How to Attract Aligned Friendships
Friendships are one of my greatest joy in this lifetime. I put a lot of energy and intention into cultivating deep, authentic connections with people. Without tooting my own horn, I feel I have a gift for creating connection. As I’ve experienced my own spiritual and personal development in the past 5 years, I’ve moved through a lot of friendships. I continue to move towards more aligned and authentic friendships in my life.
Our society places a lot of emphasis on romantic relationships and finding a partner. IMO, I think platonic relationships can play a bigger and more important role in our lives. The gift of friendship is one of unconditional love, support, and true seeing of one another. While all of that can happen in a romantic relationship, I don’t think it’s fair or possible to place all of your expectation upon one single person. That’s why friendships can be so valuable–you don’t have to expect one person to check all of the boxes.
Help – how do I make friends?
It can be challenging to cultivate aligned friendships in life, especially as an adult. When growing up, you likely are close to the people you spend the most time with aka your classmates, teammates, who you work with. I like to call these friends of convenience. These friends can most certainly be your people but likely you’re friends with them because you are always with them. Maybe once you go off to college or get a job in the real world, you realize there’s not must substance under the facade of convenience.
Before we get into the ways I attract and align with likeminded humxns in my life, I want to say that this is simply my experience and what has worked for me. I have been so blessed to have experienced so many beautiful friendships throughout my life. A lot of those friendships, especially from my late teens, have since grown apart but I still hold them close to my heart. I believe people come into our lives for a specific reason. Every single close friendship in my life has done just that. I constantly work to evolve and grow. One of the realities of the game is that not everyone grows and evolves at the same pace or on the same path. We’ll talk more about friendships ending at the end of this blog post.
Create Space
Take a look at the people you spend your time with–do they align with your values? Do you feel energized by their presence? Or do they drain you, make you feel insecure, and encourage you to live out of alignment? We are the sum of the 5 people we spend the most time with. If you put your energy into people that no longer serve you, there’s no room in your life for the people who are actually meant for you. I’m not telling you to drop all of your friends but I invite you to evaluate your friendships and relationships.
This might be scary; because, you may realize that none of your friends, or the people you hangout with, serve you. Maybe you’ve been best friends with someone for years but you no longer see eye to eye. Maybe you hangout with someone because it’s easy and convenient; but, they reflect a part of yourself that you are moving away from. All of this might mean you want to start over and find friends that align with where you are at now. That’s scary because it brings in the unknown.
There have been many times in my life when I realized the people around me weren’t my people. As I got more conservative with my energy, I started moving away from friendships and that left me feeling lonely, isolated, and doubting my path. Ultimately, I had to create space in my life to attract friendships that better served me.
Embrace The Things That Excite You
So...where and how do you meet new friends? My biggest piece of advice is to put your energy into the things that light you up. If you really love yoga, go to yoga classes. If you are really passionate about food justice, volunteer or get involved with organizations that support this cause. Be vocal with the things you love. Let yourself be seen. Say goodbye to the days where you hide the things you are passionate about for fear of what other people will think. If you don’t like to drink or party, it’s unlikely you’ll meet people who feel similarly in the middle of a bar getting hammered on a Wednesday night. But if that’s your thing, you know where to put your energy.
I truly believe one of the most beneficial things we can do for ourselves is, to get clear on what we desire in life. When I was living in Belgium, feeling like I didn’t align with anyone that was around me, I started going to events alone. I’d go to yoga classes and events through Meetup or reach out to people in Instagram that I aligned with. I ended up meeting some of my best friends; simply by holding my passions and interests close to my heart and sharing those passions with the world.
I stopped making myself small, trying to fit into the box of the person I thought I should be; and putting my energy into the things I didn’t align with anymore. This made space in my life to put my energy into the things I loved. That told the Universe that I wasn’t playing around.
Tend to the Friendships that Energize You
You might be noticing a theme here. Put your energy into the things that energize you and let go of the things that drain you. When you continue to put your energy into something that you want to release from your life, the Universe sees the opposite actions; so it continues to give you what you’re putting your energy into. Tend to the friendships that energize you.
Maybe someone that you’ve met once is really interesting and you’d like to get to know them better. Ask them out for coffee. Or you see someone you went to high school with doing something aligned with your interests. Schedule a catch up call. It sounds pretty obvious as I write this, but where your attention goes, energy flows. When looking to find more aligned friendships, lean into your network. Look at people you’ve gone to school with, worked with, follow online, etc. You don’t have to start from the ground up. Maybe you just need to tend to seeds that were planted years ago.
Not every friend has to be everyone for you
Don’t expect your friends to play every role for you. It’s okay to have friends that you like to do yoga with, friends that you like to have brunch with, and friends that you like to party with. You cannot expect one person to be everyone for you. Honor the fact that certain people are meant for certain aspects of your life. I have always been a floater and have loved to have many different friends spread throughout different areas of my life. No one will be you so it’s not likely (but not impossible) to find someone who is ~obsessed~ with all of the same things as you.
Remember that not all friendships are meant to last forever
One of the most difficult, but most important, realizations is that not all friendships are meant to last forever. People change and they grow apart but that doesn’t diminish the role that they played in your life. I’ve moved through a lot of different friendships so far in my 23 years of life. Instead of a serial monogamist, I have a pattern of moving through really close friendships really quickly. IDK if it’s my Scorpio Rising or what, but I like to go deep and I really value friendships with depth. As I continue to move through life and most forward on my personal and spiritual journey, I know that not everyone in my life is going to stay on the same path.
It’s always sad when friendships grow apart and you realize that someone that once was your entire world, now it’s a 6 months a year catch up but it happens. Especially in your 20s, but also all throughout life, people move at different paces and life changes SO quickly so it’s hard to keep up. I’ve experienced deep, beautiful, profound friendships that lasted a few months (like when I was volunteering on The Big Island earlier this year) but I know not all of them will last forever...that’s okay. If we hold onto things too tightly, and for too long, it’s blocking something more aligned for you to come in. Life is meant to grow and evolve and change and everything is temporary–we must honor and accept that things will not stay the same forever.
Sometimes friendships grow and evolve, sometimes they grow apart and come back together, and sometimes they end. That’s life.
This is simply an intro guide into all things friendships. There are obviously so many layers to dive deeper into. No one friendship is the same and you can’t treat it as such. I hope I’ve given you some things to think about. I don’t think you should completely overhaul all of your friendships but I invite you to look at where you are putting your energy, does it serve you? Does it align with the type of life you want to live? Get clear on what you want and put your energy there. It’s more than just friendships, it’s living with intention. That is how we begin to live the life of our dreams.
