Christy Writes: On Friendship and Letting Go

I don’t often write about my spiritual journey, mostly because I’m not one for sharing great heaving chunks of personal information with the masses, and also because I’m not a trained counselor or spiritual guide of any kind – just another person trying to keep her footing in a perpetually shifting world.

Lately, though, I’ve been focused on healing old hurts, letting go of the parts of the past that no longer serve my emotional and spiritual well-being, if they ever did. It’s a wrenching process, honestly, because a lot of that stuff is buried under spiritual ice. I can still see it, I know it’s there, but it’s tough to dig out. If I leave it there, though, I’ll always be able to see it, just under the surface.

My spiritual journey at this juncture is focused on friendships. Over the past few years I’ve shed a few people I thought would be lifelong friends (I’ve been both the shedder and the shedee), and I’ve made some truly wonderful new friends who support and nurture me in every way, and who allow me to give them that same beautiful gift.

During a recent morning meditation, when my mind was quiet and clear, I started to notice some of the same thoughts rising like soap bubbles. Memories of old friends – but not happy ones. I found myself wanting to replay again and again how and why the relationships ended, to wander through the broken bits and try to find the one piece that I could grab, hold up to the light, and finally understand why a friendship had crossed my path at all if it was just going to leave me sad.

Moments of clarity are funny things. They’re like big foamy waves that you don’t see coming up behind you until they crash over your head and leave you dripping wet and thinking, “Ohhhhhhh.” That moment for me came when I realized that each of the friendships I was still grieving (in my case there were three) had come into my life for a reason, and if I allowed myself to think about it honestly, that reason was to teach me something. About myself, about love, about every day and every moment I spend walking this planet.

So I started there. I spent some quiet time contemplating the friendship I’d had with each of these three women. I asked myself what I’d needed to learn that they had taught me. And once I opened my mind and my spirit to hearing that truth, it came to me. I meditated on that truth for awhile, and focused on the growth that had come about because of that friendship. I thanked God for bringing them into my life. And for the first time in a long time, I felt gratitude toward them. And with gratitude came peace.

I wrote each of them a note and thanked them for what their friendship had brought to my life. I received a wonderful note in response from one of them. The other two I haven’t heard from, and I won’t be surprised if I don’t. And that’s okay. I just needed them to know that I will always think of them now with love and light.

It wasn’t easy to write those notes, to be that vulnerable and open in front of someone with whom my relationship went spectacularly bad (Hey, I’m a writer, okay? I’m complicated.) but once I’d done it, I finally felt free to release the negative thoughts, and to open my spiritual hand and let the friendship go. And my spirit is finally, fully, at peace.

 

 

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