being met in these friendships, we need to focus on “looking at the relationships in a positive light instead of trying to find a reason that we are growing out of the friendship”. 

Gossip and Competition… Where do we Draw the Line?

In Caroline’s perspective, it is best to handle gossip by directly approaching them. Make sure to confirm it first with information or confirmation, and make sure you are not just going off based on a feeling. Directly approaching the friend will show the strength of the relationship, as “a real friend wouldn't be hurt if you approach them and then you can go from there. Clarify first and then directly approach the friend. There are gentle ways of bringing it up. An example would be ‘Hey, I’m having some trust issues at the moment, let's talk about it’”.

For competition, Caroline says that some competition is good, like among siblings. However, it is important to lift each other up and maintain the boundaries of friendly competition. “‘Dance the dance together… not against each other’. Our intuition will always tell us what is right and wrong and… what is healthy and what is not”. Do not be dismissive or arrogant towards your friend while competing and set boundaries to make sure things do not go too far.

Ending a Friendship

Caroline emphasizes the importance of boundaries and how we should use those throughout our friendships. If a friendship is ending, we should approach the other and elaborate how we feel our needs are not being met or we are not feeling heard. Breaking up a friendship gently is the best way to go about it and make sure that you have that hard conversation even if you really do not want to. If a relationship or friendship is bringing out the worst in you, it can easily become toxic and move your energy off balance. Caroline encourages us to “listen to your body and intuition, which is so important in navigating life and relationships… pay attention to the small things that make you dread the friendship and if you need to take time off”. 

Learning to set boundaries and listening to our gut feelings is so important when deciding whether or not to walk away from a friendship. If a friendship is ending, directly approaching the friend about the issues can help a friend “break-up” go a lot smoother and keep both of you viewing the situation in a more positive light. Being gentle and understanding can lead to healthier friendships and relationships in the future and help you tackle those situations where you feel unheard and unappreciated. 

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Project Passport is a proactive mental wellness company that aims to bring mental wellness retreats, workshops and other services to company teams. We also help individuals create joy in their lives every step of the way. To learn more about our company retreats and services, click here. Our travel retreats will resume in the future as the world reopens.