Creating and developing friends is one of the first social skills we learn after developing relationships with our family. As we grow older, we learn that sharing, being nice, exchanging positive emotions, offering emotional support, celebrating, sharing interests and living life together are all part of what it means to be a friend.
Many people in contemporary culture, get caught in a hedonistic trap of drinking alcohol and pleasure seeking with companions. True friendship is much more.
A true friend is not just someone whom can laugh and share a beer with. Part of these relationships are found in the principles Ethical Intimacy, see Tool. When we can grow with someone in a platonic, intimate way we are vulnerable and transparent. We are able to reciprocate and allow space for dialogue and communication.
Our best friends love us and care deeply for what is in our best interest. We love our friends and that means we give them confidence in becoming the kinds of people they aspire to become when they don't believe in themselves. We can offer a light in the darkest of times so they, our friends, feel the social support necessary when embarking on unknown journeys or difficult life experiences.
Allowing ourselves to show weakness with others, the essence of vulnerability, is one of the properties of intimacy. Being close to someone is knowing that they will not judge you when you are at your lowest point. Our best friends offer a hand of support and lift us our of our dark moments.
We have to be transparent if anyone is truly going to know who we are or if we are to know ourselves. Honest, authentic representation of ourselves is essential to building meaningful relationships with others and developing our own self-awareness. People will often hide behind a facade of constructed public identities for which their true nature lies behind. If we can develop the skill of courage and not represent fake self from fear, even if our true self is rejected or harmed, we will become stronger and more resilient. If my fake selves are the only representation I am strengthening, when I need my true self for the most important moments to be strong, assertive and unified, I will have not developed my authentic identity when it counts the most.
With vulnerability and transparency as my modes of expression, I now can grow as a person with others and develop reciprocation; my ability to give and take equally and proportionally to others relative to what each has to offer based on their strength and weaknesses. We all are at different levels of development in different areas of our selves. We cannot expect everyone else to be sophisticated in each of the areas that we have invested time in. We can share ourselves in our strengths to those we care about. If the other person is mindful of the value of intimate connections, they can share their strengths towards us. We can learn to grow as a network and a solid group by interacting intimately through the mutual benefit of each others strengths reciprocated.
Lastly, in our intimate friendships we develop the skill of dialogue or a mutual exchange of communication. Learning to listen and respond to what another person is saying to you allows the person to be heard and understood. When they expose themselves through transparency and vulnerability, it is important for us to learn to respond relevantly which could be at the least listening and empatheticly experiencing the emotions with them. In times of joy and celebration this is easy. However, when someone is troubled by sadness, frustration, anger or hate it can be difficult to have dialogue and show compassion. These are the most important times our friends make a difference, when our weaknesses hold us back. If you can learn to develop relationships with people in all states and be a 'friend,' your social will only expand and grow with loving, caring and supportive people who all want to see you become exactly what you want to be.
Mistakes
Sometimes we make mistakes and we are not even aware that we have or we do not understand the nature of our mistake. A true friend, is someone who takes the time to communicate our weaknesses to us in a way that allows us to learn from them. Our best friends see thought our madness and bring us back to our best selves. True friends are patient and listen while we figure out our own journey such that we can make our own decisions and learn from our experience.
A friend does not allow someone they love and care for engage in self-destructive or negligent behaviour without saying something. This means that for us to truly love our friends, we have to develop the skill of communicating the hardest subjects with them. The Social Reports Tool is very useful for this.
Some people will find it very difficult to learn from certain mistakes, since they will not be able to accept that a mistake has even been made. We have a duty to ourselves and to those we care and love for to proportion the right kind of effective effort to help our friends without causing too much harm to ourselves.
Some people will say, 'Who are you to say this to me?' for which we respond, 'Who am I not to. I love you and care for you and I wish for you to love and care for yourself.' A true leader, and friend, finds the acceptance for others mistakes and learns the words and means to communicate those words to them so they can learn from their mistakes.
An understanding of the Burns' Cognitive Distortions and Covey's 7 Habits is very useful in being supportive to those we love and care for. When they are not of sound mind, we can empathetically listen and help restructure their thoughts to better represent a realistic, not distorted view of reality. We can assist in their self-awareness by identifying behaviours that may of been self-destructive or the lack of action which lead to negligence in their self-love. Learning the skills of being supportive to those we care for will make us an insurmountable value to others and will retain our place within many people's lives.
There is a time for celebration, which may not be every weekend. There is much more time for growth.
AJ 9.2.18, 13.3.18, 27.3.20
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