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From Conflict to Unity
Conflict between friends is really hard! I get so anxious when I’m in conflict with anyone. It makes my heart race and my panic rise. Maybe it’s the recovering people-pleaser in me, or maybe it’s fear of doing something wrong or hurting someone I care about. No matter how you react to conflict, it’s no…
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Communicate Communicate Communicate
Do you ever get into arguments with your friends and not know how to resolve them? Or do you try to avoid arguments at all costs, even to the extent of saying things that you don’t believe just to try to keep the peace, all the while becoming bitter and hardened towards your friend? Or…
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To Resolve or To Not
In a previous post, I used group development theory in relation to forming friendships. I talked about the stage of storming. Conflict is inevitable in friendship. No, that’s not pessimistic talk, it’s just realistic. Even in a solid, 10 year long friendship, there’s going to be conflict. Even in your grandparents’ 60-something marriage, there is…
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Reach Up and Reach Out
What if I’m taking my friends for granted? I told someone the other day that since I’ve only been in unhealthy romantic relationships that were not centered on God, I don’t know how to walk out a godly relationship. I think this is also true in my friendships. I definitely know what doesn’t work, but…
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Communication in Friendships
So now that you have some friends, how do you keep them? While it may be easy to look outward and focus on other people not being good friends, it is important to look inward and make sure that we are being good friends before judging the way other people are doing it. Do you…
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Intentional Friendship
So you made a friend, now what? How do you keep a friend? Navigate the ups and downs of each stage of friendship. One thing that helped prepare me to write this post is to think about other relationships. Other relationships reveal things about yourself. Some stuff you are grateful to learn about and others……
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Being A Friend
I think we’ve already established that finding friends is really tough. But when I think about my search for friends when I was younger, I realize there’s a piece of the process that’s really important for us to continue talking about — getting ourselves ready to be a friend. When I was younger, I remembered…
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Will You Bee My Friend?
Raise your hand if you are an adult. *Raises hand.* Raise your hand if making friends seems way too complicated. *Raises hand.* Raise your hand if you have no idea where to find friends. *Raises hand.* Raise your hand if making friends as a kid seemed so easy and you don’t know what happened. *Raises…
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Making Friends with Group Theory
I moved a lot during my growing up years. I can’t tell you how many times I was the new girl without counting. It is hard being the new girl and arriving in a place where you don’t know anyone. Especially in the middle of the school year where friend groups have been established. I…