Earlier this summer, I had the opportunity to hear one of my favorite authors/bloggers/women speak - Shauna Niequist. Tonight, I had the opportunity to hear her speak again in Naperville. This time I took my sister wife Sarah with me. Shauna's books are the gifts that keep giving. The book was given to me as a gift and I have bought it as a gift and those who I bought it for have the books for many others. The topic tonight was Connections/Relationships Women have with each other. Shauna stated that there are 4 essential that shape friendship: time, vulnerability, conflict, and being able to rejoice & mourn with others when they are rejoicing or mourning. These are my thoughts combined with Shauna's nuggets of awesome insight.
Time...
"You have to prioritize the friendship to be as important as we say they are." I couldn't agree more. You can't say that someone is your best friend but you never talk to them or only know the surface level stuff going on in their life. Pop quiz - what's been going on in my life in the last 6 months? If you can't answer this other than what's on Facebook, you may need to reevaluate the priority you are giving this friendship. True friendships are built minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. Shauna said it best - "True Connections are not built in the cracks of life - you make real time for them."
Vulnerability...
"Am I leading the way to vulnerability or waiting for them to jump first?"
Vulnerability is truly an essential part of my genuine connections. There have been times when I have held back for various reasons yet expected the other person to be completely open with me. Not fair. I have learned that being vulnerable and letting someone in to the not so pretty, dark, and even scary parts of life is actually liberating. By being vulnerable "first," I'm inviting someone for a genuine connection. Vulnerable does not mean weak, negative, or needy. Vulnerable is ballsy. You have to be willing to be more than just "makeup friends." Makeup friends are not just friends that you have never seen without makeup - it is friends that keep it on the surface, keep it pretty, keep it nice. Those are okay in some situations. But everyone needs the friends who have seen you with no makeup, possibly no bra, a dirty house with paw prints everywhere, and no food in the house to offer to a guest.
Conflict...
You have three options with conflict - run away, pretend, or engage in a difficult conversations. Most solid connections have had some form of conflict - good & valuable conflict. You have to ask yourself, "Am I willing to risk conflict to deepen this connection?" If you are, you will come out on top. Sometimes conflict for me has been as simple as telling someone they hurt my feelings.
Rejoicing & Mourning Together...
Shauna refers to different periods of her life as seasons and I think it is the great way to look at life. Thinking of life as a series of seasons helps me to keep things in perspective. There are going to be good & bad seasons, favorite seasons, dreaded seasons, long seasons, short seasons etc. When I think about this part of connections, rejoicing & mourning together, I think about the seasons we all go through. We aren't always going to be experiencing the same type of season at the same time. Sometimes we may be in a season of celebration while our best friend is in a season of mourning. The true test of a friendship is whether you can mourn with your friend in your season of celebration and more importantly if you rejoice with your friend when you are in a season of mourning. I have been tested on this concept in more times than I would like to admit. Some times I do a good job but not all the time. I have come to learn that the greatest work often occurs when we are the most broken.
At the end of the night, I realized that I'm lucky to have some really great connections that have all these essential parts. Shauna talks about the concept of having a "Home Team" in her book Bittersweet and tonight's discussion highlighted it for me again. My take away from that is that you can't have 47 best friends and 23 family members knowing every aspect of your life. You have a home team made up people that are your go-to. They know your real story - past, present, and would-be future. My home team has changed throughout the seasons of my life and I know it will change again. The home team I have right now is the one of the strongest I have ever had. Blessed. Thankful.
If you haven't read Shauna's books or blog- what are you waiting for???
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