What to do when your friends stay stuck

I recently had a friend ask me for some relationship advice.

But it wasn’t about dating, it was about friendship.

See, this friend of mine has been on her journey of healing, and has upgraded her love life completely.

I’m so unbelievably happy for her and her partner!

The problem, though, is that her friends haven’t been on the same journey.

Which means they still have their default habits that are keeping them stuck…and leaving my friend feeling haunted by her past.

These habits include things like:

• Complaining constantly about bad dates

• Ignoring red flags

• Dating the same type of person and being surprised when it crashes and burns

• Using each other to soothe from bad dating experiences (that they themselves keep creating due to the aforementioned habits)

The reason these habits are painful to witness is because they’re based on a lack of accountability.

They imply that the person is a victim of bad dates.

They put the ownership of improving the situation on the people they're dating and not themselves.

And they put the ownership of soothing their nervous system and emotions on their friends instead of themselves.

Now, I’m not saying you can’t turn to your friends for support during a hard time. 

But when that hard time keeps repeating itself, and you become reliant on others to help you sort it out, then you have some work to do.

You need to stop outsourcing your power.

So, back to the original concern…my friend wanted to know how to deal with her negative feelings when her friends engage in this behavior.

Here are some ideas that might help:

• Invite your friends to grow with you: As with any relationship that you value, it’s important to explicitly share what you need and want to make the relationship stronger. Have the courage to tell your friend(s) about your journey and how you’d love to have them join you. This might look like telling them how your healing is going, and asking if they want any referrals. 

• Set a boundary around this type of behavior or topic: If your friends like to complain to you or the group about this topic, you may find it hard to avoid. Sometimes though we need to have hard conversations and ask our friends to stop bringing up topics that we find triggering. If you were working on your body self-love, you might ask your chronically dieting friends to stop discussing diets at the brunch table, right? Same goes here. You may need to tell your friends that you’re healing from your relationship patterns and that you’d love for this space to be one of constructive solutions instead of stuck bitch-fests. Worst case, you learn to disengage when those conversations come up. Instead of rescuing your friend from her negative feelings by reassuring her or stopping your life to come help her, you can respond with a validating statement like “that sounds really hard” and gently moving the conversation to a new topic.

• Focus on attracting new friends who are at your upgraded level: Remember that upgrading your internal self-worth sometimes means you also need to upgrade your tribe. I’m not suggesting that you simply ditch all your old friends, but you may find yourself less interested in making time with them. In the interim, start opening your mind to new friendship possibilities and allow new people into your life if they feel aligned. 

I think it’s important to understand that there can be some periods of loneliness in the healing journey. 

Not everyone is going to want to join you, and that’s okay.

But don’t hold yourself back just because they aren’t ready to move forward. 

Invite them to come along, but also do what is best for your current level of evolution.

Just like your romantic relationships, I don’t want you to settle anywhere in life - friendships included.