Friendships fill us up. Our connection to other humans sustains our well-being. Friendship is knowing you have someone to lean on when you need it. It’s the feeling that you can connect with someone in the dark as well as the joyful times of life. We thrive on connecting with others: it’s what keeps us alive. Without it we can become deeply lonely, cynical, thirsty for touch and really sad.
There are many ways we can create connection in our lives whether through work, recreation, social gatherings, intimate relationships, friends or family. I want to find my go-to, been-in-the-trenches-with-you soul sisters or brothers that I can hold close in the good and bad times.
Sometimes, however, we make poor choices and trust the wrong people. I have. Like many of us, I have found the courage to divulge my deep, dark secrets. Sharing them is a deeply vulnerable act and it can be destructive if they are not respected. I have mistakenly trusted the wrong people with my secrets and been so poorly treated that I, as a result, became completely disoriented in all of my relationships. In the past, if I trusted someone with details about myself (someone with whom I thought I was sharing a sacred and trusting relationship), and they hurt me, I would have decided I couldn’t trust myself to choose wisely.
Here is what I now know: I know that friendships are built. I know that friendships develop over time. I know that the friends who are willing to see you for all that you are, in your hardest struggles, with your deepest secrets, the ones who will celebrate with you when you finally find success, are limited to one, maybe two, and if you’re really lucky, three in a lifetime. It takes time to find out if someone is going to stick around. I am discerning early on in my relationships so that I can weave through some of the muddy communication and avoid wasting time on the wrong connections.
In Dr. Brené Brown’s research on belonging, she discovers that true friendships and connections come when they are “not at the cost of your authenticity, freedom and power”. This is a fantastic measure to check in with. Do you have to make sacrifices to your authenticity, freedom or power in order to hold a relationship? If so, it is absolutely worth evaluating that relationship.
Have you ever been so completely loved by someone that when you called them in a somber, snot-running, tear-streaming state, they said, “I’m coming, I’m here for you”? Someone who did not try to talk you out of feeling what you were feeling, but was there hold your hand when ‘sadness’ was too plain a word to explain how you felt?
It’s so easy to be friends with people when they are happily enjoying life and thriving in any endeavor. No problem. It’s when we are challenged that we know who our friends are. Truly.
What kind of friend are you? Are you able to be there for your close friends, are you able to listen without needing to express your opinions? Are you able to work on those friendships and not turn away when you see something you don’t like? Are you able to go to that soul sister or brother in the biggest devastation of their lives, know that their story is theirs and not yours, and sit with them in their pain without being overcome by it? Can you take their hand, sit patiently and say, “I am here”?
What kind of friendships do you want more of? What is most important to you? Have you ever considered that before? You get to choose who surrounds you. You have permission to give more to those who are dear to your heart and spend far less time with those who drain you.
Dr. Brené Brown also states that you can “learn to be present with people without having to sacrifice who you are”.
Be discerning with yourself and with whom you let into your inner sanctum. Once someone is in my inner circle I will honor and respect them. I protect those I love (including myself) with a intense fierceness. I will do anything for them. I will support and encourage them. I will let them be as long as I receive the same in return. I will love with all my heart.
In what ways are you discerning?
Love
Noelle