Do friendships come to an end?
Before delving into today’s topic, I would like to thank those of you who preordered my book, thank you for your trust and support! We have reached the goal of 200 preorders and the book will indeed be printed at the end of the campaign, which is amazing. To celebrate that, the publisher has issued a 30% discount with the code ARTE30 that will be valid for 8 days, until Wednesday evening next week. Here’s the link to the campaign, if you want to use it.
Now, back to friendships. I often incur in the limit belief that friendships are supposed to last forever and, if they don’t, something must be wrong. We can accept - more or less gracefully - that romantic relationships come to an end; sometimes we even expect that, we know that sooner or later one of us will get bored or will find a brand new partner. But friendships, well, they are our rock: we can trust that they will last for long.
I strongly doubt that. I am not sure where all the limiting beliefs about friendship come from, but they only make it harder for us to deal with the fact that friendships can naturally come to an end, and that’s ok. It happens for many different reasons, but the bottom line is, I think, that every person in our lives is there to serve a purpose, and so are we in other people’s life. Perhaps a friend is there to show us our shadow, or maybe they trigger us in a way that is helpful to learn to say no, or we may learn that someone can be soothing in a way we have never experienced before. Once we have learnt what we had to learn, that friendship could potentially come to an end. The more we evolve in our path, the more it will be natural to be surrounded by new people that resonate with us, with our new vibration. If we want to allow that to happen, we need to create space: when our friendship pool is full, there won’t be space for new people to join. We need to have the courage to let someone go to create the opening to welcome someone else new. Also, beside any spiritual meaning, sometimes friendships end just because we don’t have many things in common anymore, or because we grow apart. That is also ok and no one is to blame. Some friendships end after a conflict, others simply dry out.
Have you ever ended a friendship, or perhaps have you ever been let go by a friend? How did that feel? I noticed that, when it happens, people tend to feel quite guilty or to be judgemental: because friendships are considered sacred, it’s then a shame to end them or to dumped. It triggers a lot of self doubt, for instance: I am bad person if I don’t want to see that friend anymore, or I am not good enough, otherwise they’d still be friends with me. Have you ever thought that a friendship could be toxic? We know that we are supposed to exit a toxic romantic relationship, which is hard enough, but it’s even harder to think of closing a toxic friendship: what will people think of me?! To even think of ending it with a friend sounds like e desecration.
What are your limiting beliefs about friendships? Do you have any friends you are not happy with or you are mistreated by? How would you feel if that person was not in your life anymore? We keep focusing on building healthy romantic relationships, but at times we forget that we need to build healthy friendships as well, as they can be just as codependent or unhealthy as romantic ones: in fact we will most likely repeat the same patterns. Notice how you feel with your friends, is similar to how you feel with your partner? Do you spot the same dynamics?
It would be so much easier if we could just accept that friends can come and go - and perhaps some of them will stay for a long time, but they don’t have to. Can we accept that there’s a flow and be open to the new? We cling to what we know because we fear change, but change could bring us something good. Do you have enough trust to give it a go?
Having said that, some friendships really do last for a very long time, forever even, and that’s an incredible experience that I hope we could all encounter in our lives.
Sending light and love,
Francesca