Shrink Your Circle

Growing up and for far too long in my 20’s, I had a really large circle of friends. No new friends was not a concept to me. I wanted to continue to expand my circle as large as possible so that I always had something to do. Shit was exhausting.

I think or a lot of us, our 20’s are for fun and adventure. I had the best time and did all of the things. All of them. And I loved it.

But I’m 33 now (34 next week!) and I’m tired. I want to do more meaningful things with more complex people.

Lately as I’ve cut back my circle of friends, I realized that for someone who has prided them-self on not being a people pleaser, I sure cared a lot about not disappointing others. I worried about disappointing people by not making time for them, I stressed about saying no to plans - I wanted to hang onto relationships that no longer served me.

It is going to be awkward to end friendships. It can bring on tough conversations that don’t make you feel good. But it is essential to do so in order to save your sanity. In a lot of cases, you can really Irish exit the friendship. And that’’s my kind of ending. But in other cases, you’ll have to be blunt and have the conversation.

We all know I have anxiety. I’m high strung. I’m a dweller. So keeping people in my life who cause me stress, that’s a really unhealthy way to live. My life is already a daily struggle of “why can’t I be calm and cool” so it’s critical to cut off the unnecessary stress - like people.

I’ve talked about this before, and I think I made a sort of effort to it, but recently I’ve sincerely committed to it. I had been so unhealthy for so long in allowing other people to have too much control over my well being that I was either going to break or make a change. I chose to change.

And it’s been nothing but magic. The people that love me know when I pull away for a bit, it’s just because life is happening. The people that aren’t my circle, welp, they start to understand they’ve gotten the boot.

You are the CEO of your life. You owe it to the success of your ‘business’ to hire, fire, and promote accordingly.

The Easiest Relationship of Them All

Growing up - I was a people pleaser.  I never really knew who I was, who I wanted to be, or what I stood for.  So when it came to friendships, I put in a lot of work because I wanted to be liked and I craved having the inner circle that I saw those around me so easily obtaining.  For about 30 years of my life - I have thought that friendships were about putting in the same work you would in a romantic relationship.  And that's left me feeling really drained in a lot of my friendships.

Over the years I've matured, discovered who I am, and I've cut out the friendships that don't provide me any positivity.  But I've still got some growing to do in the area of choosing which friendships to invest in and which to let go.

One of my soulmates recently told me that friendships are the easiest relationships we have.  They are the only relationship that we get to choose because they enrich our lives.  You cannot choose your family and they are not easy to simply walk away from.  And when you're invested in a romantic relationships you cannot (or should not) be easily able to cut that out of your world.  But with friendships - you can truly say this person brings me happiness and I want them in my life.  If they don't, I will release them from my space.

I don't know why I found that so enlighteningly simple.  And I don't know why I've never seen friendships in this way.  I don't know why I'm 32 years old and still allow friends into my world who don't make it a better place.  

Maybe all of you are reading this and you're thinking I'm absolutely out of my mind.  That you've known this for years and you're out there balancing the best friendships and braiding each other's hair as we speak.  But I'm an OCD, type A, bleeding heart and I have a daily struggle between who to cut from the team and who to get matching tattoos with.  I've been told that for being someone who hates feelings and comes off cold at times - I'm a child with stars in her eyes who refuses to believe anyone is anything but inherently good.

Wake up Silva - life isn't all glitter and rainbows.  People aren't all good.  And they aren't all worth my time, energy, or sparkle.  Being able to break down who I commit my awesome soul to should be as easy as who makes me happy.  I should be able to be selfish with where I direct my attention.  And I should start 32 years ago. 

My takeaway for today is to remember that life and relationships are complicated.  Friendships should be simple.  If someone is not adding positivity to you universe, subtract them.