Vulnerability Among Friends

I am still on the subject of vulnerability and still praising the work of Brené Brown.  If you missed my recommendations of her books in previous blogs, I will list them again:

Daring Greatly
The Gifts of Imperfection
The Power of Vulnerability

Vulnerability is when we choose to go outside our comfort zone; when we risk failure and ridicule to dare to do something different, to be someone different, to stretch and grow.  Vulnerability is uncomfortable for the one practicing it and often for those observing it.  When we are vulnerable, we bare our souls and open our hearts, and that can be scary, can make us feel nervous and ill-at-ease, but it can also be exhilarating, freeing and life-changing.   When we watch someone else being vulnerable, we squirm, feel awkward, are at a loss for words, or if we do speak, usually say the wrong thing - not something supportive and loving, but words that criticize, judge, ridicule and hurt.

When I chose to leave my husband and create a new life, I was being vulnerable.  When I began a new relationship, I was being vulnerable.  After a long married life of predictability and fear of the unknown, I chose to be vulnerable enough to dare to choose a new life.  I thought my "friends" would be supportive and happy for me.  Some did and those are still my friends today.  Others did not and, eventually, I no longer considered them friends.  Some of them were never really my friends to begin with, as they later proved,  and some were just not ready to accept the changes I was making.

My vulnerability raised issues for them.  Some wanted to make similar changes, but were afraid.  Watching me change, brought their fears to the surface.  Others resented what I was doing - either because they wanted to do the same and could not or would not, or their ideas of what is good and bad behavior raised judgments that what I was doing was wrong.  Some may have just feared change of any kind - even in someone else's life.  Either way, I made them uncomfortable and they did not know what to do with that feeling of unease so they lashed out at me with criticism, judgement and even ridicule.  And, honestly, in the past, I often behaved the same with others who made me uncomfortable with their vulnerability.

Sometimes looking at someone else is like looking in a mirror.  I am miserable and when I look at you I see someone who is miserable and we form a friendship based on our mutual unhappiness.  But, as soon as one of us dares to be vulnerable and go looking for happiness, the other feels betrayed.  The one left behind, let's call her Eva,  may not say these words, but she is thinking them, at some deep level, "How dare you go looking for happiness and leave me behind!"  What follows is fear.  Eva fears that I will find happiness and she never will.  Eva fears that our friendship will never be the same.  Eva fears that I will find happiness, then fall flat on may face, thereby confirming that her fear of happiness is justified - it never lasts and it leads to pain.

At first Eva's fear leads to her expression of all the dire consequences that could arise from my actions.  In the case of my marital separation, I heard, "You are too old to start over", "You will face all kinds of financial problems", "You will miss your home", "You were closer to your husband's family than your own and you will lose them", "You are moving too quickly", "Your problems with just follow you", "You will alienate your friends and family", "You are letting your heart rule your mind", "You will have to start all over", "You are not thinking things through", "You are being silly (stupid, immature)".

Once Eva runs out of warnings and predictions of failure, she resorts to criticism and judgement, as did my friends.  "Marriage is forever", "If you failed at this marriage, you will fail at other relationships", "You should not be in a new relationship if you are not divorced yet", "You are being selfish", "This is wrong", "You are wrong".

And, if Eva fails to change my course using criticism, she then recruits the help of others by gossiping.  Surely, if she tells everyone we know what I have shared with her, and what I may not be ready to share with others, they will agree with her that I am on a dangerous course and jump on her bandwagon to pull me back into the "real world".  That is exactly what happened, especially with my very own "Eva" who was quick to tell everyone where I had gone wrong.  Some she told did join in her chorus of criticism, some were uninterested, and others were insulted by Eva including them in her gossip circle and openly came to me with words of support and encouragement.

When my course of action did not change, even after Eva's gossiping, she resorted to treating me with rudeness, especially around our mutual friends, and then to exclusion - purposefully, leaving me out of activities, lunches, dinners, movies and other group activities.  

I was slow to react.  So much was changing in my life, so fast, that the resulting vulnerability was scaring me a little.  I felt like I needed the comfort of old relationships.  But, soon there was no comfort in those relationships.  The day I realized I was no longer gaining anything from those friendships and, in fact, was being mistreated, I made the choice to move on and leave those relationships in the friendship cemetery.  Doing so was not easy, but it was the right and healthy thing for me to do.

Now, years later, my Eva has made some of the same choices I did.  She opened herself up to her own vulnerability as she made brave and important changes in her life.  We still are not friends and never will be because there is too much distrust from the past, but we are friendlier than we have been in a very long time.

My closest friends now are those that saw and accepted my vulnerability;  who allowed me to change and showered me with support.  But, as time has past, I have forgiven those who were not there for me - those who attacked my vulnerability.  I know that they were uncomfortable and afraid and fear destroys relationships.

Soul Friends

My last post was about my dad - a bit of a downer.  Today is one year since my mom (step-mother) passed over and although I thought about writing about her, I think that could also end up being more melancholy than what I want to communicate today.  Instead, I want to honor my oldest (not in age) friend, whose birthday was this past week. 

It was the summer of 1960.  My father, my two sisters and I were moving to the town where his business was located.  He had rented us a large house with a wrap-around front porch and a roomy, fenced-in front yard for our collie dog.  It was moving-in day when a tall, round woman with two little girls in tow appeared at the back door.  I was five at the time, ready to start first grade in a month.  The woman introduced herself as Clara and the dark-haired and brown-eyed girl hiding behind her leg as Debbie, her six-year-old daughter.  The younger, blonde girl was a neighbor's daughter, Robin.  Debbie and I watched each other with curiosity.Debbie, too, was starting first grade in the fall. 

When Clara discovered that my mom was deceased and my step-mother and father were divorced, she was filled with motherly compassion for me.  Debbie's big brown eyes got even larger as she tried to comprehend how the girl in front of her could live without a mother.  In the weeks that followed, before school started, Clara often invited me to their house on the next street to play with Debbie, and sometimes Robin.

Perhaps, because I had no mom and was accustomed to going to a child-sitter's house while my father worked, starting school was not scary to me.  But, for Debbie, that first day of school was terrifying.  Her mother walked Debbie and me to the bus stop the first day.  Debbie cried, but to ease her fear, I held her hand as we boarded the bus.  Unfortunately, we were in different classrooms and Debbie had to face the rest of the day alone, but I was waiting outside her classroom door at the end of the day and we walked hand-in-hand to the bus together.  That was the start of a friendship that has lasted almost 53 years. 

Debbie and I only attended two years of school together.  My father, one of my sisters and I moved to another state the summer after second grade.  Even during our two school years together, our friendship waxed and waned as we made other friends, but my family's move was still tramatic for us.  Unbelievably, those two third graders started writing letters to one another - letters that always started:  Dear, Debbie or Becky, How are you? I am fine. And from there we shared our experiences in two different schools in two different states.

Every summer, and during some Christmas holidays, my father put me on a Greyhound bus to go visit Debbie.  I loved those visits, especially the summer ones.  I stayed two or three weeks.  Debbie's mom showered me with the motherly love I was missing and Debbie and I and the always-changing foster children in their home spent hours playing in the summer sunshine.  When we were older, Debbie faced her fears of leaving home and her mom and came to visit me a couple of times.

Debbie and I were not always close. We always stayed in touch, we always saw each other at least once a year, but sometimes we did not like each other very much.  Debbie was living in the suburbs of a large city and I was growing up in a very rural area.  Our experiences were completely different.  As we reached our teens years, Debbie was hanging with friends that I thought were trouble.  She was hiding things from her parents and I wanted no part of that. When I visited, Debbie often went out with her friends and I stayed home with her mom, picking vegetables from their garden, shelling peas and talking.  Perhaps it was my relationship with her mom that kept our friendship intact during Debbie's adventurous teenage years, but, whatever was the glue that held our friendship together, I am eternally grateful that we did not drift apart as we often went our separate ways. I went to college, for awhile, and Debbie moved to another state and worked for her brother.  I moved even further away - more than 800 miles.  We both got married the same year.  Through all the years and all the moves and all the changes, we kept writing letters, even when we could not visit one another. 

Now we stay in contact with cell phones and emails and Facebook, but sadly, we rarely see one another.  We have birthday dates - I call her on her birthday, as I did last week, and she calls me on mine.  We drink a glass of wine and chat for more than an hour.  As the years pass, our friendship deepens.  We appreciate each other more with each birthday conversation.  We know that a friendship that has lasted this long, especially from such a distance, is a gift to treasure. 

We have supported one another through marital and family problems, births, deaths and adoptions, illnesses and accidents, happiness and heartache, and, although our life experiences have been completely different, we have always had understanding and compassion for one another's problems and we have celebrated one another's joys and triumphs.  There is no one I laugh so heartily with than Debbie.  There is no one I can so quickly reconnect with, even after months of no communi-cation, and feel as though we have been talking every day.

I wish we lived closer.  I wish we could have a tea together at least once a week.  I wish I could call her up and say, "Let's go shopping."  I wish we could take long walks together and sort through the meaning of life.  But, we can't.  We have different lives a long distance apart.  We have families and businesses and responsibilities that keep us where we are, restricting our ability to even visit.  But, I know that in spite of all these challenges, our friendship endures because we are soul friends.  Our friendship transcends our lives.  It is deeper and stronger than our physical connection because it is a soul friendship and for that, and for Debbie, I will always be grateful.

4-11-12 The Company You Keep

Negativity is contagious.  Surround yourself with negative people - people who find fault, complain, dramatize, whine - and you certainly will find yourself being more like them, unless you learn how to protect yourself from their influence.  It is best if you can simply limit your association with negative people, but that is not always possible.

In my “other life”, when I was unhappy in my marriage, most of my friends were women who were also dissatisfied with their marriages/relationships.  And, our discontentment overflowed to other areas of our lives resulting in displeasure with our co-workers, other friends, neighbors and even children.  Our favorite times together were spent complaining about our partners and just about everyone else in our lives.  Discontentment with one aspect of our lives tends to sour all aspects of our lives.  And, when we are unhappy, we seek the company of others who are also unhappy.  Like attracts like.

When my life changed and I became happier, I found the company of my friends to be uncomfortable.  At first, I could not understand why.  These were my good friends, for heaven’s sakes.  Our relationships were long-term and we shared so much over the years.  I noticed that they were critical of my new relationships and my improved life although I was happier than I had been in many years.  Rather than being happy for me, they were disapproving and, I later discovered, were talking negatively about me behind my back.  Even when the changes in my life were not the topic of conversation, I was uneasy being around their constant complaining and negative comments concerning other people and other situations.  I began seeing how stifling and unproductive those conversations were.  Although we were definitely drifting apart, I was not ready to give up on my “friends”.   Over a year passed before their negative attitudes toward me took their toll and I finally severed the relationships as much as I could.  Because I worked with some of these former friends, total separation was not possible.  When my friendships with those co-workers cooled, I became under attack for minor things concerning our jobs.  I felt like I could not talk about anything in front of any of them without drawing derision.

The breakup with my friends occurred about the time I started learning about the Law of Attraction and it granted me my first chance to put the Law to work.  I chose to disregard them in every way possible except for the work-related conversations that were necessary.  I ignored their conversations completely, not allowing myself to be drawn into or influenced by their negativity or by their offhanded and rude comments about me that were purposely said loud enough for me to overhear.  It was very difficult to close my ears to the words that swirled around me.  I often played music quietly at my desk to drown out their voices.  When someone purposely tried to engage me in a negative and unnecessary conversation or when someone confronted me personally, I did not respond;  I just kept working or left the room.  I printed a copy of the Optimist’s Code and taped it to the side of my printer where I could see it easily and when I struggled to hold my temper and my tongue, I would read it silently to myself, over and over.  Determinedly, I worked to keep positive thoughts in my mind.  Little by little, my efforts to be positive became second nature.  As I participated less and reacted less, the negative comments my former friends aimed at me became fewer and fewer.   After awhile, I did not even hear their conversations anymore.  A workplace that felt hostile for several months became neutral.  Even when I heard or learned about some mean comments made about me, I no longer cared.  I could just smile, shake my head and walk away. 

As these negative people and influences left my life, the emptiness I was feeling for those lost friendships, even if they were not healthy ones, was filled by new friends - positive, encouraging, uplifting friends.  New people came into my life from all directions and I was amazed to have friends that were basically happy people who encouraged happiness in me.  Like attracts like.  Before long, I could look at my former friends and wonder why I was ever friends with them!  Of course, I was a different person when we were friends and they served a need in my life at that time.  I have learned to be thankful for what I learned from them and from our relationships.  We learn from our negative experiences as well as our positive ones and sometimes the negative ones are our best teachers. 

I cannot ignore an even earlier negative influence in my life - my former husband.  When I met him he was suffering from depression - most recently caused by an earlier divorce and loss of contact with his daughter.  However, I believe his depression started much earlier - in his childhood - when he was forced to deal with parental rejection from his father and his step-father.  He was like a sad little boy and my people-pleasing tendencies encouraged me to love him and heal him.  I just knew I could love his problems away.  I could make him happy and help him forget all the bad experiences in his life.  Sounds like a god complex, doesn’t it?  Did I really think I had that much power?  Honestly, I think people-pleasers have less of a god-complex than a responsibility complex.  We feel we are responsible for the well-being of everyone in our lives and because we have so much experience “fixing” other people, we take on more and more challenging cases.  My husband was a very challenging case and for 28 years I tried to make him well, make him happy, make him whole, and it did not work.  I just made myself unhealthy, unhappy and incomplete.  Not only did I wear myself out trying to “fix” him but I absorbed his negativity.  I, who was once nicknamed Pollyanna for my sunny outlook on life, became a terribly pessimistic and hopeless person.  Since I’d already experienced some depression in my youth, my mostly cheery disposition was no contest for his brooding personality, so my positivity was converted to negativity.  Once I was as negative as he was, only an extreme life change could save me and, fortunately, adopting my daughter was extreme enough to do that.

As hard as it is to accept, to save ourselves we sometimes have to leave the ones we may love but who are not good for us - the ones who do not bring light and love into our lives, who immerse us in negativity and criticism; the ones who no not how to be encouraging, uplifting or inspiring.  But what if you cannot leave them?  What if your negative albatross is your parent or a sibling or your child?  What if physical distance is not an option?

If total separation is not possible, limited exposure may be an option.  Search for ways to limit contact with the person.  Find distractions, as I did with music at my desk, that create a barrier between you and the person.  Before being in contact with the person, repeat positive affirmations like “I attract only positive people and experiences into my life”, “My cheerful disposition changes negativity into positivity” and “I control my thoughts and only allow positive, happy ones to enter my mind no matter what influences surround me”; see yourself surrounded in white light and ask for protection from the other person’s negativity; imagine the other person surrounded in white light and ask that any negativity he or she may be holding be dispersed before contact is made; imagine a wall of light between you and the person; imagine yourself in a bubble that gives you protection from all negativity; give thanks for the positive influence you will have on that person and every person with whom you will have contact that day.   At first, these practices are difficult to incorporate into your daily life, but with practice they become easier.  And, as you withstand the negativity of others, allowing your positivity to grow, you will naturally move in a different direction that may allow you to distance yourself further from the negative person or persons and your life will be blessed with new, happy, life-affirming people. 

Trying to manifest anything requires as much positive energy as you can possibly drum up, so limiting  your exposure to negative energy in your world is extremely important.  Even if you have very little control over your daily influences (If you are a law enforcement officer or a soldier, for example, you may constantly be in negative situations that you cannot change), you can make choices to erase the negativity that has clung onto you.  Once you leave your job, for example, listen to soothing, peaceful music - not heavy metal or rap music that has a strong negative undertone; take a warm shower and imagine all the negativity washing down the drain; practice meditation or yoga or tai chi or one of the other calming disciplines; exercise; put all of your attention into something creative that inspires you and pushes away your thoughts of the day; spend time in nature or with children; read positive literature; practice affirmations.  These are just a few of activities that can help neutralize negativity.

I have recently been exposed to some negativity that I hope is only temporary, but, for now, it is imperative that I search for ways to avoid or wash away the negativity if I want to manifest my new home and life in Mount Dora (or anything else, for that matter).  When confronted with negative comments, I choose to ignore them or respond passively whenever possible.  Not allowing myself to take everything personally helps.  We tend to think that someone’s bad mood is directed at us or, maybe, even caused by us.  A sharp tone of voice, a rude comment and we get hurt and annoyed - at least, I know that is my tendency.  I am learning to assume that it is NOT my fault that someone else is surly.  Choose not to accept the responsibility for other people’s moods.  Sometimes when I am exposed to another’s rants or complaints, especially someone who thinks I should agree or at least sympathize with his/her point of view, I just nod and think of something pleasant during the emotional dumping and when it has ended, I say something non-committal like “Wow, that’s too bad” or “Sorry to hear that” or “I know how you feel”.  People just want to let loose, to be heard and it is really not necessary to engage yourself in a conversation over whatever the issue may be.  Usually, a nod, a sympathetic smile and a standard I-understand-you phrase is enough.  I also practice some of the other suggestions I had in the previous paragraph.  It is my hope that this negativity will subside and I only need to tread water until that happens.  We all experience periods of negativity in our lives - whether personally or through others - and usually those times are temporary.  We do need to be sympathetic to the problems of others and treat ourselves kindly when we undergo bad times.  It is the never-ending, never-healing negativity that drags us down, saps our energy and destroys our dreams.