Anxiety over friendships

A couple of years ago I experienced a very close friend asking to end our friendship. Since then I’ve coached myself on this and received brilliant coaching. I finally reached peace with the situation and have even been in contact with the friend and we have both expressed love and understanding over what happened. I’m so happy to be at this point. What I’d love coaching with is the fear that creeps in when I worry that other friends may have misunderstood something and that what happened with this other friend is going to repeat itself in other relationships (it never has). I’ve tried looking at it in terms of data- listing the reasons this wouldn’t be true and where my brains negative bias is coming into play. I think I still need to continue to heal from what happened and that these creeping feelings of anxiety that I may have ‘done the wrong thing’ again are unattended aspects of trauma. I’m just not sure how to attend to them.

 

Answer:

When those fears creep in it’s because our brain is trying to keep us safe – safe from being out of the community, and isolated. 10,000 years ago, isolation meant that you would like die. Your brain is doing it’s job even though the threats that were very real 10,000 years ago are not our current realities. I’d like to acknowledge the fact that just by showing up in TFC and AAC in this way, you ARE attending to the lingering traumas that show up in your life.
If you could invite your fear in for a cup of tea and a conversation, and from a place of love, what would it have to share with you? What would you learn about yourself? Why is it there? Come back for more coaching when you’re ready. And please give yourself a big big celebratory hug for the work that you’ve done on this already. You’re on the path.