Connecting with Friends

You’re going through something big right now. It might occupy every moment of your day in some way. During difficult times I, as many others do, lean on my closest friends.

Great friends are supportive, patient, understanding, attentive listeners, and often know just the right thing to do or say to lighten the mood.

In your time of need, they’re present and helping you to tend to your wellbeing.

Now, spare a thought for what kind of friend you are at the moment.

Have you ever had that one friend who went through a break up and it was all they could talk about? And it was kind of a downer; you just knew you were going to get roped into the same conversation over and over again. You love them and want to do what you can, but you can only go over the same material so many times before it becomes unhelpful. I have known people like this and I myself have been this person with previous breakups.

My takeaway from these experiences was that, when I had the capacity to do so, I always wanted to remain involved in the big and small details of my friends’ lives.

The truth is, while you’re going through some of the most difficult times in your life your friends or family might be experiencing the most wonderful events. For example, my sister got engaged and married when I was in the throes of divorce, and it was amazing! In fact, I think being separated helped me appreciate the wedding more because if I had remained in an unworkable marriage, I would have been quite jaded about the whole thing. Instead, I was hopeful about their love and was able to fully celebrate their special day.

But it doesn’t only have to be the big things that feature. I recall one time messaging one of my best friends because I had just had a contentious argument with my ex. She let me vent and offered some sage advice, and then after asking how her day was, we spent another 45 minutes discussing the merits of her new haircut.

As I see it, in the ‘friend world’ both are equally important. If it matters to my friend, it matters to me.

A really beautiful thing started to happen when I began reconnecting with my friends in this way. I was so insulated in my particular marriage that raising kids and working had gotten the best of me. Emerging from my coupledom, I could again be generous with my time. I was reconnecting with people who were caretakers of more authentic versions of myself. For as much as I had to morph and change to be in the relationship I was in, when I came back to my friends, they allowed me to fully be who I was…and in many cases reminded me of the parts that had been masked for so long.

Your closest, most genuine friends may help reacquaint you with the pieces you thought you had lost and that’s a pretty cool thing.

So, here are a few things to keep in mind with your friends:

1.       Ask them about how they’re doing. They care about you and want to help you, but they have their own complex lives as well.

2.       Sweat the small stuff with them; work dramas, a new haircut, whatever. If it’s important to them it should be important to you.

3.       Give updates but spread the info around so that no single person is carrying the weight of everything.

Friends are not only there to help you get through hard things, they also make life so much more fun and interesting and joyful.