#79: Friendships in Midlife, with Brooke Ledbetter

Love Is Us: Exploring Relationships and How We Connect

Listen to Karin and Brooke discuss the importance of friendships and how to bring more of them into your life.

Friendships - including intimate relationships - fortify our mental health and, consequently, our physical health. When we don’t have these relationships, it can have a negative effect on our brain and can become harder to deal with stress and adversity.

Hear Brooke talk about how to attract new friendships into your life and why having one deep relationship, such as with a romantic partner, isn’t enough. She and Karin also discuss how women in midlife can manage the discomfort that comes up when trying to make new friends at a time when their lives are changing and have more available time.

Developing new friendships isn’t easy. Brooke and Karin discuss the importance of patience, intentionality, persistence, and the need to take risks and be vulnerable. And, possibly, most importantly, the need to be a friend to yourself first so you have a healthy, balanced foundation to start from.

Brooke Ledbetter is a writer, coffee professional, dog mom, and aspiring plant mom. She enjoys writing about mental health, spirituality, relationships, and above all, hope.

After a seismic displacement of her core group of friends, she began to ask the question: is there a better way to do friendship? Through a lot of searching, healing, praying, and research, her debut book, "Closer than a Brother," was born. It is a celebration of friendship and an invitation to grow in being a friend. Its estimated release date is March 6, 2025 and will be available for purchase wherever books are sold.

She lives in Lewisville, Texas with her mini aussie Juniper, where she is actively involved in her church and community. When not writing, you can find her at various coffee shops reading, or at home, trying desperately to keep her plants alive. Success rate is currently 50/50.

Learn more about Karin:

website: www.drcalde.com

Instagram: @theloveandconnectioncoach

Learn more about Brooke:

IG: @brooke.e.ledbetter

Follow her on Substack