I have noticed a theme in my work recently around the complexities of friendships.
Personally, I get a tad frustrated with myself that I still overthink this stuff at times. My son who is 21 recently asked me “When does this stuff get easier?” Erm…well I am nearing 50 and I’ll you know!
It can actually feel harder to maintain friendships as we get older. As a young child a shared interest is often enough. I remember my son at 4 introducing me to his “new best friend” at the local play zone who had a shared love of the extra long slide. It was quite simple for him back then as it is for many young children. This gets harder as we get older and start to be more consciously aware of others’ opinions of us. The survival instinct kicks in and we need to part of a pack to survive (it literally feels like life and death – the amygdala that I talked about in an earlier blog takes over and tells us that it is that serious!)
Let’s face it teen years can be really hard and a lot of that is down to friendship groups and that need to fit in and not stand out. Brene Brown covers this really well in her book “Atlas of the heart” (Brown, 2021) . She surmises that when we are changing who we are to be accepted we are attempting to fit in and when we belong, we are accepted for being who we are. This resonates a great deal with me. I spent many years trying to adapt who I was as a teenager so that I would be accepted. Unsurprisingly (to adult me) this didn’t work very well! I spent many years feeling not good enough and was often lonely and went in on myself. I became fearful of doing or saying the wrong thing for fear that I would be ridiculed. I spent a lot of time and energy trying to work out what was wrong with me.
I can remember the moment the penny dropped on this for me, I was 19 and had just arrived at my first proper RAF base. I was terrified of going into the mess (dining hall to my civilian readers!) but more terrified of continuing this pattern of being scared to do stuff due to my own insecurities. So, I picked up my tray and went over to the liveliest looking table and asked if I could join them as I didn’t know anyone. Funnily enough most were really accepting of me and I remember one commenting years later that “I could never have done that”. She is still a friend today. That was the start of a long journey toward recognising my super power - I am really good at doing stuff anxiously! Sure, it still at times feels scary and I get in my own head with this stuff but I can do it and as a wise counselling trainer once told me “You do not have a glass head; no one can see you are anxious”.
At times as an older (nearing 50! Eek) adult my inner teen takes the reigns and will tell me I need to fit in, that no one will accept me for just being me. For those of us that have been affected by bullying and toxic friendships in our youth the reach from the past to now can feel massively overwhelming and powerful. That’s when I need adult me to step up and remind younger me that I am good enough. That I won’t be able to please everyone and I won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Do you know what though? I am ok with that. Now this part has been a massive, quite recent, game changer for me. I can’t and actually don’t have the right to control other people’s reaction to me. I do need to be able to look in the mirror and be happy with how I am with others and myself. I am responsible to people for what I put out there but I am not responsible for others and their stuff.
So why do I fall back in to the overthinking at times? Quite simply because our connections and sense of belonging has a massive effect on our mental health. Belonging and feeling connected enhances our sense of well being and helps to shield against the stresses of life. No one warns you that being adult is actually quite hard! I would gently encourage you be kind to yourself the next time you too are feeling frustrated with yourself for overthinking and instead be curious. Are you trying to fit in or do you belong?
Some friendships come into our life for the whole story and some for just a chapter, friendships shift and change like all relationships and we have to be ok with that. The friends that I know that I belong with, are the ones that I rarely overthink, I trust that they understand that we all have busy lives and when we reconnect it is like no time has passed all. There are no hidden expectations that have grown over time; my stuff is equally as important as theirs. We are different; we celebrate that.
A lot of this will come down to boundaries.
I will look a little more at the challenges of healthy boundaries in a future blog.
References:
Brene Brown (2021). Atlas of the Heart. New York Random House
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