Skip to main content

Words Unsaid

A couple weeks ago I had dinner with a friend I haven’t seen in 4 months or so. We spent 4 hours catching up. At the end of the conversation, we both mentioned it had been too long and how much we miss hanging out. I then said something like, “it’s hard for me to ask people to do things because I feel like the only person with immense free time and it makes me look needy, clingy, and lonely.” She came back and said “I never ask because I feel like a burden to people.”

This exchange turned on the file system in my brain. 

Just about every assumption or fearful thought that was expressed to me or by me about not reaching out came flying out of my imaginary file cabinet in my brain. They sorted themselves beautifully into a clearer picture...like a data puzzle. It was time to analyze and try to understand this relationship barrier I seem to run across often.

What causes relationships to fade? Life is constantly evolving. When it stops being convenient to see someone, you start seeing them less. You no longer work in the same building. You no longer spend time at the same place. You no longer have the same relationship status. I am sure there are more examples, but you get the point. In addition, maybe something happened in one of both parties lives that distracted them and ate up their time. Assumptions and fear can also drive a wedge between two people. There are so many reasons relationships can fade. But, what do we do to recover them? Often times, we do nothing. We say nothing. The question then becomes, "why?"

How many times have you thought?:
I bet most of us think those things and so much more, but will not say a word to the person we are thinking of. We may say something to others...we may not. Often times, we suffer in silence, or so we think. In reality, our thoughts are not truly "silent" to us. They are only silent to the outside world. When you genuinely miss someone and want them around, you think of them often. These thoughts can even turn negative when you wonder things like, "do they even miss me?" 

What keeps us from reaching out? I will list the top three reasons that keep me from reaching out: (1) Too much time has passed, (2) the desire to feel like I matter, (3) fear of rejection/judgement. I am sure some of you can relate to my three reasons and some of you may have different reasons. The question then becomes "what do we do about this?" 

I think the answer is find our "courage," so we can find our "voice." If you look at the three reasons I listed for not reaching out to someone I miss, it is all fear based. Courage is the only answer to fear. How you find your courage is a personal journey that we all must travel on our own. Yes, we have our supporters and encouragers, but true courage comes from within.
Who have you been missing lately? 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Will You Be My Friend?

Why is it so hard to make friends? Humans need social connections to survive and thrive. I feel that developing friendships gets harder as we get older, but then wonder if it slopes back down after a certain age. Since moving to Texas, I have met many wonderful people that I believe had good intentions to grow a friendship with me. I have been here for nine months and feel disconnected. The other day, I was sharing how I was feeling with a new person in my life. She expressed she had been experiencing the same thing. That conversation inspired this post. As a child, I did struggle to make friends, but not like how I do now. I kind of just picked someone that liked the same things as me and then would be friends for however long. I have noticed that as people get older, like golden years older, they start to lack f***s. By then I think I might be like "either you like me or you don't." I have shared in previous posts why friendship is distinctly challenging for me...
9 comments
Read more

My Experiences - A Year Later!

It has been almost one year since my last blog post. I have been on a long journey since that day and I could not bring myself to write during that time. I am ready to write again. My last post was about me taking care of myself, specifically through physical fitness and relationships. I will talk about my fitness journey in this post because, honestly, it is just easier.
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Not Me

If you have ever been to a therapy session you may have noticed that the therapist does not ask "why?" Ha! If you haven't noticed, you are probably replaying as many sessions as you possibly can to see if you can catch them asking this big no-no question. On the opposite spectrum, as a performance improvement professional, I am taught to ask "why" until all the "whys" have been discovered. What's up with the word "why?" Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay  There are a couple of reasons the word "why" is a challenge. First, it often takes a long time to find "why" and explain "why." We are cautioned about the lengthiness of the "why" exercise in my coursework. More importantly, the term "why" can come off accusatory, judgemental, and blame-attributing. So why do we ask "why" so often? When we are not selected for a job, we want to know why-and we often ask. Is it pos...
Post a Comment
Read more