From Insecurity to Celebration: Hypnotherapy for Fairweather Friendships
Are you a foul weather friend? A good friend, there at the most difficult times? You leave home cooked steaming hot meals on your friend’s doorsteps. Turn up with flowers at the appropriate times, and hold space for your friend while they cry down the phone for hours, or hear them out while they process what to do next. We hear how important this is, and praise ourselves and others for being there in these moments of crisis. Hosting the shoulder to cry on.
On the other hand, how do you show up for others when things are going well for them? For some of us, it feels easy to lend an ear when someone struggles with life, but challenging to offer the same support when they’re thriving. Having friends to celebrate our successes is just as important as friends to help us through the difficulties.
Confidence and Vulnerability: Facing the Good and the Bad
Success can sometimes feel isolating. Have you ever shared an achievement with a friend, only to be met with a dimness that makes you feel like they’ve blown out your light? Success, like money, doesn’t fundamentally change our deepest feelings. When someone achieves, they still need their friends around them – perhaps even more so. They still want to celebrate with the people that know them the best. They still need to feel loved by their nearest and dearest. You are the person they want and need to celebrate, and as their friend or family are probably the person they need approval from the most.
Brene Brown asks her students to cup their hands and put them in front of her. She says:
“In your hand is your flame. It’s your soul. It’s your light. You need to surround yourself with friends who, when your light is shining bright, don’t feel the need to blow it out.”
But what if you are the person who has an overwhelming urge to blow someone’s candle out? When someone shares their success, all you can think about is yourself and how it affects you? Why is this happening, and what can you do about it?
Insecurity: Improving self esteem
It’s normal to hear what someone else is doing and instantly compare it to what you’re doing. Even when you’re comparing apples and oranges, for some reason it can still happen. When someone climbs the ladder, rather than viewing it as it is. They’ve climbed, but you’ve stayed where you are with the ability to continue climbing. You can easily feel as though they’ve stayed where they are, and you’ve been pushed down.
This feeling is toxic and can cause frustration or feeling inadequate. You may feel that their success diminishes your potential and overwhelms all your thoughts. Instead of enjoying their success with them and celebrating together as the good friends you are, you retreat. Or worse, try to blow out their candle without recognising how this will affect your friend.
The progress of someone else doesn’t remove your potential. You’re still on the ladder, with nothing blocking your way. If you’re willing to climb it, you can continue to do so, and the power is within you. When you shift your focus from comparison to personal growth, you can celebrate with your friend, recognise every journey is different, and the only competitor you have is yourself.
At the same time, you may experience a fear of their success changing the dynamics of your relationship. Yesterday I was with a friend. She received a text from a friend to say her new year resolution was to spend more time with my friend. It turns out this friend has gone from being of similar affluence to incredibly wealthy. The people they associate with and their lifestyles are very different. However, underneath all the material stuff, they are both still the same people. The wealthy friend would still choose my friend as the person she has the most fun with. Success, wealth, status – all these things do not change what makes us laugh, what we enjoy talking about. You might feel like you want to hold your friend back through fear of losing them.
Improving Self Esteem with Hypnotherapy
If you recognise this lack of self esteem in yourself, hypnotherapy might make a magical difference. Another friend spent Christmas in a beautiful ski chalet hosted by her friends, who had enough money to do so and simply wanted the company of her and her family. You might not have the success of your friend – and it’s important to acknowledge that success doesn’t always mean wealth – but they still love you and probably want you on the journey with them. By improving self-esteem, you can lean into any discomfort knowing that you are worthy of the friendship. You might find the celebrations at least, if not more fun, than all the times you’ve spent together before.
Embracing Your Own Worth and Celebrating Success Together
It’s natural to feel uncomfortable when someone else shares their success. However, if left to run wild, this feeling becomes unhealthy. It feels horrible and can control your actions or dictate the dynamics of your friendship. This doesn’t have to happen. When you acknowledge that someone else’s triumphs don’t diminish your potential, you can embrace and celebrate your friend’s achievements and your own growth.
Hypnotherapy is a powerful tool to release insecurities and develop a strong sense of self-worth. When your sense of self is secure, you can enjoy the victories of those around you, not as a reflection of your own shortcomings, but as a reason to cheer them on.
By embracing your own worth and improving self-esteem, you become the kind of friend who celebrates without hesitation, who sees the potential for growth in every success, and who creates a space where both you and your friends can thrive.
HYPNOTHERAPY, COUNSELLING, PSYCHOTHERAPY, MINDFULNESS AND LIFE COACHING
Sounds confusing, right? Hypnotherapy with psychotherapy is my original qualification, and the reason I call myself a hypnotherapist. Since 2008, when I qualified as a hypnotherapist, I have added other skills to my toolbox. This helps me add depth to my sessions. If you want to know more, I explain it as concisely as possible here.