{"id":2797,"date":"2012-03-02T12:01:56","date_gmt":"2012-03-02T17:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/?p=2797"},"modified":"2012-02-13T13:00:16","modified_gmt":"2012-02-13T18:00:16","slug":"assessing-your-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2012\/03\/assessing-your-friends.html","title":{"rendered":"Assessing Your Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>During DoorMat days, I pleased and pleased to have as many friends as possible. I was under the misguided belief that everyone had to like me. People Pleasers befriend everyone. Now I\u2019m very selective about who I call a friend and understand the people who said it\u2019s better to have a few good friends that you can count on than to have a boatload who you don\u2019t feel are there for you. Some friends are toxic; others just do what they can get away with if you haven\u2019t set boundaries.<\/p>\n

Setting boundaries can make a difference for having a friend who is worth having and having one who isn’t.<\/p>\n

When a friend does things that annoys you or makes you unhappy, you need to do something. No one is exempt from good behavior! Take a stand\u2014softly\u2014on what you don\u2019t like. This doesn\u2019t mean you have to get into an argument or end your friendship. Often people aren\u2019t aware of how their behavior upsets you. Sometimes gentle enlightenment is all it takes to help them learn how to treat you. We enable people to do unacceptable things by not expressing how we feel.<\/p>\n

If you speak up and the person gets angry, you\u2019ll have to just accept that. Some people want what they want and the heck with you. I try to limit interaction with those types. They don\u2019t make good friends! When you speak up nicely but firmly, you might get your point across and the person will stop doing what you don\u2019t like. Years ago I had a friend who I\u2019ll call Laura. She was a decent person, except for occasional biting comments. What she perceived as teasing often hurt. It didn\u2019t happen often and I did like spending time with her.<\/p>\n

When I complained to a mutual friend who\u2019d known Laura for much longer than I did, she said, \u201cthat\u2019s just her way.\u201d Everyone disregarded her occasional caustic comments. Other friends tolerated it. I thought about what she said and decided that just because it was Laura\u2019s way, it wasn\u2019t right. After saying some things that hurt me, I refused to make plans the next time she called because of her barbs. Laura didn\u2019t take it seriously at first. But I explained while others accepted it\u2014I didn\u2019t. Period! And guess what? Laura apologized and promised to never do it again to me, and didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Letting her know how much it bothered me got through to her. I wasn\u2019t tough in my approach but did spell out why I felt her comments were hurtful, even if she thought she was just teasing. When she saw how I felt, she didn\u2019t want to lose my friendship and made a successful effort to control her sarcasm with me. Just because someone means well, it\u2019s not right if she or he hurts or disappoints you regularly.<\/p>\n

As your self-respect increases, so will standards for friends. I value friendship a lot but there has to be trust and mutual respect. I give energy to people who respond well. Friendship is like a seed\u2014it needs care and time to grow.\u00a0 It can\u2019t be one-sided, with you doing all the giving. DoorMats feel short-changed when they give good friendship and it\u2019s not reciprocated, but keep the friendship anyway. Self-empowered people know they need to be more selective about who they call a friend and how much they give.<\/p>\n

Even if you\u2019ve known someone for ages, set boundaries with or lose friends who don\u2019t bring you joy and are always negative. As I cut down on time spent with people who had a negative impact on me, or let go completely, I say \u201cClose one door and another opens.\u201d Then new and more positive people enter my life. Letting go hurts initially but is rewarding when you don\u2019t have to deal with their issues. Positive friends enrich your life. That\u2019s why I encourage you to love yourself enough to only let people who treat you well into your life. In my next post I\u2019ll discuss how to know who to cut loose.
\n*********************<\/p>\n

Take the 31 Days of Self-Love Challenge<\/strong><\/a> and get my book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways<\/a><\/strong> for free at http:\/\/howdoiloveme.com<\/a><\/strong>. And you can post your loving acts HERE<\/a><\/strong> to reinforce your intention to love yourself. Read my 31 Days of Self-Love Posts HERE<\/a><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Please leave comments under my posts so we can stay connected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During DoorMat days, I pleased and pleased to have as many friends as possible. I was under the misguided belief that everyone had to like me. People Pleasers befriend everyone. Now I\u2019m very selective about who I call a friend and understand the people who said it\u2019s better to have a few good friends that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,15],"tags":[45,113],"class_list":["post-2797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-self-empowerment-confidence","category-self-love-acceptance","tag-friendship","tag-toxic-friends"],"yoast_head":"\nAssessing Your Friends - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2012\/03\/assessing-your-friends.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Assessing Your Friends - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"During DoorMat days, I pleased and pleased to have as many friends as possible. 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Let Me Count the Ways, a She's appeared on hundreds of TV and radio shows, including Oprah, Howard Stern, and Good Morning America and has been quoted in dozens of publications, including the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Marie Claire, and Men\u00b9s Health. After being a consummate People Pleaser who felt unworthy of getting her own needs met for many years, Daylle found a path of self-love that enabled her to build her self-esteem and reinvent herself into a dual career. She learned to get taken seriously without being overtly assertive when she became one of the first women to start an independent record label (on a dare!) and learned to play ball nicely and successfully in an industry dominated by men. To help independent musicians empower themselves, Daylle writes music business books for Billboard\/Random House, including the very popular Start & Run Your Own Record Labe and I Don't Need a Record Deal! Daylle's books have been translated into over 10 languages and are popular around the world. She speaks for colleges, organizations and corporations. Through her company, Project Self-Empowerment, Daylle creates programs and materials to help people empower themselves. One goal is to raise the money to self-publish her book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways and give it away for free in colleges and through organizations, to give thanks for all her blessings. Daylle uses her writing and speaking to help others find the kind of contentment and empowerment that she has.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/author\/dschwartz"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2797"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2802,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2797\/revisions\/2802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}