Friendship Therapy
Creating & Maintaining Social Support

Digital Content Page

Having good solid friendships deepens our experience of life.  They help us combat depression, anxiety and loneliness while also encouraging us to be our most authentic self, to let our hair down and let our freak-flag fly.  AND they shine a light on the kind of friendship we want out of our long-term romantic/sexual relationships.

So...how do we make new friends, maintain/improve the ones we already have, end friendships when needed and become our own best friend?

Request Appointment

How to Make New Friends

Making new friends in adulthood can be kind of daunting.  So let's break this down a little bit.  

Podcast Series: Friendships

If you prefer listening to a podcast at your convenience, then check out my podcast series on this topic, in short bite-sized episodes.

The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love 
— Hubert H. Humphrey

Making Friends

First of all, let’s just recognize that how we make new friends changes over time.  It’s generally much easier when we’re younger and seeing the same group of people every day, for years on end.  This kind of consistency at least brings about the opportunity to get to know people better, even if your peer group is sometimes less than desirable.

Over time, we don’t always have the same consistent environments, like school/college, to get to know people.  It can take extra energy and time to meet new people in new environments. Our priorities also change, so we may look for specific qualities and shared values in a new friend than we would have growing up.  

FRIENDSHIP THERAPY

Where Do I Meet New Friends?

It’s not enough to know what kind of friends you want to make, you also need to put yourself out there in situations.

• Friends of friends (saying yes to group events/parties/socials and asking for recommendations for people in different geographic locations)
• Work & Networking (BNI, Rotary Clubs, Chamber of Commerce Meetings)
• ​Continuing Education Classes (i.e. cooking, photography, foreign language)
• Sports & Physical Activities (i.e. dodgeball, bowling leagues, biking, group classes, yoga, hiking, climbing, camping, dancing)​

Request Appointment

Friendship with ones self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world
— Eleanor Roosevelt

Where Do I Find These Kinds of Groups?

• Local newspapers:  “old school” way is in the back section where social groups/activities are listed
• Google Search:  based on location and interest
• Online groups: designed to bring people together, like Meetup.com, FriendMatch.com, and Apps like Nearify to find events near you
• Facebook Events/Groups:  create/find Facebook groups with a common interest
• Other Apps: like Goldstar & LivingSocial & TodayTix & GroupOn

What Am I Looking for in a Friend?

In making new friends, ask yourself the question, “What am I looking for in a friend?” This can be a similar question to what you’re looking for in a relationship or dating situation.  

​Do you want to have shared interests or someone that brings in new fresh ideas and interest? Are you looking for an activity-partner: like a workout buddy, going out clubbing, hiking, movies?  Do you want a friend who has similar or different core values (i.e. adventurous, playful, thoughtful, loyal, etc.), politics, religion, culture, race, age, gender, and/or sexual orientation. Any things else?  

​Get as specific as you can and then hold it lightly as you venture out there and meet new people.

There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship 
– Thomas Aquinas

Friendship blogs

There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship
— Thomas Aquinas

How Do I Maintain & Improve Existing Friendships?

There are moments in life where we notice our friendships are just not as satisfying as we’d like them to be.  Maybe they’ve become sporadic, one-sided, boring, conflictual, or otherwise just not as deep, fun or consistent as we’d like.  

If your friendships have become stale or less than desirable, there’s still hope!
​
Most friendships need a periodic tune-up, to function at their best.  It doesn’t necessarily mean that our friendship needs to end or be replaced.  It may be that infusing some new and positive energy into the friendship is necessary or addressing underlying resentments can help it to function better.
​

Determine Problem Areas

Use these questions to evaluate the status of your current friendships:

• Are there any ways you'd like to improve your friendships?
• If so, how long has this been happening?
• ​​Has it always been this way?
• Is this unique for this friendship or are YOU the common denominator?
• What do you like about the friendship?
• What’s missing?
• What needs to be addressed?

Common problem areas in friendships:

• Too often one-sided, not reciprocal
• Lack of consistent enough quality time together
• Too flaky
  
• Other priorities
• Lack of boundaries

Explore Mindfulness Series

FRIENDSHIP THERAPY

​A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.
​ -- Jim Morrison

e-mail

Friendship Tune-up

Changing our behaviors, especially when we’ve been in a groove for awhile, is not always so easy.  Hopefully caring about your friendship is at least somewhat motivating.  It might feel clunky at first or feel forced, because sometimes what’s asked of us is radically different, but over time and with practice, it can eventually feel easier or at least worth it.

It can be worthwhile to check-in with your friend for a "State of the Union" kind of conversation, in the following way:

• What do you like about our friendship?
• Is there anyway that you'd like to improve our friendship or can I do better at meeting your needs in any way?
• Express gratitude for what your friendship DOES bring.
• Give your friend the benefit-of-the-doubt if it’s warranted and let them know how you’d like your friendship to improve.
• Assert your needs by making direct clear actionable requests.

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Specific Friendship Treatment

​Depending on the status of your friendship it may either need a significant shift to continue OR a slight adjustment of one or two things.  Be honest with yourself and the other person about what's realistic and achievable to commit to improving, if anything.

Improvements can be things like:

• Spending more quality time together
• Spending more consistent time together
• Using various means of communication (i.e. in-person is usually better for addressing conflict while texting can be great for updates and scheduling).
• Asserting/respecting boundaries
• Showing up for important events/celebrations​

Re-Evaluate Where Your Friendship is At

After communicating more clearly with each other and hopefully taking a different or extra course of action, notice if/how things have changed over time.  Are there any needed adjustments or reminders? After have done due-diligence, you also get to consider if the friendship is worth as much time/energy or if you need to pull back or even end it.  We can’t be friends with everyone. We only have so much time so being strategic with our time/energy is important.

FRIENDSHIP THERAPY

One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.
— Euripides

How to End Friendships

The language of friendship is to be one 
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Obvious Signs a Friendship Needs to End

Destructive or even toxic friendships can wreak havoc on our lives.  And sometimes, friendships can be problematic in other ways.

​Here are a few more obvious signs you might want to end your friendship:  

• Your friend is too self-absorbed (when they're unwilling to compromise, do things you want, ask how you’re doing, have an actual conversation & not just a monologue)
• They are exponentially more concerned with perceived slights than their own egregious behaviors, (more sensitive to what’s been done to them than their thoughtfulness with others)
• They repeatedly betray your trust (talking about you negatively behind your back, sharing information you’ve shared confidentially, is sexual with someone you’re involved with without your consent)
• They are consistently breaking plans/commitments (more times than not)
• Your friend consistently doesn’t show up for important events to support you
• They blame you for everything
• They don't take responsibility for their actions
• They constantly puts you down
• They even make you question your reality (i.e. gaslighting)

If it’s become clear, that despite your best efforts, your friendship needs to end, this is about prioritizing self-preservation.  It’s important not to jeopardize your emotional, physical or psychological health and well-being to remain in a toxic relationship of any kind.  
​

Less Obvious Signs a Friendship Needs to End

There are other less obvious signs a friendship may need to end, or at least be re-prioritized so that you spend less energy/time with them.  Here are a few:

• It becomes less convenient than spending time with other friends
• The cost/benefit ratio for the friendship doesn't pay off enough of the time
• Feels too one-sided too much of the time
• You have a desire to prioritize other friendships you find more consistently rewarding
• Too negative too much of the time, despite your efforts to shift and communicate your needs

As a licensed marriage and family therapist, I believe in the healing power of relationships.  We can be hurt and yet heal/grow in relationships too. Relationships take work, are not perfect and at times require repairs and maintenance.

So, if you’ve done your due diligence in trying to improve your friendship or it’s just too toxic or something happened that’s so egregious AND you’re actually ready to end your friendship, how do you do it?

My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me 
— Henry Ford

Assess Your Readiness to End a Friendship

​Ask yourself the following questions:

• Have you asserted your needs in consistent enough ways?
• Have you done due diligence in trying to better the friendship (putting more into the friendship yourself, like time, energy, presence, positivity)?
• Do you have other support systems in place?
• Have you imagined what it would be like without them in your life, realistically?
• Is there any other prep work you need to do beforehand?
• How safe do you feel physically, sexually, psychologically, emotionally, and financially?  If need be, create a safety plan to exit/leave and/or protect yourself. In extreme cases, get a temporary restraining order if needed and seek professional support and/or legal advice.
• If they have a history of self-harm, do you need to contact their social support to let them know you're ending the friendship so they can be there for them?

Ending Friendships

Request appointment

Ending a Friendship?

How to end depends on the context of your friendship and your own safety.

Here are three different methods depending on the reasons for needing to end a friendship:

1. Slowly fading out:  most peripheral friendships that end, die out naturally over time. Having a non-dramatic and mutual withdrawal is where you spend less and less time together interacting.  You initiate less. You accept less invitations to talk or hang-out. Sometimes this happens without our intent where we get distracted by work or other priorities. We can’t be friends with everyone and only have so much time in our day, so we need to be somewhat selective in how we want to spend our time.
2. Break-up conversation:  for those who are more significant in our lives, or for those that aren’t able to slowly fade out, sometimes we need to end a friendship directly by communicating our intention to do so.  Like the concept of “conscious uncoupling” in primary romantic relationships, it’s important to do so in a clear but kind way. There’s no need to do a scorched-earth kind of withdrawal. A little compassion, even if you’re hurt, betrayed or angry, can go a long way to creating a more compassionate world too.  Compassion doesn’t mean permitting someone to treat you poorly, rather it’s taking responsibility for what you own and not owning what someone else needs to take responsibility for. It’s being clear and setting firm boundaries.
3. Cold-turkey withdrawal:  when a friendship has gotten volatile, abusive or toxic, sometimes the best response is to cut off the friendship cold-turkey.  This can be about removing any access they had earlier to communicate with you (like blocking their phone number and/or de-friending, blocking or not following them on social media).

The only way to have a friend is to be one.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Becoming Your Own Best Friend

The relationship we have with ourselves is the most important relationship in our lives. It's one that's with us from birth until death, 24/7, and 365 days a year. Literally no one else on the planet can be there in the same way that we can be there for ourselves.

How Did We Create a False Self?

This topic is near and dear to my heart, especially because as a teenager, I was my own worst critic to the point of having a tremendous amount of self-hatred and rejection. Now, I didn't start out this way; none of us do, but our environment certainly has an impact on this, right? So, whether we're bullied by our peers, whether we're rejected by our families or society at large, it really has an impact, especially when our brains haven't developed enough to really understand what's going on.

Many of us grow up in environments where we don't even get basic support for our natural way of being, our personalities, and our way interacting with the world.  Instead, we may get messages that we're expected to be perfect, never make mistakes, and may even receive demeaning attitudes and ridicule for our core essential-self. We learn ways of adapting, like only showing certain parts of ourselves that get better results.  In order to be loved or accepted or safe, we can even create a false self.

It's a brilliant defense. It's effective in a lot of different ways, and so it's important not to dis our defenses, but rather appreciate where they came from and how they helped us to survive.  However, if we use these approaches into adulthood, into our relationships, into our careers, it can really inhibit our full potential.

Le us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls bloom
— Marcel Proust

How Do We Befriend Ourselves?

How do we become our own best friends, especially if we already have a pretty conflictual or toxic relationship with ourselves? In order to better our relationships, to embrace our life more fully, and to change the world we live in, we need better our relationship with ourselves.

What does it mean to become your own best friend? What does this look like? It's not just in moments when we're struggling that it's important to befriend ourselves and care and attend to whatever pain is there in the moment. It also means enjoying life, right? Allowing ourselves to play and to experience pleasure and joy. It's showing up for ourselves, not just when we're down and out, but also when we're enjoying and celebrating life. So, it's multifaceted.

Going Back to the Basics

Developing a friendship with ourselves, a better friendship, really requires us to go back to the basics. Again, if we're meeting someone for the first time, we're going to be asking questions and approaching things hopefully from a place of curiosity and non-judgment. What's their history? What makes them tick? What are their core values, thoughts, feelings, and needs? What makes them who they are? We can apply that same principle of curiosity and non-judgement to ourselves, especially if we've neglected or have a toxic relationship with ourselves.

In order to do this, we need to take ourselves off autopilot and reconnect to our five senses because they can deliver useful messages. That can be a way for us to get to know ourselves. If our heart starts racing, maybe it's about some level of excitement or fear, and we can follow that path and be curious about what in our present moment environment is bringing up certain thoughts and feelings and physical sensations. If we're recognizing that we're hearing or seeing something in a particular way that's pleasurable or upsetting, it's one of the ways that we register and get to know ourselves.

This is also about showing up when we're having a bad day or struggling with something, instead of kicking ourselves when we're down. Sometimes it can be useful to imagine our younger self that needs some love, validation, attention, support. We don't have to attend to every desire of our younger self immediately. Sometimes we need to set boundaries but we can also build a relationship with ourselves where we recognize, "Oh, I'm at work, or I need to attend to something, and I will spend some time with you later addressing the hurt feelings or whatever else is going on."

A friend is a gift you give yourself
— Robert Louis Stevenson

Rebuilding Trust with Ourselves

This process is also about rebuilding trust in ourselves if it's something that's diminished over time.  We do this through consistent action, not being too rigid, having some level of flexibility, but also making sure that we're taking steps to do the things that we want to do in life, to treat ourselves well. This can be about giving ourselves enough good nutrition, consistent sleep and exercise.  This is also about just showing up for ourselves, not from a punitive, judgy place, but from an expansive, caring, "I deserve this" sort of place.

When we're struggling, when we're experiencing some pain, oftentimes what we need the most is to just sit and be with ourselves.  Sometimes we don't need the advice giving.  Sometimes we just need the recognition of the feeling itself, the feeling state, and caring for it in whatever ways are appropriate in the given moment.

We can do this for ourselves like we would a friend who's sharing some painful experience they've had where they feel upset. Oftentimes it's enough to just say, "Hey, I care. I get it. I've been through that. I'm here. I care. It matters to me how you're feeling." That can be the perfect medicine in so many different ways, and we also need to be able to do that for ourselves in moments when nobody's around, when we need to be there for ourselves some of the time and not just have other people do that for us.

To develop that level of relationship with ourselves can be tremendously rewarding and help us deal with the natural ups and downs of life.

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit
— Aristotle

Recognizing Our Inherent Worth

​Lastly, I want to acknowledge that we all have inherent worth and value, simply for being human.  It's our birthright.  This can be a difficult concept to grasp or believe in.  Sometimes we hear messages that we have to prove our worth by what we produce, how much we earn, what we look like and on and on and on.  This gets in the way of being our most authentic self and living life from this place more of the time.  We have unconditional worth and value regardless of what we say or do or don't say or don't do. There's nothing to prove because it's already there in all of us.  It exists inherently as part of our humanity.  When we operate from this knowledge then we more naturally live in ways that are in alignment with our core values. 

Again, the most important relationship we'll have in this life is with ourselves.  Enjoy!

Sign-up to my newsletter below to receive updates of future series.