No New Years Plans / anxiety around disconnection with friends

Hi,
This is the first year in a long time that I haven’t been invited to a new years event with friends, and I’m making it mean a lot about me!
Specifically, my big focus this year has been careers – because I launched myself as a freelancer, started a new part time job AND worked on a book proposal… So it’s been an intensive year of leveling up!
As a part of this, I have seen friends less and felt less connected to some of them (not all – a handful of very close people have been part of the process). This was partly a time thing, because I’ve been much busier and juggling lots of projects. But it’s also been an emotional thing. I’ve gone through this huge period of change, and it’s involved a lot of putting myself out there and feeling exposed and vulnerable. And doing things that scared me, and almost feeling like I had to cocoon myself in a little bubble of safety in order to do that and find the confidence to go ahead with it all.
I do feel like I’ve levelled up into a new version of me. And to do so, I’ve really learned to prioritise my own wants and needs in a way I’ve never done before on this scale. I’ve said no to some social things and cancelled because of work deadlines, when that used to fill me with horror. I wouldn’t change my actions this year.
But recently, I’ve caught up with some friends I haven’t seen for a while and I have realised just how disconnected we’ve been / in some cases, I’ve felt a bit like I’ve been excluded and there’ some cliqueyness in my absence / and I have found myself apologising a lot for being busy with work.
This made me feel powerless in my body, I really noticed that. Because I’ve come out of some huge wins – like finishing my book proposal recently – which I’m really proud of, but then I’ve downplayed it to friends and literally apologised for myself, instead of owning it, and it felt horrible.
I would like to reconnect with people but in a powerful way, where I’m not apologising for prioritising myself this year and doing myself down.
And I’ve noticed that some short-term disconnection to friends has been an indirect consequence of focussing so much on work this year – which seemed to come out of no where, and is distracting from being able to celebrate my wins too!
Any tips on managing my approach to this would be much appreciated.
Thank you

 

 

Answer:

What kind of friend do you want to be?  You’ve got a lot of story here that you can look at, but in this window until New Year’s we would offer that you have a great opportunity to just drop all the brain drama and choose how you want to show up in your relationships. Choose how you want to feel. “Disconnected” is a feeling and feelings come from our thoughts. That means you have more power than you think. Pay attention to how you view your friends when you have your disconnected glasses on.

What glasses would you like to put on, if you could choose any emotional lens?