Relationships

Relationships are always a complicated thing. But they shouldn’t be. In a perfect world, no relationship would ever be complicated. Everything would be an exchange of positive energy for positive energy leaving both people feeling even more fulfilled and happy then they previously were. But it doesn’t always work like that. People are complicated. Emotions are complicated. Which makes relationships complicated.

I’ve started to define my relationships in a new way and it’s really helped me set boundaries for myself and the people in my life. Senses of self-worth and happiness are things that I’ve become extremely protective of. And honestly, if you’re not exchanging positivity for positivity then you’re not getting close to me. That’s that. 

There’s two pieces of every relationship that I’ve started to seriously consider when analyzing whether or not a person should be invested in. Part one is energy and part two is how they relate to the relationship I have with myself. 

This post is going to focus more on platonic and/or family relationships although it can be related to romantic if that’s how it resonates with you. 

You know, it’s a scientific fact that everything is made up of energy. Like, everything. The sky, the ground, the world, the universe—it’s all energy. Even your own heart and thoughts, yes the thoughts that you have in your head, give off an energetic frequency that can be physically measured. That’s why meditation practices and yoga are so beneficial because they change the type of frequencies you give off but anywaaaaay

The way I see it, we all have an energy bubble surrounding us that we give off. I mean, come on it’s a fact that we’re drawn to people that just have that look about them. You know what I’m talking about. They just have those positive vibes and make the world seem a like a brighter place. How many times have you been talking to someone and they just have that glow and you’re left with the impression that you need more? 

The truth is, when we’re aligned with our true self then it’s so positive it’s attracting everything positive back to us. Including positive people and relationships that challenge us to become and grow into the best person we can be. When we’re stuck in our own limiting beliefs or negative self-talk it has that same effect but instead of positive things attracting to us we attract more bad. Consequently, we attract people into our lives that are reaffirming those negative thoughts in our own head causing us to be stuck in a cycle that's nearly impossible to get out of. 

My Thoughts On // Friendships

In the past week I’ve come to a single conclusion: relationships are hard. Just to clarify, I’m not talking about romantic relationships. (That would be an entirely different blog post all together.) But like friendships. They’re hard.

I like to think that I’m pretty decent at making friends. I mean, I was never a loner in school or had no where to sit during lunch, that wasn’t my high school experience. I’m good at meeting people and acquiring different acquaintances, loads of acquaintances actually. Maintaining friendships is where I seem to be having a problem.

Like, honestly, right now I’m looking at Taylor Swift and the incredible group of girlfriends that she has and my respect for her has tripled because in no way could that be easy. In high school you see your friends everyday. You sit next to the same people in class, you have constant communication with people you’ve known for your whole life and on top of that you know almost everything about them. In that type of environment maintaining friendships is easy. It’s manageable.

Then you go to college (or University if you’re not in the United States) and suddenly those friends you’ve seen everyday for eighteen years are gone. I don’t know about you but I’m very much an ‘out of sight, out of mind person’, my attention span totally falls on the short side. I’m also the type of person who gets completely caught up in their own head and with what’s currently in front of them. This, I’ve found, makes maintaining friendships nearly impossible.

Friendships are constant work. They really are. You can’t take a break with them. You can’t push one to the back burner and hope that it won’t get damaged. It doesn’t work like that. The other’s person’s life doesn’t get put on pause. It keeps going and evolving without you. 

Here’s the advice I would tell myself a year ago if I could (so if you’re a college freshman, listen up): you need to work for the people you want to remain in your life. Yeah, friendships are hard work but at the end of the day they are entirely worth it. Having someone who loves you, despite knowing all your flaws and weaknesses, is completely worth it. Knowing someone’s there who has your back completely and will always be there for you makes it so worth while.

So if you’re thinking about someone who’s friendship you’ve pushed to the back burner, do something for me. Text them. Call them. Tweet them. DM them. Do something. Don’t think about doing it. Don’t say, “Man, I should really text so and so to see how they are.” Don’t push it until tomorrow. Do it. Don’t say you miss them and then do nothing about it. Don’t let them walk out of your life. If you want their friendship, then fight for it.

Love, 

A. xx