Show Up For Your Friends, They Need You

You are a gift to those you love.

My girlfriend Kim and I after a great workout together

Real friendships have been a rare occurrence for me throughout my life.

I’m talking about the kind of friendships where you feel a soul connection and they add a great deal of joy, love, and value to your life. These are the friends you can count on to show up for you when you need someone to lean on and recognize it without you having to ask. They are conscious of you, concerned and have love for you just for being you - not what you can do for them.

Now as an adult, I recognize them, protect and treasure them.

I have a dear friend who recently reached out to me for support. He had acknowledged an emptiness within him he had been unable to fill for a long time. His words, the way he described this feeling, were all too familiar.

“I feel like I’m not enough,” he said.

This was a pivotal moment in our relationship. He had never been so open and vulnerable with me before. I felt honored he trusted me to come to me.

There was a time I used to feel this way all the time, and there are some days I still catch myself feeling this way, more so in a professional manner.

For someone to come to you and feel safe enough to be this vulnerable is a gift for both of you.

The universe is presenting us with the opportunity to share our healing process. Those dark nights of our past are now serving someone we love.

But we must proceed with care, caution, and consciousness.

Showing Up For Our Friends

Validate Their Pain

First, let’s remember to acknowledge and validate their pain. It’s real and the emotions require acceptance. We cannot move forward with the healing process without fully accepting and owning responsibility for our emotions.

Hold Space

Secondly, our main role in sharing our healing process is giving our friends safe spaces. We do this by approaching the situation with loving awareness, not shameful awareness. Sometimes we know better and still choose not to do better for many reasons, and we tend to shame ourselves for not taking the higher path when we could have. Our friends may already be experiencing this internal battle, they don’t need it from us.

Holding space for healing means being completely present with them, removing any judgment and criticism, and being a loving guide to remind them how abundant, powerful, and Divine they are. We help shift their awareness from negative thoughts and self-talk to thoughts of gratitude and more loving self-talk.

Ask How To Be Supportive

Do not give unsolicited advice. I learned this the hard way.

Sometimes our friends just want someone to listen and hear them out. Talking is a safe way of unloading the anxious energy they are carrying around. This doesn’t mean you need to absorb it; rather, observe it. Be a supportive witness to someone’s process.

Other times our friends want advice and to hear our thoughts. If they do not ask you directly for advice or clarify if they want a soundboard, ask them how you can best support them, “Would you like me to be a soundboard for you and just listen, or would you like me to offer you my best intuitive advice?”

My girlfriend Vicky and I were at a sports bar after watching a UFC fight!

Healing With Guidance

When he asked me to provide specific strategies on how to overcome feelings of low self-worth, this is how I responded:

I suggested that instead of trying to overcome the feelings of low self-worth he embrace it. What I mean by this is these feelings are showing us the parts of us that need love and attention. The next time he heard an unkind narrative in his mind, I asked him to say “STOP” out loud and intentionally at least two kind things about himself. Instead of feeling ashamed and trying to overcome the obstacle of feeling inadequate, we honor the emotion and give love to it.

We can’t shame ourselves into healing, but we can love ourselves through it.

When someone is struggling with feeling like they are not enough, it is because they have not yet discovered, or are not honoring the Divinity within them - the eternal life-force energy that animates us and gives us life. What’s the difference between a dead body, in perfect health & condition, and a living one? That essence, that purity of energy is what I am referring to.

My second suggestion was to begin implementing a daily habit of practicing states of gratitude, for at least 5 minutes a day in the morning before getting out of bed. This is something I practice, too, and has been a complete game-changer. It’s incredible how such a simple, intentional ritual can make such a significant impact. The reason this is so powerful is because we are consciously raising our frequency, which elevates the state in which we operate and everything we touch contains that energy.

My last suggestion was another simple, intentional exercise:

In a quiet, safe place in solitude, close your eyes, clear your mind, and ask yourself this question - “What would it feel like to be more than enough?” Practice that feeling over and over again, until you recognize that energetic state so you can shift into that state at any place at any time you begin to feel less than. This is an act of self-love.

Treasure Your Friendships

When we treasure our friendships, we help heal others and we expand on our healing by honoring the journey we went through to be able to share our lessons. They become not only gifts to ourselves, but to others, too.

The level of gratitude and love I felt from my friend is indescribable. When I think about how I was able to show up for him and how much we mean to each other, I get emotional. Being able to help him through this challenge made my pain & suffering worth it.

Our friendship also feels stronger with a deeper level of trust and confidence in one another. While we rarely see each other, I know we have each other’s best interest at heart and I feel incredibly fulfilled by this friendship. I treasure it with all my heart.

This is just one story of how I was able to show up for one of my friends recently, and the only reason I was able to show up is because I’m in a good, stable, strong place right now. If I hadn’t done the internal work for myself to lift me up and out of some dark, low places, I wouldn’t have been able to serve others.

Treasure Yourself

The most important friendship you’ll ever have is the one with yourself.

Who you are is a reflection of the relationship you have with yourself.

Your friendships, and the people you surround yourself with, are also a reflection of your internal universe.

If you find yourself around people who do not show up for you and do not treasure you, it’s time to take a look inside.

Be the friend you are to yourself and I promise you, you will be treasured.