Good monday morning to all of you. This is Sunaina Vohra, Youth and Family Life coach from Athena Life Coaching. Today I have a question from a client I met recently who was struggling with some problems in her friendship.So her question was: How do I deal with my dearest friend who has been bad mouthing me behind my back? Should I go out and explain to my friend group that that’s not the type of person I am? So my question to her was: Just clarify the age of your friends, are they above the age of 10 or below? And her reaction was: yeah, yeah, yeah, I got the point. So the 5 strategies to deal with the situation are:
1) Disconnect from this person. Just come clear. And before you disconnect ask yourself 2 questions: 1) How important is this relationship to you? and 2) Can you forgive the act? If the answer is yes then go to your friend and thrash the issue out and shake hands and move on. If the answer is no then disconnect and come clear from this person.
2) Let it go. Not only will rectifying this bad mouthing will create a worser and muckier situation where you feel you will be dragged back into a swamp but you will have to relive the words and negative emotion. And its really not worth your time. Because, forgiveness, is more an act of healing yourself than healing someone else. Before a matchstick lights something else, it burns itself down. So, let it go. Forgive and forget.
3) Actions speak louder than words. Even in the attempt to clarify the situation on what she said and what you said, there are going to be two sides of the story, people are going to judge her and people are going to judge you. And in the long run, what is going to work for people is your actions. If you continue to be the loving caring kind person that you already are, and continue to be there for your friends, then you will continue to be their friends because your actions will speak louder than any words you want to clarify about yourself.
4) What is your learning? So when I’m coaching people, one on one, in any negative situations, I sit down with them and ask them: What is your learning? What have you learned from this experience? What have you learned about your fears, your own insecurities, your own definitions of friendship? How would you like to redefine friendship fro you? How can you grow as an adult or human being. So look at what you have learned from this experience.
5) Zoom out. When the problem is so close to you and you cannot see anything beyond it and you are suffering with pain, when you zoom out and you realize that its really tiny in the larger scale of things. There is war, people are dying of floods and drought; yours is just an episode of a friend back biting you. And I do understand that emotions get the better of us. but sometimes if you just do this, it truly helps you. And why should we not use our energy to the positive things, to help us to grow and get better at the things we do.
If you need a neutral party, a coach to help you through any issues you might be facing in your relationships, contact me via email [email protected] or call on (+971)-56-1399033 for any further enquiries.