Friendships.....

I have been doing a lot of self awareness and healing work these days. I guess in the bustle of life, I had a little bit of a breather where I am not taking classes, the kids are fairly occupied so these days I can sit with my thoughts and make sense of them.

I have been thinking about friendships lately. Friendships are extremely important relationships that goes without saying but how important they have been to me lately was something I had not realized.
Friendship has so many facets, we have to be our own best friends before we can even begin to extend this gift to any one else. I feel most of the time we fail to do that, we are critical of our own selves, we shame our selves we are impatient with our selves and we do not extent a lot of love to our selves.  That is one thing I am actively trying to change.

Than there is the friendship between spouses. This is the most important friendship you will have in your entire life, I had read somewhere marry the person you love talking to because after the initial high fades its important to have that space where you can talk about anything. This requires a lot of courage because true friendship cannot exist without the capacity to be vulnerable with one another. Without truly allowing your self to be seen and feeling accepted relationships get stagnant. People become creatures of habit they are required to wear a constant facade, their relationships become routine and superficial.  For any true friendship to take place we have to have the capacity to be vulnerable and to be accepting of our own selves. When we are our own best friends and are accepting of our own selves we will have the capacity to extend that acceptance to others and most importantly to our partners.

I for one has always needed friends, people I can talk to openly about my challenges and triumphs. I guess for one things I am a person who needs to talk it out or write it out to process whatever I am going through. So yes over the years there have been friends whom I have leaned on for support. Most recently there has been some wonderful humans whom I have shared cups of tea with and spoken to length with about my trials and triumphs. I think the best gift we can give anyone is the gift of our time and presence. When some one is going through a rough patch, the best thing you can do is just listen and offer them a space without judgement, I have been very blessed to have had friends who gave me that. They were a witness to my life by listening to me by letting me cry and laugh and just be me.

I have met so many amazing girls and boys, men and women in my life journey so far. Some friends I know now,  I truly wish I had known when I was a younger and without the constraints of adult responsibilities we would have had some pretty mean adventures. We 'd have climbed trees and played hop scotch, talked well into the night over the phone and analyzed everything under the sun.

Some of our closest friendships are with our siblings and cousins, I have had those too. People I relied on and who no matter how far they are took the time to listen and be present. You see a true friendship cannot occur with masks and facades it requires us to be willing to let go of the fantasy version of our selves and of another. It requires us to be able to be seen in all our rawness.

For me personally a friendship is a precious thing. In the words of William J. Bennett

"Friendship is more than acquaintance, and it involves more than affection. Friendship usually rises out of mutual interests and common aims, and these pursuits are strengthened by the benevolent impulses that sooner or later grow. The demands of friendship frankness, for self-revelation, for taking friends' criticisms as seriously as their expressions of admiration or praise, for stand-by-me loyalty, and for assistance to the point of self-sacrifice are all potent encouragements to moral maturation and even ennoblement.

In our age, when casual acquaintance often comes so easily, and when intimacy comes too soon and too cheaply, we need to be reminded that genuine friendships take time. They take effort to make and work to keep. Friendship is a deep thing."

To all my dear dear friends old and new know that you are loved, you are seen and you matter. Today think about all the things that you love about your self and start being your own best friend. :)