Friendship

I’ve been thinking a lot over the weekend about friendship and just how blessed I am with my friends. I didn’t always feel like that but fortunately, I’m now in a place where I feel good enough about myself to allow myself to have friends.

Doesn’t quite make sense? Bear with me.

Let’s start with the blessings.

Of late, I’ve been increasingly aware of just how amazing my friends are. No sooner had I posted my intention to run a live Huna workshop, then two friends immediately contacted me to offer their help in running it.

They weren’t the only ones, either, but they were the first to offer. Doing all the very important bits like registering delegates as they turned up, noticing there were no tissues in the room and running off to buy them. Giving me a lift to the venue with all my training bits and pieces and just making the journey in the first place, because neither of them live very close.

And then there’s Emily who lives nearby who gave me a parking permit, so we didn’t have to trek miles after parking. And all the women who showed up as much because it was me running it, as because they were interested in the topic of Huna.

That’s not the only example, but it’s a recent one and it’s a big one for me. If you’d told me even 15 years ago that things could be like that, I’m not sure I’d have believed you. I would probably have accepted it logically but deep down I would have told myself  “Yeah but that happens to other people, not to me.”

15 years ago I had friends, to be sure, but my self-esteem was low and I hadn’t really resolved my old belief that I wasn’t likeable, let alone loveable.

I was incredibly lonely

And I told myself there was no point in phoning so-and-so because they would surely be too busy to want to spend time with me. Inevitably, stories such as these become self-prophecies.

A couple of things have helped me in this transformation from feeling like a no-mates to feeling deeply blessed in the way my friends support me and the love I have for them, and they for me.

One is Facebook, yep I’ve said it. Used in the right way, Facebook is a huge enabler of staying in contact, knowing what friends are up to and engaging them when perhaps you aren’t sure if they are too busy or they’re a million miles away.

Another is finding my tribes, and again Facebook has really helped in this.

I made a couple of Facebook groups and I made some good friends after meeting them in a Facebook group. Kind of makes it all sound like some weird dating system but that’s not what I’m talking about. Joanna Martin’s One Of Many in the B1 global community have a lot to answer for in this regard, and my more recent venture into the world of one’s spirit, who I studied with my ordination. It’s been massive.

However, the biggest one has been changing my own beliefs about myself. I write this because I often read in different groups and even on friends’ Facebook pages and in the news, about the loneliness that people are experiencing.

Families are dissipated, single parents lack child care and feel they can’t go out or make new friends. I’m not sure whether it was normal when my grandparents, or even my parents were young, but it seems to be very common now, this deep loneliness, this feeling of separation, even disconnection.

So many of us have a belief system that says we’re not worthy of our friends, or not important enough to call on our friends, or don’t know how to make friends.

So many of us bury ourselves in our jobs, often to fill the hole that loneliness creates. This then sets up a vicious circle. Bury self in work because lonely, but become so busy that don’t actually have time to spend with the few friends we do have, then they then fall away ’cause they don’t want to bother us. Vicious circle.

And this is one of the reasons I’m starting to share Huna more widely.

Huna, Hawai’ian spirituality and healing, isn’t the only way to deal with loneliness, but it is a way.

I recently asked a friend what Huna gave her, and she told me, joy.

Me too.

I don’t even fear in our lonely old age anymore, which is another thing I wouldn’t have believed 15 odd years ago when the idea of being old and alone absolutely terrified me.

So, my hot tips for combating loneliness are:

1. Deal with the negative emotions you have around friendship like anger or sadness or grief or fear or guilt and the limiting beliefs you might have like I’m not loveable or likeable, or I’m too blah, or I’m too something or I’m not something enough, I’m not good enough, I’m not kind enough, I’m not intelligent enough. Whatever they may be.
2. Join a few Facebook groups where people share common interests. Make sure it’s a loving and supporting group, like the B1 local community for women or Secret Art of Huna.
3. Get out there and do stuff that has you meeting people face to face, like a coffee with someone you’ve met from a Facebook group who lives up the road, or under an hour’s drive away. Even volunteering. I’m having an amazing experience volunteering on the chaplaincy team for a local day hospice.
4. Phone or somehow get back in contact with old friends, email’s good too.

If you don’t know how to release old emotions or beliefs that limit you, then do consider joining the Secret Art of Huna for Powerful Transformation Facebook group, it’s currently for women only. I fully intend to work with women and men in due cause, but as most of my tribe are women’s tribes, I’m starting there.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s podcast. If you want to bring about rapid transformation in your life,  download the free meditation to help you with self-forgiveness. You can also look out for Secret Art of Huna on social media such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Look forward to talking to you again very soon.

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