Beauty • Fashion • Locs

Hello Friends, March 2023 is here and I’m excited! 🤩🤩 March means two things! Time change and Spring!

Anyway that’s not what we are talking about!! I wanted to talk about friendships! How friendships change over time. But deeper than that!
Listen! Since I moved to Nevada I learned new things about myself and my role in the lives of the individuals I called friends.
Stay with me!!!
In moving out of my norm of life I got front row seats to how the relationships with many needed to be reevaluated. Why?
Where I am now many of those relationships or friendships no longer served me. I had to make some changes because many of them were really damaging how I saw myself. I got lost in the highs and lows of others that I with time, lost me. It took my world growing still for me to zoom in on the friends I kept near.
The first thing I discovered in some of these friendships was there was no depth. Not theological depth or philosophical depth. That wasn’t the case at all. It was more like having people in your home and everyone forgets you’re in the room. Those are friendships I call “Hollow But Entertaining”. You are guaranteed a great time just no meaning to your relationship with these individuals. It’s all about fun and no growth or reciprocatedness. If that’s a word!😂 There is a one-way friendship and you’re left feeling empty.

The next group were people that you love genuinely and focused so intently on growing with them and the other individuals appear to want the same. But when it comes to growth there are stipulations and many, many, MANY yardstick criterias as to how you are allowed to be in relationship with them. Yes I used the word “allowed”. You don’t know you’re in violation until there are things you want to do that may be of no benefit or interest to them.  So you’re made to feel a way because you’re doing things differently and it of no benefit to them. An example would be like the Sperry’s trend from back in the day. In middle school I received my first pair because all my basketball teammates had them and I wanted to wear mine after our games. I had a certain clique I was a part of within the team but then I had a friend who was in all my classes who had a pair of Birkenstock clogs. Yes! I copped those bad boys and you would have thought I signed my life over to the Army at 12 years old. Over a pair of shoes??!  But that’s the intensity of violating one of the yardstick criterion of the individuals in this group. We’ll call this category “Code Enforcers”. Look like me, dress like me, but don’t do anything that challenges my way of existing. Basically monkey see, monkey do!

The next group are a combination of both the Hollow But Entertaining and the Code Enforcers. Except this group also bonded by shared trauma. Can I tell you I learned how mortally demonic this is on so many levels! Not all bonds are demonic that’s not what I’m saying. It’s when the trauma brings friendship that spiral down this downward slope of continual trauma because healing or actions to overcome are not the focus. Instead it’s this murky web of behaviors that are associated with where you’re both jammed in pain, grief, and drama. Yes drama!! Rhymes with trauma!
Here’s the thing, when you want to get out of something, you’ll find every avenue possible to be on your way. Many choose to stay embedded in the cesspool of what broke them. This is the “Trauma Bonders”. We’re friends because of the trauma experienced. But be careful they often present themselves as “over-comers” but really they’ve modified certain behaviors. Everyone on earth is out to get them because they are a victim. Then there is the other side of them that’s stuck in their ways by choice.  They’ve mastered controlling how others perceive them and to them that’s power and healing. The friendship is very surface level and sadly, it’s just more behaviors pointing to you all needing healing. But I’ll save that for another entry.😎

This last group I can name up front and share their traits after. This group is known as the “Bold & Faithful”. The individuals that make up this group are looking for ways to help you and even people they may never call friends. This group doesn’t have a hidden motive and you will never have to question their loyalty. This isn’t a friendship like corporate America where if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Nope! The people within will do or share things from their heart with no expectation of you doing the same. It’s heart based connections from transformation and freedom found in Jesus. When one person isn’t doing ok, collectively everyone participates to help at whatever capacity they’re able. Drama has no room among them and everything they do is done in love. All that they say and do points back to Jesus so there is no space for questioning the genuineness of any of these individuals. You know their hearts are pure and you experience growth together. Although it will look differently for each of you. It’s a safe space to become vocal and understood. These people aren’t perfect, they’re human and admit it daily. You’re valued and there is honor among the individuals in this group. Reading a book Woman Evolve by Sarah Jakes Roberts taught me that the only way to embrace these friendships was to become. Check out her book! It helped me so much and brought a lot of clarity to the damage I was causing myself by staying stagnant.
In other news, I unsubscribed to the first three friendships permanently and now I only dwell among the Bold & Faithful. I found true healing among them and even my voice. The first three friend groups I spent a lot of time within them until I started hoping for better. Not just a prayer but actually just saying, God I want to experience wholeness and I don’t want to be my own victim.” I wanted the narrative to be different and I was willing to go to whatever lengths to get it. You know what’s crazy, one night I was watching my godson and I was in my head trying to sort out some really hard emotions I did not tell a soul at the time. My godson was following me throughout my apartment and he stopped in front of me and yelled, “Tee Tee Netta just let it go!” Then he started shaking his arms and legs which was what he learned when feeling sad as a way to snap out of it just shake yourself and let it go. After he was put to bed I texted my friends one by one because I knew they would help me through the hard emotions all because of a then 3 year old. I learned to get out of my head and just go where it’s safe to talk about hard things. I’m so glad to have my innermost circle ⭕️ of friends who help me heal from all of the things involved. Plus everything they did pointed me back to God. Where I committed to seeing myself healed and my mind renewed. But you want to know something else? I started dreaming a lot shortly after and I had a sudden urge to grow out of where I was in life. I am a dreamer and it’s how God speaks to me mainly. Learning what friendships no longer served me started with a dream.  But the decision to keep them or say goodbye to them was up to me. I chose to say goodbye and dwell with the Bold & Faithful! I Dont regret it either. 

What your story with friendships? Which group have you experienced? What are the people surrounding you like now?