by Jules Webber
This morning my close friend came over to my house and we laid out our yoga mats, following a video on her phone together and getting in a bit of movement. It brought me out of the brain fog I’d been walking around in all morning after a night of restless sleep.
She brought her work things over and we co-worked on and off, then went to the first day of early voting in Texas. This somewhat regular occurrence for us has meant the world to me over the course of our friendship. We sent a happy birthday video to another friend of ours, and laughed about something I’ve already forgotten.
I took a minute during yoga today to recognize that I have exactly what I used to long for all the time; something that felt painful at times to miss out on: friends that care as much as I do about making space for us to spend time together. Women who bring a reciprocity to our relationship that makes friendship easy and worthwhile.
Women who share my ideals, whose idea of fun is similar to mine. Who care about my preferences and speak up about theirs. Who celebrate me and check in and would notice if I didn’t text them for a few days. Women who don’t have any need to bond over drama or gossip. Women who want to go deep about their dreams, the work of their heart, who hold space for all of me and make me feel safe. Women who laugh with me when we are being completely ridiculous.
For years in my twenties I went all-in on my evangelical church community and enjoyed some of the closest relationships I had ever known. Our “us” and “them” mentality gave us the illusion that we held the keys to a sort of club other people could join if they adopted our beliefs. We gossiped and told ourselves we weren’t, and were bonded by a codependency that eventually cascaded into resentment and an explosive, traumatizing end to our friendship.
We also genuinely cared for each other. They got me through some of the hardest times in my life and on so many levels were exactly what I needed at that time. I still cherish the memory of them. But for years, after I left that community, I had to admit that I wondered if it was possible to have deep friendships like that apart from the dogma, codependency, and gossip I non longer wanted.
I hadn’t experienced it yet. And there were long years that I doubted I ever would. In that time I made some brave choices when all I had to go on was the simple belief that friendship shouldn’t cost me my values; values I didn’t understand before, and I wasn’t sure how to find in my relationships yet. But something in me—deep in my knowing—understood that if I sowed seeds of integrity (acting in alignment with the values of who I am) that new friends would find me. And in some cases, old ones I had over looked would resurface. After six long years of digging deep, it finally feels like they have.
Here are five things I did
1. I eased off relationships that didn’t feel reciprocal, without judgement.
It is incredibly freeing to acknowledge what someone is able to offer, without demanding, even energetically, that they must give more. It’s incredibly freeing to grieve the loss of your expectations and fully let them go so you can make real room for what you truly want. Some people just will not show up for us the way we crave and it doesn’t make them bad friends. It just means we need something different than what they are offering, and that may be sad, but it is also human and perfectly okay. I remember I had this feeling with a close friend that if I left room for her to initiate connection between us, that I might not hear from her anymore. I was sad and also lighter when I found out I was right. She’s not an initiator, and as time went on, I had less capacity to hold us together. So I let her go, and though I still love her, I am so glad I did.
2. I energetically divested from any and all negativity.
Several years ago, I read a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt that said, “Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” This didn’t heal my tendency toward bonding over emotional negativity overnight, but it resonated because it gave me a roadmap. If I wasn’t going to gossip, or vent, or emotionally dump on people, or hold significant space for that myself, what was I going to talk about? This challenged me to find out what I cared about, how I wanted to serve, what change in the world I wanted to create, and to look at myself with deeper care, compassion, and accountability. Today, my friends and I talk about what we’re learning, what angers and enlivens us, how we’re navigating dating and marriage and parenting, how we can help each other, and whose ridiculous stories we are laughing over. In many cases we bond over the simple hobbies we have like cooking, fashion, reading, politics, activism, career, and business. There is a much wider world of potential outside of negativity and it is fucking magic. Start exploring it and you’ll find other people doing the same.
3. I became willing to feel lonely at times.
It would surprise many of us the incredible lengths we go to in order to avoid feeling something that we are capable of sitting in. We will exist in relationships we don’t like, accept and offer behavior that doesn’t feel good, withheld our needs and boundaries, exhaust ourselves, and the list goes on. If we weren’t afraid of our loneliness, and we knew it came in waves we could withstand, how might that change our choices? Come up with a “toolkit” that’s ready when you’re lonely. What self care might you fill it with that would help? A few things in mine include booking last-minute sessions with my therapist, calling my mom, getting some sleep, crying if I need to, sending a friend a gift or checking on them to get out of my head, asking someone to hang out (even if I think they’ll say no), cooking a meal and listening to an audiobook on a walk.
4. I started viewing relationships as spaces of practice, not performance.
My whole life I had viewed relationships as fragile, glass shells easily broken by the slightest slip-up. Actually, the healthy and aligned ones are meant to be quite durable. When love and connection are mutual, your best effort is enough and because the majority of your dynamic is positive, there is room in the margins of interaction for miscommunication to be cleared up, repair to happen when we mistakenly hurt someone, or for stress to get the best of us at times. Relationships are not meant to be containers for abuse or limitless exhaustion and “trying”. We deserve to live at ease, confidant that we’ll be given grace and be able to offer it too. So speak up about your needs. Gently practice stating your boundaries. Use your mouth to say actual words about what works for you and invite others to do the same. You might be so nervous, but I’m cheering on your bravery.
5. Practice empathy.
One person’s life events shouldn’t regularly take up all the space in the relationship. We aren’t looking for friendships of caretaking, we are looking for mutual connection where we help one another. For a time, I was a depleted single mom with nothing to give in my friendships and it showed. I needed people to hold me, but I was unable to hold them too as I dealt with the exhaustion and stress of pandemic single parenting. Some people dropped out of my life as a result, and I completely understood, as painful as it was. Grace got me through much of that, but not many people can sustain one-sided friendship for a year or more on end. And the ones that tried resented me in the end. Now that I’ve been able to support myself through enough healing to have energy again, I practice being mindful both of what’s going on in my life and in my friends’. I notice when I’m taking up most of the space processing my life and I appreciate their grace when that happens. And when I get through something, like being sick and my friends showing up to support me, I make sure I do the same when they are going through it. And that, truly, might be my favorite part of friendship: the capacity for real, healing, community care.
None of these things brought me the friendships I craved overnight, but every time I chose them, I lightened my emotional load and I was more able to trust myself. There were still times I compromised, because starting over and rebuilding is hard. Maintaining faith and hope and trust in the universal law of karma is challenging until you’ve really tested it. I have, and while I could add more to this list, these are the five things that truly changed the friendship game for me as a recovering codependent.
If you want to connect more deeply with me about the patterns unique to your relationships, discover your own core values, or courageously create authentic, brave connection in your life, I’m always acceptation application for aligned 1:1 clients. The link to the waitlist and application for long-term coaching is here, and if you’re interested in a one-time-only deep dive session, you can schedule that here.