3 Revealing Questions to ask yourself about your friendships

By Transformational Teacher and Energy Healer, Maria Erving

Do the people you hang out with bring out the best in you, or the worst?

The signs can be subtle but the more aware you become about energy, the quicker you can tell if someone is friendship material or not.

Some signs are very clear, like if you constantly feel you’re walking on egg-shells around someone, or if you feel you always have to explain yourself to your friends or you have to try to help them to understand you, which they never seem to be able to.

Those kinds of signs are very clear indications that tell you that maybe it’s time to gracefully remove yourself from them and start seeking out other kinds of friends instead who ‘get you’ and with whom you can be yourself.

The truth is that people either inspire you, or they drain you, and everybody that we choose to have around us and be with is always influencing us either negatively or positively.

Just like you influence and affect the people around you. But that’s another article!

The trick is to become aware of how people affect us emotionally and energetically and then release those from our lives that bring out the worst in us.

Some people can trigger behaviors in us that are out of character, so pay attention if you, for example, catch yourself gossiping about other people and are bad mouthing them when you’re with certain people.

Or if you’re acting out of character somehow and can’t really explain why, then know that you’re being influenced by someone else’s energy and realize that some people just aren’t a very good match. Which is fine! It’s just a different vibrational frequency and that’s perfectly okay as we’re all different.

There are also times in our lives when we need some space to grow on our own before we can meet up with our old friends again

The point is that when you become aware of acting out of character and you catch yourself doing or saying something that is not really ‘you’, then immediately take responsibility for your energy and actions.

When you take responsibility you also take back your power and become the sole owner of your energy instead of giving it away to others or letting it be influenced by unfavorable energies. 

Here’s three revealing questions to ask yourself about your friendships that will help you see them, yourself, and your values in a clearer light.

1. In your opinion; what is a great friendship?

Finish this sentence by listing 5-8 things that immediately come to mind, without thinking too much or editing yourself. Just let the answers flow (I suggest you write them down). To me, friendships are a source of ______

2. In your opinion, what is an ideal friendship like?
Finish this sentence and list 5-8 things that immediately come to you. My ideal friendship is (with people who/with someone who) _______

3. And lastly, and this is the most revealing question:

Is there an alignment between what you value the most in a friendship and what you actually have in regard to the people you call your friends in your real life? Be honest with yourself and see if there’s a match between your friendship and your core values. For example; if you wrote that friendships are a source of support, laughter and fun, and that they are people/someone you can trust and be yourself with completely, now look at the reality of your relationships. Are they, in reality, a source of support, laughter and fun, etc. or is there most of the time a lot of drama going on between you, or maybe them not even fully accepting you as you are?

When you do this exercise, you might even realise that you don’t even like some of your friends very much!

Or it may dawn on you that maybe you’re not a very good friend yourself and that you can improve in that area and be more authentic or appreciative to the people you have in your life.

To take this friendship evaluation exercise even further you can also become very clear about any deal-breakers, so you have that established for yourself too in the future.

Clarify your values

Do this by first clarifying clearly for yourself the top 3-5 values that you want to have in common with your friends, and also few (or a couple) of clear “deal-breakers”.

You can do this with any love relationships too.

Become clear about three top values you want to have in common with a potential partner, as well as three deal-breakers, and use them as guidelines when you meet new people. 

The important thing is to become clear about what you want and are looking for (in any kind of relationship) and then staying true to that.

That way we can make better friendship and relationship choices in the future, and also become better friends ourselves and thus bring out the very best in each other! 

This is how you keep your vibe high and your tribe tight and your relationships aligned with higher values such as trust, love and respect.

www.MariaErving.com