One year ago this month I broke up with my best friend.
Throughout those 25 years of friendship, I had confided in her almost every step of the way, naively believing that I could trust her and that she was a supportive confidant.
Well, a year ago, she was a little more overt in her lack of support. She hated my idea… a creative project that I was very enthusiastic about… and instead of stopping at her criticism, I pushed on and the project came out great!
Well, this infuriated her and she just attacked me verbally and through email unrelentingly.
We are talking about pages of emails about how I shouldn’t have done this project, even though every other person who was involved or had knowledge of it LOVED it and was fully supportive of it.
I was devastated. I didn’t know how to respond.
I didn’t want to return the attack. Even though I was mad and hurt, I knew it wouldn’t solve anything.
I didn’t want to apologize because I had nothing to apologize for. I had an idea. I implemented the idea. Several people benefited from implementing the idea. No harm was done.
I had to decide whether I wanted to work it out with her… truly work it out, for the longevity of the relationship.
And I would have, because I love her so much, but I also looked at the impact this relationship had had on my life, especially the last decade or so.
I had to be truthful and realize that many of the ideas that I had and had shared with her had miscarried after I told her.
Over the last decade, there were a few ideas and pet projects that were so precious to me that I didn’t even tell her, and they always ran on course.
But the ones I told her about almost always got derailed, or sucked in the end, or ended up being a horrible experience.
This is not to say that most of the time she was all supportive and clapping on the outside… face to face.
But after thinking about the course of our relationship, I realized that she had been digging her *energetic* heels into every project that I loved and was encouraging to take off.
By doing so, she was bringing the entire project down or killing it outright.
So I didn’t call.
We haven’t spoken in a year.
Results:
I was sad for a long time, but after I stopped being sad, the ideas kept coming and I kept making them happen and it was easy because there was no one dragging them down.
And it was kind of a relief to not tell her stuff. I thought that’s what best friends did – they told each other stuff that they hold dear.
But maybe that’s not true.
Maybe that’s a pretty sophomoric way to look at BFF relationships.
And towards the end of our friendship, I would dread telling her things, knowing that the energetic impact could be powerfully negative.
Since our friendship has ended, this has been the most productive and amazing year for me. Really. I am feeling a freedom that I can’t remember feeling in a really long time.
It’s the freedom to create without someone I love looking over my shoulder and telling me or thinking “It sucks”.
And I’m so much more positive in general.
She had been mentally criticizing me for years without me realizing it, and now that I have shut her out and her criticism out, I am so much happier.
I can hear my own voice and the voice of the very awesome friends I have now, telling me positive and kind words.
Words, sentiments and thoughts that never would have come out of ex-BFF’s mouth.
And I replaced her with a dog. And the dog is so much cooler! And a lot more supportive!
So I will say it again, my advice to indigo adults is do share your ideas, but in the early stages of your musings, be very careful with whom you share them.
Or keep them to yourself until they have enough structure in the physical realm to stand up to the potentially destructive energetic forces of others.