Recently in Friendships Category

But the kind of folks you hang with influence you more than you think.

Peer pressure never goes away.

Multiple studies show that human beings unconsciously and consciously mimic the behaviors of those around them. Folks hanging out with optimists become optimists themselves. Women who cheat on their husbands dally with other cheaters. 

In his insightful book, "Bounce: Living the Resilient Life," psychology professor Robert Wicks recommends that we invite into our circle of friends four types of people: the prophet, the cheerleader, the harasser, and guides. By including these different voices and friends into our life, he argues, we can become more resilient to life's blows.

1. The Prophet

The prophet is the type of person that calls us on any misguided attempts at something, makes us accountable for our behavior, and prompts us to be honest, even when that is not easy. The prophet challenges us, and can be a royal pain at times, but ultimately helps us to find freedom. Says Wicks, "Prophets point! They point to the fact that it doesn't matter whether pleasure or pain is involved, the only thing that matters is that we seek to see and live 'the truth' because only it will set us free."

2. The Cheerleader

To balance out the provocation and questioning of a prophet, a person also must have a few cheerleader friends: folks who offer unconditional love, support, and acceptance. Wicks says we need the encouragement of the cheerleader as much as the criticism and feedback of the prophet because "burnout is always around the corner when we don't have people who are ready to encourage us, see our gifts clearly, and be there for us when our involvement with people, their sometimes unrealistic demands, and our own crazy expectations for ourselves threaten to pull us down."

3. The Harasser

After we've been criticized and loved, we need to laugh. That's why we need harassers, the third kind of friend, who helps us to see the humor in life's frustrations and calamities. They help us to mock our unrealistic expectations, of ourselves and of others. Says Wicks, "This type of friend helps us regain and maintain perspective."

4. Guides

And finally, we need guides. Listeners. People who will, according to Wicks, "search and look for nuances in what we share with them to help us to uncover some of the 'voices' that are unconsciously guiding our lives, especially the ones that make us hesitant, anxious, fearful, and willful."

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There were so many interesting, insightful, and compassionate responses on the combox of my post, "What Do I Do About a Toxic Friend?" If you are struggling with this yourself, you have good company. You can get to the comments by clicking here. Among them:

I think your story illustrates how important it is for us to look at our own roles in creating the "toxic relationships" we're in. It's easy for us to label another person as "toxic" but that denies our own responsibility for how we relate with them -- how we agree to be "used" by them, how we withhold our anger at them, and so on. --Chris Edgar

How wonderful that you figured out "what motivated you" to deal with your friend. Abuse comes in many forms- from different people or places. My definition of abuse: "anything that hurts us or makes us compromise ourselves and core values." We would never drink poison- so, I think removing toxic people from our lives is as simple as making a healthy choice "to live". We all deserve loving relationships and to be cared for. --Anonymous

I recently ended a 30 friendship because I got sick of our "friendship" always being about her. It was also 'a place for her to boast'. I've been for years her poor relative. It ended badly and I handled the whole thing poorly. For that I've been asking God for forgiveness. However, I've have also been asking Him for counsel regarding whether or not I'm doing the right thing by ignoring her attempts to reconnect. --Debra

There is no getting away from toxic people, and it was a huge AH! moment for me when I realized I was as toxic to some people, as they were to me. I also came to understand that many of my relationships were forged out of "like pain." We are attracted to people who are on the same level of emotional pain as our self. This explained why my relationships were so dysfunctional: marriage, best-friends, family relationships, etc. I was in pain! As I learned to heal from the wounds of my past, which by the way is a choice, my relationships changed and healed also. --Anonymous

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A few weeks ago, a Beyond Blue reader asked me what to do regarding a toxic friendship. She wrote:

I have been told that envy is my least becoming quality. But what do you expect from a girl who grew up with three gorgeous sisters within three years of me? Cute junior-high boys used me to get to my popular twin sister, and the lady who cleaned my childhood house referred to my older sister as "the pretty one." That's fodder for an insecurity problem.

Now I know that the fastest way to despair is by comparing one's insides with another's outsides, and that Max Ehrmann, the author of the classic poem "Desiderata," was absolutely correct when he said that if you compare yourself with others you become either vain or bitter, or, as Helen Keller put it: "Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged."

But Helen and Max don't keep me from going to the land of comparisons and envy. Before long, I'm salivating over someone else's book contract, or blog traffic numbers, or "Today Show" appearance. Then I have to pull out my set of directions--these 12 techniques--that will lead me out of the continent of jealousy and home, to self-acceptance:

1. Get more information.

Most of the time we envy one quality about a person, and we presume the rest of her qualities are as perfect as the one we want. That's usually not the case. Think Rain Man. Boy did he know how to count those straws and play poker. But his social skills needed some fine-tuning, yes? Do some research on the person you want to temporarily destroy and you will find that she has her own set of problems and weaknesses. Moreover, if you consider her success in context, you'll see that she hasn't always been a superstar--that maybe, just maybe, back when you got a blue ribbon for the fastest freestyle swimmer in the 7 to 8 age group, she was afraid to dive in the pool or couldn't figure out how to swim without getting water up her nose. My point: you don't have the full story. Once you do, you'll feel better. I think.

A friend of mine recently suggested that I ask God to personalize a meditation for me ... to pick up either the Bible or some spiritual author and start flipping the pages until I feel my spirit move.

This morning was the first time I tried it. I picked up one of my favorite books, Henri Nouwen's "The Inner Voice of Love." I opened the book to one of his reflections called "Be a Real Friend." It was exactly what I needed.

I've been writing/speaking about friendships a lot lately because I've really been struggling with some of mine. It's a result of building boundaries, like I said in my video, and expecting more from some of my friendships than I did in the past. When I feel like I'm being used or exploited in some way, I get out, instead of sitting still for fear of making waves. I still hate waves, of course. I'm still largely a people-pleaser, but I think I respect and love myself a bit more than I did even a year ago, and so that change is reflected in some of my relationships.

Henri Nouwen's meditation helped me to make sense of these transitions, and assess, once more, what, exactly, I want in a friendship. Maybe his words will do the same for you.

He writes:

Friendship has been a source of great pain for you. You desired it so much that you often lost yourself in the search for a true friend. Many times you became desperate when a friendship you hoped for didn't materialize, or when a friendship begun with great expectations did not last. 

Many of your friendships grew from your need for affection, affirmation, and emotional support. But now you must seek friends to whom you can relate from your center, from the place where you know that you are deeply loved. Friendship becomes more and more possible when you accept yourself as deeply loved. Then you can be with others in a non-possessive way. Real friends find their inner correspondence where both know the love of God. There spirit speaks to spirit and heart to heart.

True friendships are lasting because true love is eternal. A friendship in which heart speaks to heart is a gift from God, and no gift that comes from God is temporary or occasional. All that comes from God participates in God's eternal life. Love between people, when given by God, is stronger than death. In this sense, true friendships continue the boundary of death. When you have loved deeply, that love can grow even stronger after the death of the person you love. That is the core message of Jesus.

You have to trust that every true friendship has no end, that a communion of saints exists among all those, living and dead, who have truly loved God and one another. You know from experience how real that is. Those you have loved deeply and who have died live on in you, not just as memories but as real presences.

Dare to love and to be a real friend. The love you give and receive is a reality that will lead you closer and closer to God as well as to those whom God has given you to love.

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