To have a friend

I was talking with someone yesterday who was "struggling" with some relationships with quite a few people in his life. He went through a lot of examples, how they've played out and how he feels "so betrayed and disappointed. It seems so unfair." He even appeared tearful.

Eventually he asked me, "what do you think?" I instantly told him, "To have a friend we have to know how to be a friend. And the first person that we have to befriend is ourselves." He looked at me and said, "but what about how they are treating me?" And I responded, "what about how we tend to treat ourselves?" He then asked me to "explain."

When we are dealing in relationships with other people, we tend to look at what they are doing and saying very closely. Because of this, they can end up having a lot of power, if for no other reason that we are distracted from looking at ourselves clearly. When things start to go so-called "wrong" we can blame others for how we feel, rather than take responsibility for our own feelings. It's always easier to confess others sins, rather than look at how we create gaps and separations with people in our life.

I went on to explain that, "While people have the ability to influence our feelings, they don't actually control how I feel." If we recognize that fact, there is one piece of the puzzle to learning how to be our own friend. Other things which are very important are personal integrity, honesty, openmindedness, compassion, empathy and having a genuine sense of positive self-esteem. The reason why these principles are so important is that they help to keep us "balanced" and "afloat." Without internalizing these principles our emotional and psychological boat will sink, like a rock.

The last thing I told him was this. "I encourage you to stop gossiping about people. That ruins a lot of friendships. Why? Because when we are gossiping about people, we are never concentrating on their positives, we're looking at the negatives. We are confessing their sins."

I myself prefer to catch people doing things "right," as opposed to doing things wrong. It makes things a lot easier on me and other. I pointed out to him that by coming to me and talking about his negative feelings was actually a good thing, because he was not "bottling-up" his feelings. That's actually a sign of being healthy. When he noticed that I was "catching" him doing something right, he actually smiled and said, "I see what you mean."

It is true that "to have a friend, we need to BE a friend", not just to others, but ourselves as well.

Namaste'

Jaye Morris, Curator
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