How to discover who your REAL friends are.

Ah friendship.  From childhood we seek those people out who we wish to connect with and befriend.  In our early years, our parents have carte blanche deciding this and then as we arrive to school-age we gravitate to same-gender friends.  By junior-high we select friends based on common-interest and peer pressure to adhere to social groups.  By high school, some adolescents have begun to experiment with opposite gender friendships by dating.  This ultimately leading to marriage and the most challenging friendship of all.  Some people have a best friend for life while others find friends for any season of their life.  Friendship has only a few rules and can vary from person to person based on their cultural ideas of friendship and relationships in general.  But as always, my perspective is based solely on my personal journey.  Friends, husband and boyfriends, and enemies, are ALL a part of my journey that have impacted me deeply.  Now, on the otherside of the spiritual picture of things, I can see my relationships with clarity and succinctness.  I have been able for the first time to see myself and how I look to others and how they really affect me or don't affect me.  Taking that a bit deeper, I am able to trust my feelings and instincts more now then ever before because in order to do that you must first TRUST YOURSELF.  It is never ever about trusting the other person or not trusting the other person.  It is only and always, about trust in yourself.

First you must work on you.  You must find the real you.  From childhood we are jaded.  It is unavoidable...a hazard of being human.  We have difficulties or perhaps a little too much perfection, and then as adults we become confused.  I am 37 (proudly!) years old and I can see now the error of my twenties.  I now face the hardest choices of my life.  I am in the biggest rut of my existence.  And do you know how I feel about that? 

I FEEL AMAZING ABOUT IT!

I love that I have work to do.  I love that I have obstacles to overcome.  I love that I am not perfect or famous or idolized by millions or idolized by a man!  I love being the "loser".  I have nowhere to go but up!  I have life to live...I have breath in my lungs...I AM ALIVE for the very purpose of correcting these things that have plagued my life forever.  I am alive.  I can appreciate this because I have a baby brother who is dead...taken at age 21 from this world and he no longer has that chance, but I DO and I will honor that.  I will cherish it.  And so should we all.  We are alive today because by the Divine Grace in which we put our faith and belief we are here and we are creators!

So you must first work on you.  Gaining the ability to trust yourself can be complicated business.  You need a community or a trusted advisor to bounce things off of constantly because gaining trust in yourself requires that you absolutely fail from time to time.  And not just fail a little, I mean you really have to blow it big time!  Think of KING DAVID from the Old Testament of the Bible.  Go ahead and get your Bible out and research this if you did not know it already.  David (beloved of God) failed.  He let his fleshy desires and his urges and his evil thoughts lead him to arrogance and destruction.  He was a murderer and did some really evil things.  But David was not evil.  And neither are you and neither am I.  Let that sink in for a few moments...

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You are LOVE and were created by LOVE to be and feel and give and receive love freely.  In order to do this you must become the vessel for LOVE.  Not a teacup-shaped vessel that seeks to be filled and then refilled, but more of a tube-shaped vessel with openings on both sides so that as you become filled, you must share.  You are more the connector of love rather than it's receiver at all.  Your job as a Human Being, if you allow it, is to channel love from it's Divine source, through you, and immediately out to everyone around you.  This is how it is supposed to work.  How we normally proceed with all matter of relations (friendship, self-love and romantic love), is that we seek fullfillment from sources that are non-renewable or might be non-renewable.  For example, and this is just the easiest kind of example, if you are seeking romantic love fullfillment, you may find immediate gratification in a sexual encounter.  Physical love (sex) is very powerful and it feels great.  The problem is, if that is where you are filling up your portion of love then in a matter of time, you will need to find another sexual encounter to fill you up again.  This process is much like a drug addict who needs to continue seeking out drugs to get their high.  It does not last.  More importantly, there is little feeling of accomplishment.  Accomplishing real love is a lot like eating a carbohydrate with a protein and then shortly after, another protein.  It SUSTAINS your elation and feeling of satisfaction.  A way to achieve this "feeling" is to really put yourself into any friendship or relationship with the intention of GIVING....more than RECEIVING.  When you do, you will feel the difference because the difference will be that you don't dip down into a diabetic coma and need a quick shot of sugar to send you flying.  No, instead, you get a sustained feeling of satisfaction for living the RIGHT way.

That analogy was loaded with romantic love stuff, so how does that apply to friendships?  The same way, I am afraid.  If you want great friendships, you have to be the giver.  No need to worry, because when you realize a person is no good for you, you will feel it in your gut and you will know.  But you cannot get to that level of feeling until you have really let yourself (trusted yourself) to be that friend!  You must jump in and have nothing interfere with your desire to give.  Now this is exactly the method but there are myriad causes to interfere with achieving this.  Misunderstandings, egos, differences of opinions and poor choices are some of the main causes that break up good friendships.  Unfortunately, these are the same habits that will just as certainly DRAW OR ATTRACT the "wrong" types to you.  This is why parents are so cautious and screen their kids' friends and the kids friends' parents.  You cannot assume avery person who has a child is a good person because it is simply not true.  And you cannot assume that a person who has a "difficult" child is a bad parent.  See how looks and impressions can deceive us?  Although I cannot think of a solid example for that last statement, I will stand by it.  I have been in the childcare business for most of my working career and have known many parents and children.  All I can say is , REALLY take the time to get to know people. 

So how will you discover who are your real friends?   In a word?        KARMA.

Karma..fate...intuition...these are your best chance of knowing confidently.  But even if someone intends to cause you heartbreak, there is little that can be done to prevent it.  You must allow them to choose because in every second there is hope for a person to change.  We must have faith in people...cautiously have faith.  And watch your friend's karma.  What do they do?  Who do they associate with?  How do they treat the people in their lives and how much respect to they treat their resources with?  If they are careless with their stuff, they may be careless with your feelings.  In fact, they WILL be. I did not conduct a character study....just looking at my sampling of the population which has been a lot.  In my lifetime I have known and befriended thousands of people.  I am very social. As I begin 2012 I have a mental  short list of people that I  know really truly understand me.  In fact, I can think of less than 5 who fit the category.  And honestly, that is okay with me.  But when I think of haw many people I really believe I KNOW and UNDERSTAND deeply...I can think of hundreds.  The reason for this?  I care.  I care deeply.

~namaste