Identifying Toxic Friendships

 Wisdom Nugget: "Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go"
Why? First because they will make your life miserable & secondly because very soon you will start behaving like them because "evil communications corrupt good manners."

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"A friendship is between two peers," says Florence Isaacs, author of Toxic Friends/True Friends. "There has to be balance in a friendship for it to be healthy; not one person whose needs get met and another whose needs are overlooked."

Friendships permeate our lives, having an impact on our careers, marriages, families, children, health, and even our retirement. "Friendships are important everywhere, and they have positive things to contribute to all areas of your life," says Isaacs. "But that means they can also be toxic in any of these areas as well. A toxic friendship is unsupportive, draining, unrewarding, stifling, unsatisfying, and often unequal. "Toxic friends stress you out, use you, are unreliable, are overly demanding, and don't give anything back,"

You cross the line from helping a friend in need to helping a friend who is always needy when that friend is constantly mean and abusive.

Below are some signs to identify a toxic friendship.
(1) They always have to be the facilitator when friends get together/interact as a group. If they find out you and another friend have been talking or hanging out, they get angry.
(2) They have to be the first to know everything - and tell everything. God forbid you should tell another friend something first because she happened to call you first!
(3) They have rules to your friendship. When your friend tells you that if she stops being friends with someone, you can't be friends with them either, there's a problem.
(4) They always want to make sure no one looks like a better friend than them.
(5) They are negative about everything! The can always offer up a "but" or reasons why not. If you run a new idea or good news past them, they rain all over your parade. They are critical of everything: from your personal style to your life decisions.
Everything is a constant game of one-upmanship. A little healthy competition between friends is good but if your friend is constantly bragging or "putting on airs" and has to always beat you or be better than you - even to the point of making things up - they've crossed the line of healthy.
(6) You find yourself always spilling your guts to them but their personal life is "Fort Knox". This is a power play. They have all the dirt on you and you're left vulnerable.
(7) They talk bad about all of your mutual friends behind their backs and tell all of their personal business. More than likely, they're doing the same thing to you.
They manipulate people and situations. They lie, they cheat, and they always try to get over. As you watch them scheme and connive, it doesn't occur to you that you've been on the receiving end of this many times- but trust me, you have.
(8) The communication is one-sided (you always call, email, text) and you only hear from them when they want or need something. They always expect you to consider their feelings and think of them first and foremost but they definitely don't do the same.
(9) They replicate behaviors, attributes or other fragments of other people (introjection*). For example, whenever you tell a friend of yours about a new restaurant or great happy hour you tried, she would tell her other friend that SHE went to the restaurant or happy hour. The friend lived in another state so how would she know? Instead of actually going out and getting her own interesting life, she just replicated yours.
(10) They deny their own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, and then ascribe them to others (projection*). Have you ever heard your friend describe the negative traits of another person and the whole time you're marvelling at the irony because your friend does the very things she's complaining about?

(To be continued)

How Priceless Are Your Friendships?

"D" Is For Dear:
Wisdom Nugget: "A single rose can be my garden...a single friend, my world"
                                                                             - Leo Buscaglia

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David and Jonathan were two great friends, and their relationship is one we are all familiar with. Jonathan loved David as himself. It was quite evident to all how dear they were to each other. People who are fond of each other share lots of things in common. There is usually an overflow of joy when we know there's someone who is near and dear to our heart. Although, that feeling of joy is sometimes taken away by the physical absence of the friend. But physical absence doesn't mean that our friend is emotionally unavailable. We can be thousands of miles away from a friend and still remain dear to them.

Friendship is also not dependent on class or ethnicity. What matters is that you both share a positive interest and truly love each other. That's all it takes to make a friend dear! Consider this in the following story:
As a part of an assignment for a doctoral thesis, a college student spent a year with a group of Navajo Indians on a reservation in the Southwest. As part of his research he lived with one of the Navajo families, sleeping in their hut, eating their food, working with them, & generally living the life of a 20th-century Indian.

The old grandmother of the family spoke no English at all, yet a very close friendship formed between them. They spent a great deal of time sharing a friendship that was meaningful to each, yet unexplainable to anyone else. In spite of the language difference, they shared the common language of love & understood each other. Over the months he learned a few phrases of Navajo, & she picked up a little of the English language.

When it was time for him to return to the campus to complete his thesis, the tribe held a going-away celebration. It was marked by sadness since the young man had become close to the whole village & all would miss him. As he prepared to leave, the old grandmother came to bid him good-bye. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she placed her hands on either side of his face, looked directly into his eyes & said, "I like me best when I'm with you."

Despite the language barrier, the college student was able to make friends who became dear to him and vice versa. All he did was make an impact in their lives so much that it was hard for them to let go when it was time for him to leave. What impact do you leave on your friends? Does out of sight mean out of mind for you? Do you take and take and not give back? Then you are building friendships that are sure to crumble. To build friendships that will remain dear, you have to reciprocate the love your friends shower on you. Distance may be a physical barrier sometimes but that special place still stays green. Keep in touch with those who are dear to you and always let them know how great a company they are. 

"E" Is For Encouragement: Friendship Is Encouragement

Wisdom Nugget: "Correction does much, but encouragement does more." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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In the Greek, the word "encourage" means "to call to one's side, to comfort, to console, to strengthen." To encourage is to inspire another with courage. Words of encouragement have a way of working as a panacea for someone hurting, depressed or going through pain. The way it feels if one takes a pain reliever when he/she has a headache or feels pain in any part of the body and after a while, relief from the pain comes is the same way FRIENDSHIP should make us feel. It may seem irrelevant  at the time but a while later, the effect is felt. It may just be the solution to a dying soul.

Encouragement is crucial to edify and nurture others because life can be discouraging at times. So are you a source of encouragement to your friends, family, spouse, children, colleagues etc?

William Arthur Ward said, "Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you." Encouragement acknowledges the fears that people have as real, and emboldens them despite those fears. A single word of encouragement can illuminate one's life.

During a practice session for the Green Bay Packers, things were not going well for Vince Lombardi's team. Lombardi singled out one big guard for his failure to "put out". It was a hot, muggy day when the coach called his guard aside and levelled his awesome vocal guns on him, as only Lombardi could. "Son, you are a lousy football player. You're not blocking, you're not tackling, and you're not putting out. As a matter of fact, it's all over for you today, go take a shower." The big guard dropped his head and walked into the dressing room. 45 minutes later, when Lombardi walked in, he saw the big guard sitting in front of his locker still wearing his uniform. His head was bowed and he was sobbing quietly. Vince, ever the changeable but always the compassionate warrior, did something of an about face that was also typical of him. He walked over to his football player and put his arms around his shoulder. "Son," he said, "I told you the truth. You are a lousy football player. You're not blocking, you're not tackling, and you're not putting out. However, in all fairness to you, I should have finished the story. Inside of you, son, there is a great football player, and I'm going to stick by your side until the great football player inside of you has a chance to come out and assert himself." With these words, Jerry Kramer straightened up and felt a great deal better. As a matter of fact, he felt so much better he went on to become one of the all-time greats in football and was recently voted the all-time guard in the first 50 years of professional football.

It's okay to correct and point out errors to people; but, it will amaze you how just one act of encouragement can change one's life  for good. Jerry would have become so depressed at what his coach said to him, his sense of confidence could have been shattered and he may have gone on to committing suicide. He must have felt worthless. The things we say or do to our friends, can spur them on to greatness, fulfill destiny or make them give up altogether.We must see the essence of encouraging even the smallest efforts. It could be a smile, a hug,  a note, or even a pat on the back or just saying well done! Encourage someone today. Let your action take the noose off someone's neck.

Wisdom Nugget: And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,...but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

"I" Is For Influence: Your Friends Influence You

Wisdom Nugget: "Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity."

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"The first time you say something, it's heard. The second time, it's recognized, and the third time it's learned" - John C. Maxwell

Influence is the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself. Someone said once that, "your life will be a sum total of the books you read and the friends you keep."

In any relationship you experience either of the following:
(a) CORRUPTION: "Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners, and  "...a companion of fools shall be destroyed."  Or,
(b)  PROMOTION: "He that walks with wise men shall be wise."

If you do not desire the influence someone will bring into your life, then do not make them your friend because, like it or not, FRIENDSHIP IS INFLUENCE. Have you noticed how an individual enters a new neighborhood and after sometime he begins to speak with their accent? That is called "Influence". As long as you fraternize with people, you must gradually begin to dress like them, talk like them, behave like them, and think like him.

As a young boy I grew up in a  poor neighborhood in Warri. Violence, crime and drugs were a very common sight. It was therefore only natural for me to very early in life find myself lost in alcohol and smoking. I knew it was a very dangerous path to follow in life, but it was my reality and I did not know any better. I particularly wondered then why people loved smoking. That stuff was so bitter in my mouth that each time I smoked it was horrible. But I needed to belong and all my friends smoked so who am I to change the rules? How would I flow with my guys if I didn't do what they did? It took a lot for me to be delivered from that gory past.

It was John C. Maxwell that said, "We choose what attitudes we have right now. And it's a continuing choice." It's a choice to influence or be influenced by other peoples attitudes. Every single character we display today are as a result of our interaction at different points in our lives with the so many people we have come across; our parents, siblings, friends, classmates, co-workers etc.

What kind of influence do you want to have on your friends, CORRUPTION or PROMOTION? Understand first that you can only give what you have. So, it behoves on us to conciously and deliberately decide to influence people positively...There are no accidental successes, decide TODAY!

Let some someone be able to make references years after you've parted ways and testify how their lives improved after they met you.

Good Friendships Are Inspiring

Wisdom Nugget: A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

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According to Charles Spurgeon, there are 4 kinds of friends in your life : those who subtract, those who divide, those who add and those who multiply you. On a broader scale, there are two kinds of friends, those who inspire you and those who expire you.

In the School of Relationship , Lesson 101 says, "Wealth will bring you many friends, but become poor and your friends will leave you. Many people are nice to a generous person. Everyone wants to be friends with someone who gives gifts."

Summary is "Most people will befriend you because of what they hope to gain, not because of what they can give."

These are called "fair weather friends". However Lesson 201 adds that, "Real Friends love through all kinds of weather, and families stick together in all kinds of trouble(adversity)."
Have you been there ?

In fact  CS Lewis submits that, "Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one !"

Truth is, life often deals us blows such that we feel like failures. At such times, you feel your efforts have been in vain and that you have wasted your time. What does the future hold? You wonder. There is no future, it's so dark you can't see a single ray of hope ... And David said "when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I." i.e. at such time you do not need sinking sand; you don't need to sink down the pits of despair. You need a rock (an inspiring friend) that is higher than you (at that time) that can lift you up from your miry clay and "talk you through the storm". Real friends inspire you to do what you, otherwise cannot do. They challenge your possibilities and bring out the best in you. They are quick to say "Yes you can !"
 "I'm so depressed and I can't get any dates," the 300-pound man told his minister. "I've tried everything to lose weight."
"I think I can help," said the minister. "Be dressed and ready to go tomorrow at 8 a.m."
Next morning, a beautiful woman in a skin-tight exercise suit knocked on the man's door. "If you can catch me, you can have me," she said, as she took off. He huffed and puffed after her. This routine went on every day for the next five months. The man lost 115 pounds and felt confident that he would catch the woman the next day. That morning he whipped open his front door and found a 300-pound woman in a jogging suit waiting for him. "The minister said to tell you," she began, "that if I can catch you, I can have you."

Gloria Naylor wrote: "we cannot tell the exact moment a friendship is formed; as in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses, there is at last one that makes the heart run over.

Remember: "A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity."

THE GIFT OF FRIENDSHIP

Wisdom Nugget:  "A man that hath friends must show himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother."

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One of the greatest gifts given to mankind is, The Gift of Friends. We are all products of relationships and as the popular sage goes, "No man is an Island". You cannot be friends with everybody but you must be a friend to somebody. 

Rodney Dangerfield wrote: "Once I told my old man, 'Nobody likes me.' He said, 'Don't say that - everybody hasn't met you yet."

Leonard Syme, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California at Berkeley, indicates the importance of social ties and social support systems in relationship to mortality and disease rates. He points to Japan as being number one in the world with respect to health and then discusses the close social, cultural, and traditional ties in that country as the reason. He believes that the more social ties, the better the health and the lower the death rate. Conversely, he indicates that the more isolated the person, the poorer the health and the higher the chances of dying. Social ties are good preventative medicines for physical problems and for mental-emotional-behavior problems.

Who therefore is a friend? Friends are people with whom you dare to be yourself. Your soul can be naked with them. They ask you to put on nothing, only to be what you are. They do not want you to be better or worse. When you are with them, you feel as a prisoner feels who has been declared innocent. You do not have to be on your guard. You can say what you think, as long as it is genuinely you. Friends understand those contradictions in your nature that lead others to misjudge you. With them you breathe freely. You can avow your little vanities and envies and hates and vicious sparks, your meannesses and absurdities, and in opening them up to friends, they are lost, dissolved on the white ocean of their loyalty. They understand. You do not have to be careful. You can abuse them, neglect them, tolerate them. Best of all, you can keep still with them. It makes no matter. They like you. They are like fire that purges to the bone. They understand. You can weep with them, sing with them, laugh with them, pray with them. Through it all - and underneath - they see, know, and love you. A friend? What is a friend? Just one, I repeat, with whom you dare to be yourself. (C. Raymond Beran, in Bits & Pieces, September 19, 1991, p. 3-4.)

George Eliot said "Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts, nor measure words, but to pour them all out just as they are, chaff and grain together knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with the breath of kindness blow the rest away."

Friendship is reciprocal and you will find a true friend more useful to you in life than your biological brother.

Two men were out hunting in Northern U.S.A. Suddenly one yelled and the other looked up to see a grizzly charging at  them. The first started to frantically put on his tennis shoes and his friend anxiously asked, "What are you doing? Don't you know you can't outrun a grizzly bear?" "I don't have to outrun a grizzly bear. I just have to outrun you".

FRIENDS DO NOT (ONLY) LAST A LIFE TIME

Wisdom Nugget: A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother

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Remember "You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late."-Ralph Waldo Emerson

And David said, Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul, that I may shew him kindness for Jonathan's sake?

In the few years I have lived, I have seen quite a great deal of unbelievable conduct between supposed friends which is why I strongly hold the view that most FRIENDS DO NOT LAST A LIFE TIME

(1) Ebi just lost the father and soon after the burial she needed badly to pay her school fees and felt the best person to talk to would be the Dad's former best friend. To her utter shock, he demands for sex as a pre-condition for any financial assistance.
(2) Mr Tony and his best friend Tijani who were business partners were at the verge of closing a major deal that would fetch them hundreds of millions, when suddenly Tijani got involved in a ghastly accident on his way to one of the project sites. He died  a few days later and a month after his burial the project is completed and money paid to their company account. The widow of late Mr Tijani got wind that payment had just been made for the job which took her husband's life. She phoned Mr Tony, but he refused to answer her calls.She eventually tracked him down to the office and he lied to her that no payment was ever made. Two years later, she received a pittance from Mr Tony; upposedly her husband's share of the contract money. He said he didn't have to give her anything and wass in fact doing her a Favour.
(3) A heated argument broke out between the driver and this pretty young woman. She would not pay any fare for her young son because she did not have such money. She would rather carry him on her laps. Then she added "After all, since his father died, they haven't given me nothing !" At that point I became curious and wanted to know more. I offered to pay for her son so she could tell me. Her husband had died in war as an Ecomog Peace keeping soldier in Liberia. And when she demanded for his gratuities, her husband's former boss insisted on sleeping with her first. When she refused, the money was finally paid to her father-in-law who refused to give her or any of her kids a dime. Only her first son was in school, courtesy of some kind soldiers in the barracks who had contributed into a purse to help him for he was very bright.


David and Jonathan entered into a covenant of friendship. Many years later both Jonathan and his father Saul were dead and forgotten, but not by David. David woke up one morning, according to our text, and began to look for just any survivors of Saul's family so he could show them kindness, not for their sake but " for Jonathan's sake!" Because David believed that true friendship lasts beyond one's life time; it endures for all time. David discovered Mephibosheth,  restored back to him every property, investment and servant belonging to his late father, and all the benefits due a king's son.

Look for family members of your late covenant (bosom or close friend)  who are in "Lode-bar" (distress and despair) and show them kindness "for your late friend's sake" because friends are not only for life but much more in death. The bad news is we will all die one day and the seeds we sow for others today, (good, bad or ugly) our families shall reap them "good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over."

As the wise saying goes, whatever goes around, comes around. Friends are not for life only but for all time ! Remember "You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late."-Ralph Waldo Emerson.

And "no act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted"-Aesop.