Friendship Therapy - Reach Out

The older we get the tougher it can be to keep in touch with our friends. We grow up, couple up, move location, take on more responsibilities, commitments and life moves at an ever increasing pace.

In this age of social media, we feel like we know what's going on with our friends. After-all, we see them every day and they look so happy, life seems like it's really going well for them.

Our edited life on Facebook can be far from the life we are experiencing...

Snipets of adventure and and happiness pasted together to form a 'perfect' life that would make anyone feel a little hint of jealousy. While real life is lived in the moments between the photos, the moments behind closed doors, forced smiles and 'I'm fine'. Life passes us by very quickly and we soon realise it's been weeks or even months since we spent any quality time with our friends.

When we do catch up with our friends it's often in a group, with our families and respective partners or over a five minute phone conversation while we're running from one place to the next.

My very dear friend, Lucy, came to stay with me last weekend, we had a great night catching up and being girlie, it was just like old times. It dawned on me that it was actually the first time in years we had had a whole night to ourselves. Also, it made me realise just how much we needed it.

We need the time to really find out what's going on between the photos. Time to find out how much we need each other and to know when perhaps those smiles and 'I'm fines' are masking a truth we don't want to express in a group or in front of our families. Time to be our authentic, undistracted selves, dedicating ourselves solely to each other for that moment in time.

To nurture our friendships we need to go on 'friend dates'. Make time for your friends on a 1-1 basis to really find out what's going on in their life and how they're feeling. Talking to you might be just the therapy they need!

Who else but your best friends will...

• Share your joy and sadness

• Love you no matter what

• Watch Dirty Dancing with you for the 1000 time

• Check you on your BS

• Come up with crazy ideas (camps Emma?)

• Belly laugh about that one time...

• Tell you what you really look like in that outfit

• Encourage you when you need it most

• Support even your craziest ideas

• Be there when you need them most

I am so lucky to have truly wonderful friends (I LOVE YOU GUYS!), I hope you do too- nurture those friendships.

Sing it loud.... You've got a friend in me!

"To have a friend, you need to be a friend."

x Louise

#behaviour #friendship #friend #love