Tag: friendship

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Healthy Relationships?

How do we know if our relationships (partnerships,friendships) are healthy?

Ask of yourself: Do you honour or betray yourself while in relationship with this person? 
Do you grow in a meaningful way or are you just going through the motions around them, checked out?
Do you feel challenged or complacent?
Do you feel celebrated or merely tolerated?

Our time and energy are finite resources. Don’t be casual with who and how you spend them. The more we pour into powerful, present, intimate relationships, the more powerful we ourselves shall become.

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Friendship, Vulnerability, Asking For Help, and West Wing→

A man was walking down a street when he fell into a hole and the walls were so steep he couldn’t get out. So the man in the hole began to cry out for help.

A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, ‘Hey you. Can you help me out?’ The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, ‘Father, I’m down in this hole can you help me out?’ The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on

Then a friend walks by, ‘Hey, Joe, it’s me can you help me out?’ And the friend jumps in the hole.

Our guy, aghast, says, ‘Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here.’ but his friend says, ‘Yeah, but I’ve been down here before… and I know the way out.’

Right now, all of us are in one of two places: We are either stuck in a hole… or we’re walking along the street, able to see these holes all around, able to hear those calling out.

For those of you stuck, maybe you are too afraid to ask for help, or ashamed. Maybe you don’t realize you’re stuck or you convinced yourself its not that bad. Or maybe you have so many prescriptions and prayers piled up at your feet that you’ve all but given up hope of getting out.

Hold on. Keep going. There are those out there who will stop and help. And sometimes even the earth itself shifts and changes the landscape.

And for those of you walking on the street, I know its easier to throw prayers and prescriptions–likes, comments, critiques, judgments. It’s easier to keep walking along, minding your own business, taking care of yourself and yours.And that to jump down and help someone out, to make yourself vulnerable again, to give your most valuable resources of time, energy, and love to someone, can be scary–it might backfire, it might be difficult.

Be brave. Reach down. Jump in.

You don’t have to jump into every hole. That would be foolish, because you don’t know the way out of every hole. But you’ll know which ones are familiar, and which ones aren’t. Pick the ones you know.

If you want meaningful community and deeper friendship, you must also be willing to show up where you can. You must be willing to look up from your phone, move beyond your apathy or fear, and jump in.

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M: On Friendship, Labels, and Language→

I’ve been having a couple of really fascinating conversations around friendship and language the last few days. Over the last decade, the integration of the internet into daily life has enabled us to sustain a larger number of personal, platonic relationships than in the past–with wide variances in levels of intimacy and mutual responsibility.

The word ‘friend’, which was past reserved for a smaller circle of intimate relationships, has been commodified and diluted..and is now used frequently and casually in modern society to describe this entire, wider spectrum–from casual acquaintances to those closest to our hearts.

There are a number of problems with this, but mostly, it is that this label of ‘Friend’ no longer communicates any meaningful information about the nature of that human connection or the level of intimacy and emotional truthfulness shared. Everyone has wildly different interpretations of the responsibilities that come with the assignment of the title of friend–with turmoil ensuing.

Brainpickings, a while back, made a pretty lovely post on the subject with a diagrammatic attempt to clarify this striation of platonic relationship. It definitely was a stand out in my memory, and informed my own private approach to understanding, clarifying, and categorizing the relationships in my life (which in turn helps me appropriately invest my time & energy).

Definitely take a read of this quick little article (like 6 minute read!). I also want to drop in this fantastic excerpt from Seneca( on the subject of friendship from Letters). I came across this about 10 years ago, and it definitely impacted the way I conceptualized and approached building my more meaningful Friend-ships.

“If you consider any man a friend whom you do not trust as you trust yourself, you are mightily mistaken and you do not sufficiently understand what true friendship means.

When friendship is settled, you must trust; before friendship is formed, you must pass judgment.

Those persons who put last first confound their duties–who judge a man after they have made him their friend, instead of making him their friend after they have judged him.

[So] ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship; but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul. Speak as boldly with him as with yourself…”

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Vulnerability, Reciprocity, and Being Able to Fully Express our Love→

“We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection.

Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.

Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare” – Brene Brown

A good read and reminder: Time is too precious to be investing in relationships and endeavours that are not contributing to our growth, where we can not be our authentic selves, where we have to ‘hold back’, where we find ourselves waiting for permission, reciprocity, support, affection, or respect.

Who are the people in your life that you are most vulnerable with, and in what spaces? Are you giving your time, energy, and affection in the people and things that truly love and lift you?

I read this as a reminder to invest in the people that are ready to celebrate and embrace you wholehearted, who keep you accountable, who commit to your growth, to choose places where you can be vulnerable and honest, experiences where you can be fully expressed… For we all deserve to experience being seen, accepted, and loved, deeply.

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Respect yourself enough to walk away from anyone or anything that no longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy.

“Respect yourself enough to walk away from anyone or anything that no longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy”

🤔The last year I have spent a lot of time meditating on relationships, and observing both others and myself in relationships–whether it be with family, friends, or partners.

I should start first by saying that tension is a natural element of any relationship, as is conflict. But I am going to speak to when tension tips over into toxicity, when it goes from healthy to harmful.

And some of the most common markers I’ve noticed in unhealthy relationships, and the unhappiness that accompanies them, are 
1️⃣️️ an unwillingness to set, maintain, and respect boundaries, 
2️⃣️ a consistent and habitual willingness to forego and compromise on personal needs, and 
3️⃣ a slow growing complacency with mistreatment. 
(Not to mention a breakdown in communication)

I’ve been there, and understand some of the psychology behind it. And often times, we wish to give those we love the benefit of the doubt, another chance, patience in their growth despite the harm they cause, and more. We see their potential, and perhaps who they could be as their best self. We believe they can grow and change. And, in most cases, many of the good things we love about them are still there right alongside all the bad.

So, really, I *can* appreciate where the excuse-making, chance-giving, exception-granting, and tireless patience comes from (out of love)–but what I have learned to see and wish others to see is that doing these things are a form of self-harm.❌Every time we grant a toxic person another exception, excuse, chance, etc, we forego our own needs, weaken our own boundaries, and open the door to compromising ourselves and our happiness

📖When I read back on my annual reflection/post from earlier this year, I was struck again by this call to action I wrote:

➡️Stop putting up with people in your life who drain you.
➡️Stop making excuses and granting chances
➡️Stop waiting for people to come back, to change, to give a damn. 
➡️Stop standing for people who don’t stand for you.”

I still believe this is a worthwhile meditation and reminder. However, I want to add: ❕That it is OKAY to stop❕

It is OKAY to remove someone from your life — even those that you still love and care about– if they are causing harm or affecting you negatively. Not only is it OKAY, it is the right thing to do.

▫️Is it hard? Likely. 
▫️But is it healthy? Yes.

Because each person has a limited amount of time, energy, and love to give. And, every time we invest in people who harm our happiness, who overstep boundaries, who refuse to communicate, who aren’t helping us grow, we are actively working against ourselves.

As this post started:
“Respect yourself enough to walk away from anyone or anything that no longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy”

Because… when you do this… when you REALLY do this, you will discover that instead of losing something, in fact you will have opened yourself up to new connections, new growth, new friendship, and new love, including self-love.❤️

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“While investing deeply in one person, one place, one job, one activity might deny us the breadth of experience we’d like, pursuing a breadth of experience denies us the opportunity to experience the rewards of depth of experience. There are some experiences that you can have only when you’ve lived in the same place for five years, when you’ve been with the same person for over a decade, when you’ve been working on the same skill or craft for half your lifetime. Now that I’m in my thirties, I can finally recognize that commitment, in its own way, offers a wealth of opportunity and experiences that would otherwise never be available to me, no matter where I went or what I did.” – Mark Mason

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The Lesson of Independence

We are taught of the virtue of Independence at a young age.

This isn’t inherently a bad lesson. However, it is often taken too far.  Rather than developing positive self-security in our relationships with others, we grow indignant distance and an unconscious, almost inherent, refusal to connection.

We grow afraid to ask for help or to develop any sort of dependency on others.  ‘I can do it for myself’ or ‘I don’t need any help’ have become common phrases in most vocabularys today. In fact, our abilities to work independently without assistance is often applauded and rewarded in corporate systems.

But In this process, we also grow afraid of showing weakness, we build up a fear of rejection, we grow paranoid of others.  Before we know it, all of these elements of insecurity bloom in our extreme striving for independence.

Daily Reminder:

So what I am writing to remind myself of today is that: Independence is a virtue, but not at the expense of your ability to connect.

Take time every now and then to evaluate your decisions and priorities. Are you avoiding making deeper connections or establishing meaningful relationships because they might require you to negotiate the terms of your independence (not staying out as late, scheduling around someone elses schedule, moving to another location..)? Question this, question your perceived ‘needs’ for space, place, and things.

REMEMBER:

Beautiful places and things can be easily acquired.

Fulfilling careers and communities can be created with a little skill.

But quality people are the sustenance of life, and require continued cultivation in order to reap their gifts. When you find worthy people, cherish and nurture those relationships. Lean into them. Do not demand absolute independence, but rather invite those important to you to serve as pillars and partners in your life. Give and let yourself be given to.