The FRIEND Method

This blog primarily focuses on the different ways we perceive the meaning of the word ‘friend’, how we should understand how to choose and manage our friend’s, however we perceive the meaning, using both the emotional heart and the logical brain and how we can use the FRIEND method to help maintain our friendships.

Friend: A person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically one exclusive of sexual or family relations (Oxford Dictionary, 2016).

The problem with the word ‘friend’ is that it is used too commonly when the majority of its use is misused in many ways.

Look, we are not everyone’s cup of tea, we aren’t going to be friends with everyone and the sooner we accept this the more pain we will save ourselves.

Let’s take the up-most generic example of ‘that person is treating me bad when I am trying to be a friend’; this thought goes through our minds at some point in our lives and the moment we start thinking this it moves us to a state of negativity where we start treating that other person less than the norm until that person eventually drifts away or, perhaps the friendship is revived in some way.

But whether they drift or come back, we still in most cases do not understand the underlying definition between a friend and an associate.

Friends are people that do things for you, people that are there for you at your times of need, people that stick up for you and show you what being a friend actually means. An associate is just somebody you know and does not bear any of the above qualities willingly to willingly become your friend.

We may have the philosophy that everyone is our friend until something goes wrong, perhaps you are the type to have only associates until they ‘prove worthy‘ of friendship. Whatever way you class someone as your friend, it is important to step back and take a look at how you do so, because the majority approach to making friends is very much driven by the heart’s emotion, rather than logical thinking by the brain, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as after all, our brains give us sense and sense of development, whereas the heart is what truly makes us beautiful and therefore it is my belief that it is better for the heart to choose its friends rather than the brain.

But hold on, what have I just said here? Am I saying that we should just go with how we feel when we want to make friends? Of course not, what I’m saying is that a lot of the time the brain isn’t used in such cases when it should be; we should always give people the time of day, after all people change and we should always be given a chance to improve, but our brain (or our logical common sense for a better phrase) should tell us how to appropriately manage who becomes our friends, what friends should actually be classed as associates and who are our associates from the get-go.

In another blog called ‘Making Time for the Right People’ (click here) I say the following:

“Let’s consider you walk up to someone and start making conversation; they will do one of the three following things – either be associative and go along with you, stand there thinking ‘why is this person talking to me’ or returns with a negative response.”

We can take the emotional heart that has several factors here, such as putting the effort in to talk to someone or the reaction you have of being spoken to, and then there’s the outcome of the emotion using the logical brain, which is reflection, understanding and adaption.

The above reactions can result in that person becoming either a friend or an associate, depending on how you interact with that person and how you put across friendship qualities, sometimes being a friend to a known associate is what it takes for them to become a friend.

Emotional and Logical Conflicts

When things go wrong in a friendship, we reflect using the brain’s thought process and memory and emotionally conduct pain to the heart which affects us negatively; this is the same when things are going well, we reflect using our brain’s memory and it gives us the feeling of joy and the sense of achievement and happiness.

But what about when these thoughts and feelings conflict?

Let’s take my earlier example of when someone disheartens your friendship and they either drift or revive; there are many thoughts here like ‘why are they being like this’ and ‘what am I doing wrong?’. We all know that thoughts of the brain can contribute to how we feel, but then there’s the issue of misconception, perhaps it is not what you think and the other person is unaware of what the situation is in your eyes? Does that not make these negative thoughts and feelings irrelevant?

The FRIEND Method

Conflicts can be prevented with effective use of what I call ‘Anti-clash Friendship Management’; this is the process of taking action to managing your friendship with people accordingly to prevent such conflicts from negatively affecting your life and potentially destroying good friendships.

This is not anything technical or difficult; rather they are 6 simple pillars of friendship management:

• Feel: primarily to understand a conflict, there must always be emotion in order to recognise it; this is the initial feeling you get when something negative happens in a friendship, it is this feeling that should be appropriately managed by the logical brain.

• Remember: whomever this conflict is with, you chose to allow them to be classed as a friend for a reason or, reasons. Before making any move, take a moment to remember why you chose to allow that person into your life, to be closer than your defensive walls, this will help you to make a rational decision on how you handle the situation.

• Identify: identifying the situation means to take a step back and look at things for what they are, think about what actions you have done in the situation that may have initiated the mental conflict, not just the actions of the other person to what you believe is the cause.

• Empathise: this can be one of if not the most difficult step, being able to empathise with the other person and see things from their perception of the situation; this is usually because when it comes to friendship conflicts the primary thought is to think we are right.

• Nurture: this is part 1 of the conflict resolution, the ability to work out differences and nurture the friendship back to what it should be; this will involve talking, being honest, owning up, listening and coming to an agreement.

• Deliver: part 2 of the conflict resolution is the delivery of friendship reconstruction, meaning that just because a conflict is resolved, it is then the job of both friends to learn and move on, this is what truly makes a great friendship among other things.

SO DO IT NOW: so go ahead, memorise the 6 pillar stages of FRIEND and use it in future to appropriately use Anti-clash Friendship Management. Perhaps you are in a conflict right now or maybe you haven’t conflicted orally or physically yet but you simply have things on your mind and talking to the friend will help lift the weight and make your emotions, your mind, and even potentially your life better overall.

The beauty of the FRIEND approach is that it doesn’t just work on friends, but family too and putting the effort in to resolve conflicts in this way is the first step to working towards removing those conflicts all together!

I hope you took something away from this blog and I hope it helps with your friendships in future, please feel free to join my group, share my posts and connect with me at the social links below.

Thanks for reading!

Craig Milton

#Friend #Friendship #motivational #realism