This might sound crazy, but I do not think I truly understood what friendship looks like until recently. I am 23 years old and just figuring it out. I want to help you figure out what real friends look like in your life so you can begin growing into the best version of you that you can be. While reading through this I want you to be honest with yourself as you evaluate the quality of your relationships in your life. The truth is, friends have a heavy impact on our spiritual and mental health. Two extremely important areas of our daily lives. Don’t take your friendships lightly. They can either cause you to flourish or to wither.
Looking back on high school, my heart breaks when I remember the friendships I had. At the time, the way my friendships were seemed normal. Face to face to each other we were all the best of friends, but behind each others backs it was all gossip. As soon as one of us was not with the rest, they were the hot topic. The way we hurt each other and did not even care we were doing it, makes me angry. I do not want you all to think it was only my friends that were the problem, I was the problem too. I did not treat my friends well at all either. I participated in all the gossip and talk behind others’ backs. I remember not being remorseful until I got caught, which means I never was truly remorseful, but guilty. It was the same for all of us and it was a constant circle of hurting each other, then forgiving each other. It was pain, torture, and completely unhealthy. There were times I was left out of the fun plans and then invited last minute because I had heard it was happening and brought it up to them. There were also times I was just flat out left out. Yet I always believed they still wanted me around and in their lives.
Things began looking up in college. I got really close to a handful of people from church. We were all a part of the drama team and spent countless hours together weekly. I began pouring into these friends and got the same in return. There was never any drama or issues, and any free time we all had we spent together. Best of all, we were all in similar parts of our walk in Christ. I will never forget how fast I grew in my relationship with God. They all held me accountable, as we are called to do, and there were never any issue with that. Each of us were open to our sin being brought to our attention in order for us to turn from it. I had found the exact friends I needed in my life. I began finding joy and happiness in the smallest of things. This stemmed from how healthy the friendships were in my life at the time. I felt loved, wanted, and secure for the first time in my friendships. Looking back I can genuinely see the huge impact my college friends had on my life. But my time to move away came. I had to move off to a different college in order to graduate and pursue my career. I moved filled with hope in finding friends like that again and figured I would since it was college and not high school. But it is easy to believe you are in the right friendships when you are in the middle of them. See, I did not know my high school friendships were toxic until I looked back on them, and the same goes for all other times in our lives. This is why it is important to understand the impact our friendships have in our lives and how to see when we are in the middle of a toxic friendship so we can take the correct steps towards health.
I could sit here and type out a huge list of ways your friends could be mistreating you, but it would take all day. So instead, I am going to share my experiences and allow you to learn from those. Your friendships should not be one sided at all. They should be pouring into you as much as you are pouring into them. If you stopped initiating all of the conversations and hang outs would they even notice? Would you still be getting messages and plans made from their end? You should. The truth is, you should not be the only one reaching out or making plans. You should also be invited to things. If you have seen all your friends hanging out without you or not inviting you to an event, they are not your friends. I used to always fall for the “oh my gosh I thought I invited you”, or, “oh I am so sorry I must have forgotten”. If they wanted you there, you would have been there. The next one seems like a given, but are they kind to you? Do they make you feel better or worse about yourself? I will go ahead and tell you now, the friends I have now make me feel so much better about myself than I have before. I have never once been left out, left behind, or made to feel worse about myself by them. A big part of this comes from selflessness. Have you ever been around someone who only talks about their life, their problems, and it is all about them? This is a problem! It is painful to never be asked how you are doing and for a friend to not genuinely care about what is going on in your life. Recognize it so you can stop hurting and feeling invisible. They will bring you clarity on who you are and will push you forward in life. Around Christmas this past year my friends pushed me towards my biggest goal in life, this blog. It is what I wanted to do, but before I knew these friends I never felt good enough or important enough. But my friends today encouraged me and continue to encourage me in this journey. And that is something I have never experienced before, that is, friends that encourage me instead of telling me my dreams are silly.
The biggest point I am going to bring up is do they lead you away from sin or towards sin? Your friends should be holding you accountable as we are called to by God. I have been in both groups in my life. The ones who lead me towards sin and the ones who lead me away from it. My life was sucked out of me when I was around those leading me into sin. I was confused of who I was, angry at the decisions I was making, and ultimately drifted away from God. It is hard to not follow the crowd when the crowd is your friends. But finding the right friends will bring you joy and lead you away from sin. As much as I hate to say it my friends and I are typically asleep by 9:30 p.m. On the nights we do stay up late it is because we are having a heavy gospel conversation based off of a question one of us has or based off the simple question, “how are you all doing spiritually.” That is what keeps us up late and those are my absolute favorite nights.
All these points may seem obvious or silly to you, but I encourage you to dig into the roots of your friendships. Do they bring any issues they may have with you to you or to others behind your back? Do they care to sit and have a conversation about your life and whats going on? Do they pursue you and pour into you? Do they lead you towards Christ? The friendships we have impact our all around health every day. You get to choose whether you flourish or wither based off the people you choose to surround yourself with.
One point I do want to make is yes, we are called to forgive, and that is something we should always do. But there is a difference between forgiving someone and allowing someone back into your life to cause pain over and over again. If it is a cycle you are noticing, then yes, forgive them, but it is time to walk away from what is causing you pain.
Email me through the contact page or dm me through my instagram (@whollyhealthyblog) if you need to talk about this subject. I will listen and I will help as best I can. Remember you have worth and no one in your life should treat you any less than you deserve.
