For my daughter… helping to guide a teen through the rough waters of friendship-building.
I will be here as long as possible to teach and guide you. But I am also an empath and feel how your actions affect others. I support you, and YOUR welfare is my main reason for being. But I have to also pass on what I feel from others to help you over these tricky times. To guide you and so you can learn. Use it while you can.
I love you. You are my heart, walking around outside my body.
If I teach you nothing else know the rule of three.
What you put out comes back to you threefold. Good and bad, intentional or unintentional. So always aim to put out only good.
If you treat someone with disdain, expect to receive disdain in return. Maybe not today, or tomorrow… But it will come when the lesson is most potent. What is disdain? Not acknowledging that the other person’s feelings are as important as yours. Ignoring them because you feel “weird”. Going “so far” but that’s all. Stringing people along because you’re not prepared to cut them loose. Or you don’t know HOW you feel. Really. Deep down.
Treat people kindly. Even if it makes you feel weird. There will always be people who like you, who you don’t like in return. For now. But that doesn’t mean you don’t honour their feelings. Or will always feel that way about them. Especially once you get to know them better. Treat everyone the same, always, regardless of how they feel about you, or how you feel about them.
Know that your actions – or inaction – can have profound effects on people whether you mean them to or not, so always be mindful of your actions. In word, and deed. They’re like ripples in a pond when you toss in a stone. Always speak and act kindly. To everyone. Even if they annoy you. This isn’t always easy.
Being popular and the one “in demand” means you can sometimes lack the empathy necessary to understand what it feels like to NOT always be centre of attention. And when it’s all you’ve known it can mean you don’t understand that not everyone knows what that feels like, and can make you insensitive to how a small “sleight” (eg ignoring a text message) on your part can have devastating effects on others. Be mindful always of how OTHERS feel. And how your actions can be perceived. It’s not always about how you feel in every situation. It may frustrate you, or annoy you, but don’t invalidate their feelings, or intentions, or motivation, just because you don’t share them.
Be gracious. If nothing else, know how incredibly special it is to have someone thinking about you. Not everyone gets to experience that. Some, ever. In their whole life. Don’t underestimate it. Or how important it is. It will not always be so. You may be focus of someone’s attention now, but not forever. It is fleeting and if you treat it flippantly because at the moment you don’t share it, the “specialness” of it will be lost to you. Then it will be gone, like mist in the morning sun. Fans are fickle. Friends come and go. Only a very tiny few are worth holding onto, and it may surprise you that they won’t be the ones you’re thinking of right now.
Always be aware of how your actions, and inactions, ripple through the ether and affect those around you. It may not bother you now, but trust me…. It will come back to you and it won’t be nice. Try to see the situation from the other person’s perspective… how would you feel if the situation were reversed? One day it will be. I can promise you that.
You won’t always feel the same about people who like you…. Just as people you like will not know you even exist. That is a cruel fact of life. But to know someone thinks of you often, is a gift you should not so easily reject. Not everyone gets that gift. You don’t have to reciprocate. No one can force you to feel that which you don’t. But you have a responsibility to that person to be gracious, gentle, kind, understanding. To treat them at least as equal to others in your life you view as “friends”. To not do so leaves you vulnerable to karma that will eventually knock you back to earth in a way you can’t begin to appreciate yet.
While you’re not expected to return every favour bestowed upon you, you ARE expected to be gracious. Respectful. Kind. Empathic. And understand that all people feel. And all people’s feelings are equally important. And at least as important as your own.
Know that every day is a new opportunity – a second chance – to make things right.
Life isn’t meant to be cruisey. Relationships, including friendships, are hard work, but if it was easy it wouldn’t be worth it. Everyone who comes into your life is there for a reason: for learning, for growth, or for life. But you never know which until you open your heart to possibility.
© Earth Goddess Wisdom – www.earthgoddesswisdom.com