Hello, hello, this is the Borealis experience. I'm

your host of Aurora, and I hope you're doing well. I just had a

huge glass of water. So if you notice that you haven't been

drinking enough water today, pause me and just have a little

bit of water and up.

All right, this is Episode Seven teen. Yesterday, I've talked

about what you can expect when he chooses to grow.

Namely, that it's not always going to be easy. You might go

through really rocky

phases, chaotic phases. And also growth doesn't mean that you

will never ever encounter difficult situations anymore or

feel strong emotions.

And yesterday was also about keeping

the big picture in mind going into birds perspective, and

observing your behavior, and how it might affect your

relationships. And that when we are trying to force something

when we're too

focused on something and blend, you know, you don't say blend in

English. But when you

forget everything around you,

then you can get in a very

uncomfortable,

you can send out a very uncomfortable vibe to your

surroundings and shut people out. And that's really harmful

for you. So today, I want to talk about

friendship. So we cover the relationship part of our well

being. And if you look at your friendships, if you look at what

happened over the last couple months,

can you say that you are a good friend.

The reason I want to post this

episode today is because I feel during COVID We had to isolate

we had to push people away if we were abiding to the rules. Or if

we were not conforming, then people pushed us away. And maybe

there were times where you ask yourself Is this a real friend

can really count on the people that I trusted for so long? Or

is it all falling apart now.

And

in those times where we feel lonely, uncertain,

isolated,

I feel it's most important to ask yourself how you are showing

up. Because we can change others we can maybe influence them a

little bit. But we can make them want to be our friend. We can't

make them

be there all the time. What you have to realize is that you can

take charge of how you show up in the world, the energy you put

out into that universe and take charge of that and in doing so,

changing your relationships. So this is why this episode today

is very dear to me because COVID was very disruptive, challenged

us on many, many levels. And I feel on personal levels

especially.

So when you look at Friendship, What is friendship. For me

friendship is the base of everything. When you look at

your parents. Now you are in your 20s your 30s you still see

them as your parents and you may be taking advice from them. But

you can also see them as a friend. Look at your aunt, an

uncle, your grandma, your grandpa. If you don't have

family around you then look at the grocery clerk or the postman

or

people that you turned into your family.

Friendship for me is the least

most dramatic connection you can have as a human being, of

course, you can have drama and fights and nasty times with your

friends. But there's not that

there's not these ultra high expectations involved.

When you think about friendships, there's no future

wedding, there's no parents who want to force you into

something.

There's no so so society, not suicidal expectations.

So friendship is supposed to be a very light and strong bond at

the same time.

With a friend, you share secrets, and deep shame or

insecurities,

they usually open up a new world to you, because yeah, you might

have similar hobbies or something, but they might have

different views, different tastes, where you can just open

up to and explore new views

of the world.

Your friend can excite you about new things, or just their energy

is awesome to be around. They are supportive in tough times,

but also can cheer for you, when you are successful, and really

happy and content. And

you bond with a friend on many, many levels. And you can have

discussions and arguments with them and know that you can trust

them,

that they have your back,

that they will listen to you and you will listen to them. A

friend can also be protective.

I remember I have girlfriends in Germany, and physically, they're

way smaller and petite than me. And every time we went out

for dancing, and a guy was hitting on them, and I could see

that they didn't want to be hit on and I just invented some

story to save them out of an uncomfortable situation. So

another very important part of friendship is boundaries. They

respect your boundaries, they support your dreams. And they

want you to be independent. There's

excitement about doing things together and spending time

together. But there's also emphasis on independence, and

you growing them growing at the same time.

So let's go deeper. Think about your best friends, your the

people you spend most time with?

Do you truly listen to them? Or do you wait your turn when it

comes to conversations, listening is such a precious

skill to have.

Because you can learn a lot intellectually, you learn a lot

about another person, which builds trust and out of people

who come to me

a lot of friends who have been single and unhappy.

And now in happy relationships.

I was able to observe from the outset that they over time

learned to listen. Because trust can be built when you listen.

And if you can trust a person. When you listen to them, then

you should just move on foot when you truly listen read their

body language

without adding what you want them to be,

then you can get very, very precious information

about them to build trust.

So when do we start distorting reality and turn a friend into?

Yeah, a source of love and attention for our needs, rather

than seeing them for who they really are?

I can't really answer that question but I find it very

Very important to ask, what purpose

do you expect your friend to fulfill in your life? Why do you

have that person in your life? And have you noticed maybe that

there's parts in them that scare you that you don't like about

them, that challenge you on some level that you don't want to see

about them. So you try to,

yeah, put an emphasis on something else, I will come up

with an example just now.

So let's say your friend is extroverted and loves to go out.

And this is, of course, post COVID times or pre COVID times

better to say,

and is kind of a social butterfly and joys.

Feeling new energies and exploring and being adventurous,

and you are more of an introvert and insecure and don't really

like to go out, you like to be at home. But you're really

inspired and attracted to that outgoing side of your friend.

Now, of course, over time, maybe

you will feel uncomfortable doing those things with your

friend, good luck going out. And you will try to

I don't want to say, put them in a small box, but drag them into

your world into your

little cave there that you built yourself to feel secure. Now,

from an outsider, it's really easy to see that this person is

going to either break out and

escape, find space, or they will

come into your little cave, but start losing their shine and

doing so also losing your interest and respect a little

bit. So that is one small example I want to put out here

is that if you notice that your friend is better at something

with you, can you be happy for that person and also see it as a

way to grow? Or are you trying to manipulate yourself and that

other person around your pain in order to not feel challenged.

And in doing so limiting yourself of growth? How open can

you be when your friend is exposing you to something new.

And then love languages, there's a beautiful book that I highly

recommend, I will also put it into the show notes with the

author, because I forgot the author's name. It's called Five

loud love languages. And in this book, he explored on which

levels people rarely receive love. So there's physical touch,

there's words of affirmation, this gifts, there's acts of

kindness or service. And the fifth one, I forgot.

I will put them into the show notes. And it's not really

relevant right now. But one example I want to give you here

is for instance, if your friend

is into quality time, so they love spending time with you as

much as they can.

But you're more of an independent person and for you

buying someone a gift crafting someone a gift is the ultimate

language of love. So you keep throwing those gifts at them,

and they receive them and are grateful. But don't feely don't

really feel understood.

It is really hard to put into words but maybe if I put that

image out for you, then you can maybe notice

that you have been in a situation similar situation

before.

There's other things like in romantic relationships for

instance, it's easier to see when someone is very into

physical touch and needs kissing and hugging and everything

that involves coziness, physical coziness, on

On a daily basis,

the other person receives love

through gifts. And they're not much into physical touch, they'd

rather receive gifts from you, but have their freedom and

space.

They love you just as much as you love them. But they receive

love on a different frequency, if you want to see it that way,

like, we're all little radio stations. And if you want to

connect with someone deeply, then you have to listen to that

person and tune into that frequency. And the art is

without losing yourself at the same time.

I will go deeper into that at later stages.

Of course, you want to be seen as who you are, and you don't

want to

totally give yourself up. Right, you want the other person to see

you as who you are, and be treated. But you might miss out

on very magical insights, if you just make it about you, and how

you think that other person receives love.

Then, when it comes to being a good friend, and good person out

there in society,

are you conscious of what energy you bring into your

relationships.

So there's people who, for instance, stay

on the news 24/7,

update it updated, I meant and soak everything in are very

active on social media, soak all the news in. And whenever you

meet that person, they unload everything on you, be it good or

bad. You totally receive all that energy that they soaked up

for so long. And maybe that's not what you want to receive in

that moment. So

maybe you can be conscious of the next couple of times you

meet up or talk to a friend or a relative or an acquaintance. And

see,

what kind of energy are you bringing to the table? Are you

complaining? Are you sad about some something that happened in

the world that you can change any way?

Are you upset? Are you powerless, and just notice how

the other person is receiving that energy.

And then make changes in the future. So if you notice now Oh,

shit, like I've been complaining about my relationship for the

last three months. And I can really see and read now in my

friend's body language, that she's overwhelmed and listening

to all of that. And she even gave up giving me advice because

she doesn't know how to help me? Or

do you keep sharing stuff that they're not really interested

anymore? Or have never been? So it is just about noticing? What

do you put out there? And how do people react to that? It's

really interesting to see. And

then at the same time, do you overshare? Or are you a very

secretive person? Do you make other people talk? And are you

more of a Yeah, introvert when it comes to information to you.

And that's also a very hard thing because how can people

learn and trust you? If you don't open up about vulnerable

stuff if you don't share with them? What scares you and what

what excites you if you only there for the other person to

soak up their energy but you don't really share yours?

Do you have strong opinions that turn people off? A few during

COVID now and even previously, there were a lot of people out

there on Facebook expressing their opinions and I think it's

good. I think it's a beautiful thing to to finally hear people

talk but it shouldn't be to a point where

it is all or nothing black or white. And that we don't try and

understand the other person anymore. That's when we

Turn people like really off and don't want to listen to them

anymore when we feel they're just monologuing away and don't

even care about our stance on that.

So you might be intimidating your people, or unconsciously

push them away and you don't even see it because you feel

you're just expressing yourself. But at the same time you make

that other person feel really shitty and not heard and seen at

all.

And then a very important thing, too, is how do you set

boundaries? And how do you respect boundaries from others.

Time is a very

important or interesting thing, when you look at people who meet

up with friends and can spend five hours with them. And the

other person has friends where they just meet for half an hour

coffees, and then they vanish off into their life again, and

you don't really know what they're doing. So if you have a

friend who, whose attention span is very short, then you can

communicate to that to them. And

they might tell you Well, yeah, I get overwhelmed. I need more

time with myself than with other people. And I have to recharge

my batteries. They feel depleted right now. How do you react when

a person sets a boundary? And really does it in a loving, warm

way? does it trigger you? Does it make you feel scared?

And then

what about you? How do you set boundaries? Do you have

boundaries at all? Are you running around serving other

people? And totally neglecting yourself? Do you have boundaries

with yourself where you know, now I have to stop giving and

have to start

putting energy into myself. So boundaries and how we

communicate needs are going to be very big topics I want to

talk about because I feel the really juicy good relationships

are based on respect and genuine curiosity and boundaries and

expressing needs falls under respect and how much do we

respect the others? How much do we feel respected?

Wonderful. Thank you so much for listening today. I'm very

excited to be out there tomorrow. Again, I might be

posting a meditation later on.

Thank you for being here spending time with me. Despite

Aurora