The Power of Positive Friendships

It is the International Day of Friendship next week (31st July to be precise) which has got me thinking about my own friendships. For most of my life I have been 'friends' with the people I went to school with. Yes other friends have popped in and out of my life through university, work and having children however my very best friends have always stayed the same.

I don't exactly know what happened at the start of 2015 but it was like I had some sort of life epiphany. It suddenly dawned on me that I was 32 years old! Yikes! I was 32 years old and I deserved happiness. I decided that things were going to change.

First of all, I registered as self employed and really threw myself into my blog and my passion, working for myself to provide for our family has been the most rewarding experience.

Secondly, I decided to 'put myself out there' more. I attended a conference with people I had never met, started attending blogging events where I have made some real friends for life and decided to start attending a local 'mumpreneur' networking group. It was here that I learned about the true power of friendship. The women in this group encouraged, inspired and completely understood me in a way that some of my other friends had never done. It was amazing to meet so many like minded women who I knew would always have my back. These friendships have really grown over the past few months and I am now actually an official company director of the 'Northumberland Mumpreneurs'. Being asked to help to steer and lead our group to success is such an honour and I couldn't be more proud.

Attending a conference with 'strangers'

But where does that leave my old friends? I do have friends that I have known from school who I might not see very often and friends from school who I still see regularly and I love them all dearly - we might not speak everyday but we are always there for each other when needed.

I realised however that some of my friendships were doing more harm than good. The betrayer, the tempter, the black cloud, the thief......yes, I recognised all of them in my life. I spent many evenings upset - why didn't they understand me? why were they being so hurtful? didn't I mean more to them? Lots of questions were spinning around my head. It can be hard when you try everything to change and resolve a friendship but sometimes there is just no resolution and you have to face facts that you have simply grown apart. As my husband wisely pointed out, why would you remain friends with someone who makes you feel so sad just because you sat next to them at school? He has a point.

Onwards and upwards. I posted this quote on facebook a few weeks ago and decided to tag all of the amazing women I have met this year that have made an impact or a positive difference to my life. I was amazed to find that there were over 50+ people to tag. Fantastic!

As we celebrate the International Day of Friendship next week, although it does still make me sad, I will try not to mourn the friends I have lost, but instead celebrate all of the wonderful ladies I am lucky to have in my life now. Life is too short to unhappy - one of the ways you can achieve this is to make sure you only have lots of happy, supportive and inspirational people in your life.