High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘Friend’

A friend is someone who walks with you, and when the road is steep says, “Here, lean on me a while. Only a few more steps.  We’re almost there.”

A friend points to the sunlight up ahead when you’re walking in the shadows, and shows you  the pools of light that filter through even in the darkest places.

When you walk with a friend, courage and comfort walk with you.   Pain becomes bearable.  Fear moves to the side of the road.

The best in you rises higher, and the worst in you is forgiven and blessed.   You pass coins of silliness and sobriety between you.  You trade your secrets and your dreams in perfect trust.

When you walk with a friend beside you, the way before you widens and your footsteps fall more surely on the path.

To walk with a friend is to feel the ease and warmth of a summer day and to travel with the knowing that goodness and love are real.

My friend was telling me about his new clients and all the new work that was coming his way.  Given that he lives in one of the regions of the country hardest hit by the current economic downturn, his tale was a story of remarkable success.  As he shared how his business was unfolding, I began to notice a theme running through everything he said.  And that thread is the secret behind his success.

He talked, you see, about each client’s special strengths and talents.  He saw what was unique and good in each and he was thrilled at having the opportunity to help all of them showcase what they did best.

It’s this positive viewpoint of his that draws clients to him.  He sees the best in them, and they, in turn, see him the same way.  Seeing the best in them motivates him to serve them well.  The good service they receive motivates them to see him as the top notch performer he is and to spread the word.  It’s a beautiful feedback loop of positive regard.

For me, my friend’s conversation was a perfect illustration of the seventh lesson we can learn from our best friends about how to treat ourselves.  True friends—and this man quickly becomes a genuine friend to his clients—speak well of us to others.  They broadcast the positive things about us; they see what’s good and beautiful in us, and enjoying it, they share it with others.

If you’re going to be your own best friend, learning to sing your own praises to yourself is a definite requirement.  You owe it to yourself to pat yourself on the back for the things you do well, to congratulate yourself for your achievements, to recognize and acknowledge where you are succeeding, where you are growing, where you are following your higher impulses and intuitions and moving toward your goals.

Not only does it feel good, but it reinforces all the behaviors you most enjoy and that keep you thriving and bring you joy.  People who succeed in life, and who pull from it the greatest measure of happiness, take stock of their positive achievements on a regular basis.  They appreciate themselves and thank and reward themselves.  Speak well of yourself to you.  It’s another way of being your own best friend.

“I got your back,” he says when he sees trouble coming.  He’s there to defend you against attack, no questions asked.  He doesn’t even need to know where it came from.  He’s on your side.  That’s a stand up friend.

They come in the feminine gender, too, like mother lions on full alert.

It’s the ferocious side of friendship, ready to battle for your integrity and honor against anything that would tear you down.  It knows your worth.  It values your being.  It’s proud to stand at your side.

Internalized, this is the friend who disputes the derogatory things you say to yourself.  It raises its sword against Worthless and No Good.  It hauls out the fire hose and blasts at the mud you would hurl at yourself.  Its mane stands up when it hears Always and Never, knowing how false and ruinous they can be.  It hates Can’t and What’s the Use. It refuses to hear from Shame.

Be as ferocious in your love for this side of yourself as it is for you.  Treat it to feasts when it pulls you from the pits.  Give it high fives when the sun shines.

If you haven’t heard the voice of this friend in awhile, it doesn’t mean he’s not there.  It means you have tuned him out, preferring the sound of your pain.  He’s always there.  Always. Call yourself a name and look around.  You’ll see him glaring in the corner.  He’ll grin when he sees you have spotted him.  Buy him a root beer.  Welcome him back.

When the situations of the day beat you up, dash your hopes, and stomp all over your finest expectations, here comes your friend, grin in hand, to dust you off and set you on your feet again.  Don’t you just love it?

One of the most beautiful things that best friends do for us is to encourage us when we’re down.  They meet us with their bag of tricks and keep pulling them out until they find the one that does the magic.

They sit and commiserate; they empathize and sympathize and cajole and rail.  They get right down there in the emotional stew with us and let us know we’re not alone and that yeah, we’re right to feel exactly what we feel.  They say, “Hey, we’re just humans, you know?  We’re the ones with the whole shebang inside us—the glory and the crap, remember?  And sometimes the crap plays top dog.”

And then, when we’re all comforted by being seen and heard and knowing we’re not alone, they start sneaking in their little pieces of uplift, building on our glimmers that we’re still okay, regardless.  They start pumping up our resilience.  They blow in some fresh wind, clear the skies.  They point at the stars and get us dreaming about reaching for them again and remind us that, yeah, we’re big enough to stretch that far.  They talk about keepin’ on keepin’ on.

They distract us and then, if we start sliding back into the muck, they haul out their dispute tools and get us to question our doubts.  Gosh, they’re good.

If you have a friend who lifts you when you’re down, next time, watch him or her at work.  Copy the technique.  If you don’t have one, make one up.  Keep him in your pocket.  Pull him out and set him on the chair beside you when you need him.  There’s nothing like it.