Friendship

I am thinking about friendship this morning. This topic has been a bear for me most of my life. Raised in an extremely dysfunctional world and able to see a little more clearly than most children, it was clear to me from very early on that people were slippery and squirmy when it came to truth, honesty and sincerity - and I became so too in self defense. I believe many of us do.

So, here we are, all grown up, still grappling with honesty and sincerity in relationships. What is it that makes us fear so much to be honest? Why does being sincere feel so risky? What do we fear we will lose if we do take those risks?

I've learned to take it easy when I get to these fear places in myself. Rather than believing the fear and allowing the immediate reaction to blossom, I stand still inside and wait. I wish to understand what is really happening. My internal team of scientists go into action leaving no stone unturned. I know in doing so more information about that part of myself and what it is afraid of will come - if I am patient and brave enough to look objectively, scientifically.

Sometimes this takes awhile, especially if it is a strong fear. I've been known to go into my cave for weeks until I am sure I am able to more collected and am not taken or identified with the fear. Those little fearful parts like to go into deep hiding. Thankfully, I am familiar with their weight and the sensation of their vibrations. I can find them more easily now than when I knew nothing about myself. I am patient; I follow them and go deep. I relax those parts of the body that have tensed, I listen without being taken by or identified with what I am seeing. I remember an early lesson, "Believe nothing, not even yourself." and I do not buy into what I am hearing from these poor little "i's" (as Gurdjieff called them). I learn what they believe - what their fears are. Usually, when it is a fear that arises in relationships, it is fear of loss, ridicule, being less than, not being liked, not getting what it wants. In reality it is imagination, it is what "it" imagines - because - simply - nothing has actually happened yet.

Sometimes a fear is denial of a knowing - I know something that will change everything and am sitting on it. It gives me a fear tickle as the truth tries to rise and be known and acknowledged. Sitting on this is not healthy - for anyone. Here I have to be brave too. I must let the truth rise and be known, even if it is only meant for me. It is true that "The truth will set you free."

By taking the time to disengage from identification with fear, I become more informed about what is really going on and am able to act appropriately and respond to people and situations rather than react.

I have to laugh. I just remembered a conversation with an old friend who is now in his late forties and has been unsuccessful in the mating arena all of his life. I met him at the Foundation and we have been friends ever since. He became a part of my extended family and we were business associates for many years. After I moved away from NY we began corresponding by email. About a year or so ago he was complaining (again) about not being able to meet women who could just accept him as he is and asked the fatal question, "What is wrong with these women?" Trusting that we loved each other enough that I could be honest with him (he was always brutally honest with me), I decided to finally be so with him on this subject. I hoped it would help him to understand why he had not yet found a mate. I told him what I had observed over the years and what the women (there were many) he knew during that time had said about him. I told him the reasons, without divulging their identities) they confided in me for dropping him - in essence, they were all similar and had to do with his chief feature. He was furious with me. He wrote several emails in return accusing me of making it up and wondering why I would "attack him like that" and so on. In one email he said, "If this is what you have thought of me all these years, then I don't know you and I am ending this friendship now. I will never speak to you again."

I was shocked. After living with this awful development for a short while, I wrote back. (I'm paraphrasing here - I don't remember word for word.) "You can't end our friendship. It is our friendship and if I do not agree that it should be terminated, it cannot be terminated. This is not a good reason to end it anyway, you've got the wrong end of the stick. I love you and remain your friend forever. Regardless of what you think and how you feel at this moment, that is a fact."

I believe that we are all gifts to one another. When you meet and become close with people, they come into your life and you into theirs as special gifts to each other. For myself, it takes a long time to make new friends. The older I get the harder it becomes, however, once I do, it is forever. That doesn't mean I will not disagree with you or get angry at you. I am human. That also does not mean that I am a slave to the relationship. There are people I have not seen or spoken with in years who became toxic for me and I had to stop seeing them so often. This does not mean that I do not love them. Love, unconditional love, transcends everything; all the human crappola we are infested with from birth cannot kill unconditional love. The ego forgets that. If I am not present, the love is forgotten. In a moment of anger one could lose everything. If the ego is in charge one cannot see clearly. This is why I make myself go and stand in a corner until the ego calms down and I have a chance to review the situation.

Be at Peace,
L