Comments on: One Loyal Friend is Worth Ten Thousand Relatives

By: christie

christie — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 14:44:22 +0000

It feels so good to read your blog and all the responses. I think all the friendship circles are rippling…

By: julie markovitz

julie markovitz — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:36:07 +0000

Connie…this was so beautiful…some of my heart friendships began on my block where I grew up as a child, some at summercamp, some in junior high, some in highschool, college, work and beyond… Some I’ve known for 47 years and some began recently… I’m very grateful to the dear ones in my life. Here’s to heartfriends!

By: Conz

Conz — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:49:35 +0000

…Or helps you unpack your “baggage” when you must.

By: Barb G.

Barb G. — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:28:11 +0000

Soooo ture. Friends let you unpack your baggage and then pack it up and put it away so you don’t have to deal with it any more.

By: Gwen McCauley

Gwen McCauley — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:10:31 +0000

My best friend’s saying about friends:

“A true friend knows where the bodies are buried and keeps her mouth shut.”

By: Gwen McCauley

Gwen McCauley — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:05:38 +0000

Good article. When I have coaching clients who have really difficult family relationships they feel stuck with, I always ask them “If you met X (your parent, sister, brother, cousin) at a cocktail party, would you spent 5 minutes chatting to them?” If the answer is no, I think you have to ask yourself why you think it is that you need to feel obliged to engaged with that person just because the same DNA runs in your veins.

Many times people are horrified to think of giving up such relationships in favour of what I like to call ‘chosen family’. And yet, I have seen time and time again that the starting point to healing and moving forward in those relationships is the moment when you get honest enough to say “Thanks, but I’m moving on and choose to no longer interact with you on this basis, under these circumstances.”

Scares people half to death, and yet when they find the courage to step into it, truly magical things can happen …mostly not over night, sometimes taking many years. But if and when they ever do reconnect, they are often the most powerful and growthful relationships imagineable because each party has learned to engage the other as a full fledged human being, not a uni-dimensional caricature of who you were when you were 4 yrs old!

And if it turns out that no reconnection is possible, at least a person knows that they are not living the lie of collusion that is often the basis of family dynamics. And their ‘chosen family’ allows them to have authentic relationships that satisfy and gratify.

Thanks for the opportunity to express my views.

Gwen McCauley
http://www.ouicoach.com
follow me at http://www.twitter.com/gwenmccauley

By: Diane Owens

Diane Owens — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:29:42 +0000

I love that line from Susan Sarandon! Actually she first said it in the movie Shall We Dance about her screen husband Richard Gere, my personal heart-throb. But I agree with you–even if I were married to Richard Gere–it’s our friendships with women that sustain us.