My Friends are Walking BFFs
Welcome to Day 5, Week 1 of Self Loyalty in Spiral 3. Growing apart from people is normal as we age, but I have lost friends in my quest to build self-loyalty. I have chosen to walk away from relationships that mimicked my BFF or my Monger.
For many years I had friends that fell into two camps. The BFF friends were those I gossiped with, and we shared the drama of our lives. These friends weren't about solving problems or talking about anything of substance. It was just about drama and judgment of other people. These friends were fun; much of our time together usually involved loud bars and hanging out with lots of distractions.
And then there were the Monger friends. When I got together with my Monger friends, we shared our Monger messages—talking about how much weight we needed to lose, where we were struggling in our jobs and where we could improve to make our lives better. We believed we were trying to improve our lives by critically analyzing them, but in reality, we were stuck in the criticism. We weren't moving beyond it.
Years ago, a therapist told me that as we grow and change, the people in our lives will either rise to meet and grow with us or lose interest and step back. This a harsh statement but also one I have found peace in; it is ok for me to be loyal to myself, to change and grow, and for those around me to have a choice if they want to grow with me. For a recovering people pleaser, this process has been challenging. AND freeing, I have lost some friends with this philosophy and has been hard to say goodbye to friends I have had for years, but hanging out with them was just too hard. Our conversations lagged because I didn't want to rehash all my faults or the fault of others. I wanted to talk about life, and they did not. Over time it was easy to walk away (far easier than I ever thought) because hanging out became more uncomfortable than walking away.
But sometimes the Monger or BFF comes through in people we can't drift away from—like a parent or sibling. It is one thing to challenge a friendship with the idea that they will rise to meet you or fall off—but a parent or sibling that is vulnerable and risky. A client of mine struggles with that—as she said one day on the phone, "I love my Mom, but ALL we talk about are other people, and I just can't do that anymore. It feels yucky."
Self Loyalty means I honor what helps ME be the best person I can be. I spent too many years ignoring myself to be loyal to others. But I want to share two thoughts if your loved one is a walking BFF or a walking Monger.
1. The tendency is to hypercorrect. So my client shared, "You know, I initially overcorrected. I tried to change Mom, and when she didn't change, I cut contact with her. But I missed her, so that didn't work either." But it isn't about criticizing that approach—as humans, this is how we implement change. We hypercorrect. The goal, as I told my client, "Is to be aware that you are hypercorrecting. When you notice it, you can choose to keep hypercorrecting or you could start pulling back the other way. Pulling back would look like acknowledging how hard it is to live with a walking BFF, and you miss talking with her.”
2. Changing patterns with our loved ones involves one step forward and three steps backward. It is a process of baby steps.
The goal is to see our loved ones for who they are so we can choose how we relate rather than relying on habit.
It might be helpful to talk to a counselor or therapist. Understanding my past and how it affects my present has been valuable. If you need help finding a therapist... check out Psychology Today's website. They have a listing of counselors in several countries.
After sharing these thoughts about hypercorrecting and the process being baby steps... my client came back to me later saying., "The relationship with my Mom is messy; you were right. It is one step forward and two steps back, but I feel more loyal to myself and, therefore, less anxious when I am around her.”