Using Friends to Dump On

Do you ever feel so down that you just want to dump on a friend, hoping that it’ll get better? Yet you realize that while you may be feeling better after you “vomited” your sorrows all over her as if she was a garbage can, that the problem actually multiplied rather than disappeared?

I have noticed over and over again in my life that when things go wrong, the first thing I want to do is to call a friend and tell them about it, dump, vent and get advice from my friend. Yet when I learned to go inward and present the challenge to my Higher Self, asking my Higher Self to take over and to transmute the challenge into a blessing, then I come out of it renewed with strength and with the exact answer to the solution. And I spared a friend unnecessary heartache to fix my problem that was never hers to fix in the first place.

Christian Larson would say it this way: “Never think or speak of that which you do not wish to happen. The whine, the sting, and the sigh – these three must never appear in a single thought or a single word. You can win ten times as many friends by talking happiness as you can by talking trouble. And the more real friends you have the less trouble you will have. Speak well of everything good you find and mean it. When you find what you do not like keep quiet. The less you think or speak of what you do not like the more you have of what you do like. Magnify the good; emphasize that which has worth; and talk only of those things that should live and grow. When you have something good to say, say it. When you have something ill to say, say something else.”

It's nice to have great friends, those you can vent to without being judged. However, just as Larson says above, it not only diminishes the strength of your fabric that holds together your friendship, but it also dillutes the concentration of what you're really trying to accomplish, which is to create happiness. Now you're unhappy and so is your friend, your problem has been multiplied and if your friend goes and tells her friend or her therapist, then you have a real big soup of a mess. Instead, try to go inward, pray, meditate, bring your sorrows before God or your Higher Self, come out of it with a clear answer and then tell your friend:

1. The challenge
2. What you learned in your meditation
3. And how you're going to solve the problem

Most importantly stick to the advice you received from the "inside" and only consider what your friend has to say. This way you're not a burden to them because you're not looking to them for the answer, because you already have the answer. It shows them that you do internal work first, it shows how strong you are, they might learn something and they leave you strengthened and encouraged because you're not leaning on them.

It's a tough concept because most people will say: "That's what friends are for."

So here is my dare to you: try it. Next time you want to jump on the phone and call your friend to vent, go inside first, no matter how many times you need to "go there" and only once you have the answer from within will you share your lesson with your friend. Watch what happens...