We often read what is expected of us as a friend…
We might see posts on Facebook for instance, where there is disappointment expressed… People not being there, letting us down when we needed a friend.
We might hit hard times, and ‘know who our friends are’, because those are the ones that stay or help or support or talk…
There are covert rules in friendship, set up without discussion. Sometimes these work just fine, with two people ‘working’ off the same ‘map’, with the same beliefs and ideals…
We are always existing in multiple levels of context…
Whenever two people meet, there will first be the relationship between them – in this case friendship – and the episode, which might be meeting for a coffee and a catch up…
Then comes the unseen ‘map’ both carry with a whole set of internal, sometimes unconscious, beliefs about what happens next… These will be based on family ideals as well as societal, cultural and spiritual beliefs…
And it isn’t until one of these is ‘broken’ that they reveal themselves.
A family belief or rule for friend 1 might be to always send a thank you note for a gift or a treat. If this isn’t true for friend 2 then when they don’t receive the thank you note, they might feel unloved, disappointed, let down, under valued.
So once again we return to the space.
The space between two friends is where the relationships exist; how safe and how full and how abundant this space is defines the quality of the relationship.
This can only be worked out in each case; and the most important person is ourselves…
Because nothing is personal.
So if a friend has some different ‘ways’ to us, then if they ‘touch our buttons’ in any way; the first action is to clear our reactivity.
For instance, we must investigate and seek to clear the feeling of upset if a friends hasn’t sent a thank you note, or is late for a meet up, or hasn’t been in touch for a long time, or takes longer than we might to reply to a text…
Because any reaction is ours to clear… Do we feel abandoned, let down, unloved?
From a clear space we will be in a position to explore the ‘rules’ within the relationship. It will become evident whether it is simply something that now doesn’t matter a jot, or whether you would like a behaviour change, and if so, it is important that the space is safe to investigate this…
To create any ‘rules’ in friendship or in any relating, the higher the self esteem of all concerned the easier it is to explore. And high self worth comes through working to heal and clear anywhere within us that we do not feel good about ourselves.
Because of course there are things that build the relationship and things that break it down… So it is for us to work out when it is own reaction that is separating us, or whether the behaviour of another is not something we find enjoyable in friendship…
Friendship is meant to be fun, a place to share and love and be together, as well of course to grow.
Some friendships have seasons… Time when we do many things together, see one another a lot, share and love and laugh – and then life changes and there is a big gap – but this doesn’t mean that the space isn’t safe…
It can be silent and still with no meeting or talking for a long time; but still be safe and loving and ready for the next encounter.
And sometimes friendships end…
Although of course relationships cannot end or begin in the deepest sense because we are always all connected all of the time.
We are one…
But it is what we do with the connections at various times, when the illusion of separateness allows us to see ourselves more clearly in the mirror of the friend in front of us.
And if an apparent ending happens, then this means that there is no longer a reflection… Not for now anyway, because the orbit may occur in the future, and once again we find ourselves in the reflection of one another
And so it is…
The most important thing is that we strive to be the best friend to ourselves that we can be… That we heal the gaps to wholeness and true love of ourselves and then this will of course be reflected in the relationships we encounter in our lives.
