Written by Hali Tsotetsi. Image from Unsplash.
As someone who takes friendship seriously, I have had to recently let go of a deep friendship. And, although it has left a big space in my life, I trust and know that I will fill that void with people and things that are healthy for me.
In the meantime, as I process the loss of this close friendship, I have had deep revelations that I am grateful for.
I feel like every relationship that we have is a mirror to us and I have definitely seen some lessons reflected back to me.
Here are 3 things that I learned recently about giving and receiving love:
1. It has to be reciprocal.
When I was younger, I used to give a lot into personal relationships. I would exhaust myself doing things for others and receive little to nothing back. I didn’t want to admit it but it hurt me. It made me feel used.
Since I have gone through a lot of emotional healing and maturity, I rarely find myself in personal relationships that ask more of me than I am given. I used to feel guilty for releasing friendships and relationships that didn’t feel equal (or close to) what I was giving into it.
Now I understand clearly that I can’t force people to give me or any relationship. If the person that I am giving to does not reciprocate, it is okay to take a step back and let that friendship or relationship go.
It is not up to me to change other people but I can set up boundaries for the kind of relationships that I want to foster and nurture.
2. Someone’s love is not a reflection of me.
As a child of divorce and parental separation, I have a deep wound of abandonment that I have spent my whole adult life healing. If you have ever experienced childhood abandonment, it can shape how you see and feel love. It can even shape how you see yourself.
I am grateful that with therapy and self-awareness, I am in a better place than when I was in my youth regarding this issue. However, when I think I have healed this wound, another version of it opens itself up to reveal something else that I need to heal.
In my former friendship, I wouldn’t receive the same communication or care that I put into it. As they say, I was ‘breadcrumbed’ a lot. I would show up countless time for this person and when I ended up being sick, he didn’t even check up on me to ask me how I was. A long with other careless actions throughout our friendship.
I spent some time taking this personally and during therapy, I had one of the biggest revelations: someone’s lack or inadequacy towards me is not a reflection of me or how lovable I am. Some people just suck at loving and it is not a reflection of me.
3. Not everyone deserves to be in my life.
The older that I get, I have fewer and fewer close friends. Although I have had most of my friends for decades, a part of me still feels the need to befriend someone new that I meet and welcome them into my life because I have a giving nature.
However, I have accepted that me being generous, kind and loving towards others can also come with a boundary and selection. I only want to be surrounded by people who live by the golden rule of doing the same unto others.
It is not up to me to continually give to someone that is incapable of giving and, I have every right to put forward that boundary.