Reflecting on Friendship & EFT

Clearly writing and posting was easier during the 30 for 30 Remix challenge since I haven’t posted much since it ended. My original intention was to share my inner journey and the 30 for 30 seemed like a good way to break in to blogging on a regular basis and also expose myself a wee bit, albeit in a different way. I enjoyed the 30 for 30 and feel like I got a lot out of it. Recently, I've had a lot going on in daily life and internally. I thought about writing here and steered away from it multiple times, but I'm feeling up to sharing a bit of my journey today for some reason, so here it goes …

In March, I participated in four days of Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) training with Alina Frank through EFT Universe. Emotional Freedom Technique, often referred to as tapping, is an acupressure/meridian based technique created to help release negative emotions stored in our energy system. The belief is that “the cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body's energy system.” During the training we did a lot of partner work which I’ve continued with some people from my class (Thanks Rebecca!). Basically, I am continually amazed at how things from our childhood can affect us so greatly, even when we think that they do not or should not.

I had a pretty good childhood - full of family, a healthy dose of sibling rivalry, playing in the sprinkler and riding my 10 speed to the creek with friends. Softball, Girl Scouts. No abuse. I was a decent student and in honors classes much of the time. The biggest issue, in my mind, had always been my move across the country - from South Carolina to Oregon just before High School started - but even now when I look back on that I am happy I moved. The move to Oregon helped me become the person I am today. Yet, what has come up in my recent past and reared its head, again, in the training, was something always in the back of my mind that I never focused on much: My female friendships, from the time I was young, have been fraught with difficulties. 

Some friends from childhood would, at least once a school year, decide that they were no longer going to talk to me. Ignoring me for a few days, maybe the entire week. Then I would inevitably get a call, usually on Friday afternoons, as if nothing ever happened with an invitation for me to spend the night. I would go ask my mom and beg her to let me go, despite the turmoil I had gone through during the previous days. She would say yes, with hesitation, and off I would go, once again Be Fries (BFFs used to be called Be Fries. That was because in the 80's and early 90’s we all had Best Friends heart-shaped necklaces that broke in two. The first half said "be frie", the second half "st nds").

Before the EFT training weekend, I had been reflecting on my feeling like I had a lack of really close female friendships. It is something that I have talked about with my husband and no one else. I have avoided writing anything, in part, because my intent is not to make anyone feel bad, not any one from my past or my current friends. My intent is really to process and move forward. The truth is I have a lot of friends, even good friends or people I might even call best friends, but the other truth, my truth, is that I never feel really connected. And I have always felt a disconnect. Over the years I felt closer to male friends, felt like I could trust them more and divulge more. I used to think it was because I grew up closer in age to my brothers and so I identified more with guys. While that may be part of it, in reality, I think I trusted guys more, because I could never fully trust my girlhood friends. These issues from my early friendships have shadowed all of my female friendships going forward and led to difficulties in high school, college and beyond.

When I think about this now and during my recent EFT sessions, the first thing that comes to mind is not anger at my friends, they were 12, maybe even younger, when this started and kids do stupid things, but anger at myself. I never brought it up, questioned them or stood up for myself. This began a pattern of silence that has continued. When things started to go bad with my best friend from High School, after we became college roommates, I just stood aside and let it happen. Jealousy and difficulty is what I came to expect and accept and so I did not fight for my best friend or for our relationship and I let it and her slip away. This story is only one instance.

The second thing that comes up is this feeling deep down that something must be wrong with me, right? Because that is the most ‘rational’ explanation for why all of this happened in my childhood to begin with, right? If they chose to ignore me or not play with me, I must have done something wrong? Well, as you and the adult I can plainly see, I can forgive the 12 year old in my friends, but not the 12 year old in me. My head knows better, but my heart and my body still feel the rejection, the pain and are frantically searching for a reason. It’s just that I know the 12 year old’s rational shouldn’t hold any water now, and yet it does.

The final limiting and irrational belief that comes up around this is that my success causes other women pain. If I have a boyfriend (or now a husband) single women will be jealous and feel lonely. If I am skinny and confident in my looks and body other women will feel bad about themselves and talk behind my back to make themselves feel better. The end result is that I feel bad about myself, because who I am makes other people feel bad and thus the belief that I cannot be myself around women.

In reality, do I think these exact thoughts all of the time? No, but I have done enough internal work up to this point to understand that these are the subconscious limiting beliefs that have shaped my world and hold me back. Now comes the undoing. The moving forward. I know that EFT will play a huge role in this and has already. I recently did the Wheel of Life exercise once again (Similar to the photos on the left.) This time I used a blank wheel where I could fill in the areas of life that are important to me and then rate my satisfaction with each of those areas. Of the 8 areas I listed, relationships was one of the areas I decided needed the most work. In addition to using the EFT to clear my limiting beliefs and energy disruptions around friendships, I know that it is up to me to build new friendships and foster the friendships that I have, because the truth is I have a lot of girlfriends who would coming running if I needed them and it is only because of my energy disruptions, my negative thoughts and emotions around this issue that I feel alone.