Navigating Women's Friendships

Welcome, if you came over from my devotion published today. 

I've heard from so many women over the years who long for female friendships, but are generally mistrusting of women. That's a rough place to be. Its like thirsting for a drink, yet fearing you'll drown if you take a sip.

Most of these women's fears were not totally unfounded. Maybe they had friends in the past who turned on them. Maybe they had female family members who took advantage rather than taking care of them. Maybe they've been wronged and hurt by "the other woman." Maybe they've been the other woman themselves.

My own friendship fears were anchored in my life experiences which convinced me: women are not to be trusted. That's why once I entered the Yahweh Sisterhood I had to learn to walk by faith with Christ, and not by my fears or cynicism.

Learning to Embrace Girlfriends

At first, I had to ask God to give me godly friends - I literally prayed for God to send them to me. Then I kept my eyes peeled. They didn't always come in the packages I expected, but they did come. Have you ever prayed for God to send you friends?

My next task was trusting them with my heart. And making space in my life to be with them, and to care about what they are going through. Friendships take time to develop. But the thing is, the quality ones take less time to maintain. A true friend can pick up right where you last left off. I am grateful for friends like that.

And the really big task I had to learn came when they occasionally messed up and hurt my heart - as we all do from time to time. I had to learn to grant them grace and to trust them once again. It's been a great growing experience for me. One that's made me more like Christ. One that I wouldn't trade for anything.

Learning to Prune Friendships

With a small few friends, I came to the realization that I needed to phase them mostly out of my life. Because they weren't fully walking with God and I found they repeatedly pulled me down rather than me helping them grow. Does that make sense?

With them I just slowly distanced myself. I made myself a little less available. And I prayed for God's hand to be all over their heart and mine in the transition. I can honestly say I've not had a big blow up this way. I remain friends with them today. Only in an acquaintance way rather than a close way. (wink)

Now, I'm not saying we can't be friends with anyone less mature in Christ. That's how mentoring and how lifestyle evangelism works after all. The problem was these girls were stagnant at the time, yet having more influence over me than I over them - so neither one of us were growing. I enjoyed their company but it was more of a guilty pleasure and I sensed God leading me to let go. That was hard but ultimately worth it.  Listening to God always is.

So friendships can be tricky. Matters of the heart always are. But they are worth the time, effort and prayer. And that comes to you from the heart of someone who once asked the question: Woman...hum, friend or foe?

Where are you right now in this chapter of your life regarding friendships?

Tell me about that in the comments and I will enter you to win a copy of the book It's No Secret: Divine Truths Every Woman Should Know. This book has several chapters that talk about women's friendships and conflicts. Winner will be announced here on Monday (enter your email in the side bar to subscribe to my blog if you need a reminder to check back on Monday).
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Have a friend that you treasure?  Tell them today how much you value them!

Change Your Focus

I am guessing you want to change yourself, your character, or your life - at least in some way. We all do. How to do that is what I've been studying and test-driving the last couple of years.

Here's what I can tell you:

To change your life, the first thing you are going to have to change is what you focus on.

Read that sentence again.

You need to look at things differently in order to change. For example, will you focus on Christ, or on your circumstances?

Will you focus on what you can control or what you can't control? 

(PS. You are the only thing you can control.)

What, or who, are you made for?

Questions, by the way, lead us to focus. Want to change your focus? Change the questions you ask. 

Change the Questions You Ask Yourself

Rather than asking, "Why is this happening to me?" ask, "What can I do in this situation to affect myself, others or the outcome for the better?"  Rather than asking, "Why can't I ever lose weight?" ask, "What small, doable choice can I make today - right now - to position myself for weight loss?"

Your brain will answer the questions you ask it. If you ask it why you can't loose weight, or why you are so disorganized, it will give you an answer. And that answer will sound convincing!  It will say, "Because I love food too much." Or, "I've always been messy - I just can't help it."

But if you ask your brain what you can do right now to move forward towards your goal, it will answer you: "I can put down these chips and drink a glass of water," or, "I can sort through that stack of stuff piled on my desk."

Change your questions in order to change your answers, so you can shift your focus.

Focus = Direction. What we see - where we look, or what we focus on - determines the direction we will go. So what is it you tend to focus on?  Want to change? Start there.

PSS. Check out my last 3 posts on learning to like tasks you hate.

Don't like it? Change it.

I've been talking this past week about learning to like tasks you dislike. Some things just have to get done, despite the fact that we don't like doing them.

In those cases in my life, I try to make peace with the task. I try to learn to like what I hate.

So far we've talked about carefully examining and admitting the benefits and costs of doing the task vs. avoiding it (see here).  We've talked about creating a compelling vision for why you want to stay on top of this task (see here).  And now we're going to talk about changing the task itself in some way.

Or at least changing the way you do it. We want to find a way to do it that makes it less dread-worthy.

For example, folding laundry is probably my least favorite household chore. I'd rather scrub a toilet than fold and put away a load of clothes. And no one in my family - no one - likes matching socks when they come out of the dryer.

I have a big front-load washer. So when I do laundry I combine all the family's clothes together. Everybody's socks get mixed up. And sometimes spread out across loads. Plus, once in a while, it seems the dryer eats a sock - always just one in the pair - where do those go??

And how long do you hold onto the one left while waiting to see if the other re-surfaces? Three weeks? Two months? A year?

Recently we solved the dreaded sock problem. We bought mid-sized mesh laundry bags, one per person, and put one in each bedroom by the hampers. We now put our worn socks directly into the mesh bags. On laundry day we zip up the bags and throw them in the machine. They emerge clean and with all the matching pairs together in one place, already sorted by owner.

This was a simple, inexpensive fix that makes doing laundry quicker and easier. Plus each person can match their own bag of socks; no one is overwhelmed with a basket full to match.

So if you can't change the task (or delegate it) and it has to be done, what can you change about the way you do the task?

How can you streamline it?

Can you make it easier, or quicker somehow?

Sometimes small tweaks make a big difference in the overall experience. Do you have everything you need to do the task in one place? Do you have a good space or system for doing this task? Can you find someone who does the task well and pick up some tips from them?  Step three in learning to love what you hate is rethinking your approach to the task. What can you change to ease the toil?

Easier and/or quicker = less of a pain. And less of a pain means less reason to hate it.


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See How to Love What You Hate

In my last post you and I agreed that there are some tasks we have to do - we need to do - that we don't like doing. Therefore, we avoid them. We agreed that it would be nice if we liked doing these things rather than hated them. 

OK, maybe you weren't here for the last post and we didn't agree on that, but I'm pretty sure we'd have agreed if you had read it.  So go read it now and come back. It will give you the first step to take in learning to love the things you currently avoid.

Step two in learning to love what you hate to do is to identify a reason to do the task, a reason that is bigger and more potent than your reason for avoiding it.  Hopefully the questions from step number one started you thinking along these lines.

You may already know a reason or two why you need to do the dreaded task. But it may be that those reasons are not compelling enough to you (yet).  They may be true and real but they fail to motivate you.

To continue my own example, I've always wanted a tidy house that's full of nutrition. I just haven't always wanted to do what it takes daily to have that. My vision of a clean home - just to walk through and think, "It's clean and neat" - wasn't compelling enough to move me to stop doing other things long enough to make this a regular reality.

That was eye-opening for me to realize: I needed more than that to motivate me.

Then Caleb got hurt. Life, in the form of my son's accident and healing period, afforded me a new, more compelling vision for why I wanted the house neat, clean and full of nutrition consistently.

Yes, yes, I've always wanted that - and I wasn't totally lacking it -  I just haven't always wanted it enough. Or in the necessary way to motivate me. Now, however, I wanted that more than I wanted to avoid decluttering. I wanted to ensure Caleb's comfort and healing more than I wanted to read something interesting, chat with friends on FaceBook or write a new blog post. I wanted serenity in my immediate surroundings more than I wanted to watch TV, and more than I didn't want to fold laundry. 

Life (cruelly) afforded me this motivation but the truth is we can create our own compelling vision for why we really want to do what we feel we don't want to do.

Linking the unpleasant task to a life purpose that carries a strong emotional value for you (like my son's well-being did for me) is key.

Think through your possible motivators:

• Can your desire to entertain friends "force" you to clean? If so, go schedule a dinner party at your place every week for the next 4 weeks and use that to train yourself to keep on top of the cleaning. View the cleaning as party-prep. Or as part of your hostessing. 

• Will posting photos of your messy office on your blog motivate you to want to quickly show some great "after" photos?  Then go get your camera. And make this a monthly feature on your blog.

• Are you crazy, mad in love with your husband?  Create a compelling vision for how your housekeeping is a service to him - how it shows him your appreciation and love. How it will make him happy daily that he asked you to be his bride. Clean up the entry way and lay out his slippers. Tidy the bathroom and leave him a love note on the mirror.

The point is figure out how to frame the task in such a way that it motivates you. The purpose has to be both personal and powerful. Write it out. Fully develop it. Make it a clear and compelling vision. Review it often until it's "in" you. English essayist James Allen wrote, “You will become as great as your dominant aspiration … If you cherish a vision, a lofty ideal in your heart, you will realize it.” 

This can be applied to anything.  Eliminating debt. Running a 5K. Sunday dinners at Grandma's. Losing 20 lbs. Once you fully embrace your clear, compelling vision with passion, procrastination will no longer hold you back. Your vision will drive you forward. It will give you the will to tackle what you normally avoid. And the act of completng that dreaded thing with gusto will likely afford you even more motivation.

So figure out why if you embraced this task, and it became your habit to do it without procrastination, it would lead to more happiness and success for you. Then go CREATE that vision in your life. Decide in advance to keep at it, even if you don't fall madly in love with it at first.

  

"In Zen they say: If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, try it for eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and so on. Eventually one discovers that it's not boring at all but very interesting."
— John Cage

I'm not a Zen follower but I think Mr. Cage is onto something there.

Change is possible, but focus is required. We'll talk more about this next week. I'm about to leave town for a speaking engagement this weekend.  Meanwhile, go create a compelling vision. What precisely is it that has the power to motivate you to do what needs doing? I'll bet there is something ...