How to make Friends

To be a good friend you must inspect your own thoughts.

I want you to reflect today on how good a friend you are. I want you to dig deep and figure this out.

First thing I want you to ask yourself is do you truly listen to your friends ?

Are you listening or are you waiting for them to finish talking in order to talk about you ?

Are you listening or are you thinking of something that happened to you on friday night ?

Are you listening or are you waiting to talk about your problems so your friends can validate them ?

Are you listening or are you waiting to butt in with your ‘better’ story ?

From now on I want you to inspect all your thoughts when you're around your friends. What makes you feel bad ? Does it annoy you when they dont ask about you, how you're doing? Or what's going on in your love life ?but yet you are constantly talking about them. Note that down and it will teach you to always ask about your friends. Ask them how they are doing in the pandemic. How does it make them feel when their boyfriend didn't text back ?

Note how amazing it is when you can sit down with your friend and bare your soul with absolutely no judgment. All we want is someone to listen really, we don't even need advice most of the time.

We want to literally be our true authentic selves. When we feel someone is judging us we tend to mould ourselves into what they want and guess what no one wants to hang about with someone if they can't be who they truly are with them.

Note the times you talk about your partner and your friend is giving out about him and how much you should break up with him. That feels horrible right? It makes you feel like your friend doesn't accept your partner and will lead to you closing up and maybe distancing yourself from that friend.

This is exactly what we do not want to happen. No matter if your friend's fella is a top notch slag ball you must accept him and listen to her when she needs you. She will always make up her own mind anyway, she may get back with him, but that's her choice. If you're trying to control her decision she will end up hiding her relationship. You must accept her and her decisions and then she will always come to you and forever be close- And my gals let me tell you something YOU NEED YOUR GALS.

Note the times your friends have judged you or maybe tried to control your actions. Note it does not feel good to be unaccepted. I want you to understand that if your friend gets drunk, gets a tattoo on her face, flies to vegas and marries her first cousin- if you are a true friend you will accept all her decisions.

We are humans, we give into impulses, we f**k up, we drunk text exs, we eat curry cheesy chips when on a diet, we get with knobheads who are no good for us, we turn up late for work, we forget birthdays, we sometimes get caught up in the world. But it's our decisions and when we make mistakes we deal with them ourselves, we deal with our own guilt and make better decisions after. We don't need our mates giving us the judgement eye on top of that.

So what I'm saying is be a mate. Whatever they do. You accept. You love and you listen.

Journal prompt

Examine what feels good as a friend

Is it lovely to receive a bunch of flowers from your friend when you are down ? then you should do that for another?

Does it feel good to receive a pair of fluffy socks from Primark from your mate ? Then do the same?

Does it feel good that your friends ask you questions about your life and truly cares about how you're doing ? then do that for them ?

Does it feel good when they invite you over from dinner? Then you know what to do by now …

What makes you feel bad in your friendships ? does it annoy you when they leave you on read ? does it annoy you when they don't ask you how you're doing after a break up ? then please note all these and you can use them as tools to be a better friend.

Everything you discover within your reflection will make you a better friend and better friends always have friends. We need social support. Social support and time are the 2 best healers when it comes to heart break, traumas or just general hard times. So get building the support and life will be a hell of a lot easier.

Sinead  ‘ thankful for her friends who didn't abandon her when she got back with twats’  Hegarty