421. Coaching Hotline: Are Some Circumstances Harder for Thought Work Than Others?
UnF*ck Your Brain: Feminist Self-Help for Everyone
Kara Loewentheil
4.6 • 5.5K Ratings
🗓️ 9 September 2025
⏱️ 14 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Ever catch yourself overthinking how you show up around men—or in any situation where you feel judged? In this Coaching Hotline episode, I answer a listener’s question about maintaining platonic friendships while married and unpack why women are socialized to take responsibility for other people’s thoughts—a burden that’s impossible to carry and doesn’t belong to you.
Then we dive into whether some circumstances actually require more thought work than others, using the workplace as an example. You’ll learn why what feels “hard” for you isn’t about the circumstance—it’s about your thinking—and how embracing that insight can change the way you navigate relationships, work, and life.
Submit your own question here and it might get answered on a future episode: unfuckyourbrain.com/coachinghotline
Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://schoolofnewfeministthought.com/421
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to unfuck your brain. I'm your host Kara Lowentile, master-certified coach, and founder of the School of New Feminist Thought. I'm here to help you turn down your anxiety, turn up your confidence, and create a life on your own terms, one that you're truly excited to live. |
| 0:21.3 | Let's go. |
| 0:24.8 | Welcome to this week's coaching hotline episode where I answer real questions from real listeners |
| 0:31.2 | and coach you from afar. |
| 0:33.6 | If you want to submit your question for consideration, go to unfuck your brain.com forward slash |
| 0:39.5 | coaching hotline, all one word, or text your email to plus one 347-997-1784. |
| 0:48.2 | And when you get prompted for the code word, it's coaching hotline, all one word. |
| 0:52.6 | Let's get into this week's questions. Here is question |
| 0:57.0 | number one. Hi, Kara. Thanks for being an amazingly awesome force in my life. You are very welcome. |
| 1:04.1 | I am, for all intents and purposes of this question, a cis straight monogamish married lady. |
| 1:10.5 | I have a number of close guy friends. In the past, |
| 1:13.2 | I've had some issues with awkwardness around being attracted to each other and or being perceived as |
| 1:17.4 | flirting. I know I can't prevent awkwardness forever, but I really want to set myself up to make |
| 1:22.0 | these current platonic friendships last. I also think that I need to ask myself some questions about how |
| 1:27.0 | I have been socialized as a woman. What behaviors am I putting out that I need to ask myself some questions about how I have been socialized |
| 1:27.9 | as a woman. What behaviors am I putting out that are reflections of how society tells me to act |
| 1:32.5 | around men? Do you have any ideas for me? So this is a great question. I actually want to start with, |
| 1:38.3 | as usual, not exactly what you asked, because you wrote, I want to set myself up to make these current platonic |
| 1:45.4 | friendships last. So remember that you don't get to control whether those friendships last. |
| 1:52.3 | I feel like the undertone of this question, although I could be wrong, is that in the past, |
| 1:57.1 | people have thought you were flirting, and that's been a problem that impacted the relationship in some way. |
| 2:02.8 | If somebody else doesn't want to be friends with you because they don't actually want a platonic friendship, |
... |
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