A lesson in friendship – Reason, Season, Lifetime

Friends

Years ago now and email arrived in my inbox.  It was one of those circulars that had been sent to many people and I thank whoever sent it from the bottom of my heart.  This one had a real impact for me and the lesson is one I’ve used time and again in my coaching.  Unfortunately I didn’t realise the impact it would have at the time and deleted it so I don’t remember who it was from and haven’t been able to quote it accurately.

Talking to someone about it this week she kindly found it for me and sent this over:

After reading this I realised just how much I was ‘working’ friendships.  I thought that I needed to keep them alive.  To some extent that is true.  You need to stay in contact and in today’s busy world it is all to easy to lose touch.

However, when a friendship doesn’t feel right anymore it’s ok to simply let go.  There’s no need to make any grand gestures to call it quits, leave the door open and accept that maybe the reason or the season is over.  It’s not necessarily saying that you don’t like each other anymore.  There doesn’t have to be any nastiness involved.  Just let go.

I’m delighted to be able to reflect back and realise that often when I have applied this the friend has returned to my life later at a time (maybe for a reason or a season) and that has it felt right to us both.

Now just think…..what other areas of life can this lesson be applied to….

Thank you Sarah for finding the full quote for me and inspiring this post!