I have a friend who I call my ego buster. That's because we have this relationship where he does a few things that really tweak me BIG. He is so awesome in just about every other way (not a god or anything, just a regular guy, but a really smart, sexy, creative, spiritually evolved, kindhearted regular sort of guy. But this stuff he does throws me for a loop and just busts my ego to smithereens.
What is that saying about friendship...
A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one's heart, chaffOf course we all do this with our friends...except when it's a struggle to do it. And sometimes I really struggle with my ability in blowing this friend's chaff away with a breath of kindness. My feelings get so hurt and I take what he does personally. Like I said, he's my ego buster and he has a way of letting me know (albeit unconsciously) that my ego is alive and overgrown and in need of being so busted.
and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it,
keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.~
Source Unknown
This is where I caught my ego messing with me again. I've currently been in the middle of one of these struggles with said friend. This struggle is all one-sided mind you, he probably doesn't even have a clue to what I've been going through as it relates to him and that adds one more thing to what I'm struggling with. But anyway, here I am, going through the wringer over this guy and some stuff he's done/hasn't done while he's going about the business of his life totally unaware of what he's done that has affected me so. That's my story anyway, that he's clueless. I can expand on that story too and make him mean and rude and playing the clueless card to let himself off the hook a bit. I don't know. I'm really the one who is clueless and that's the truth. I move in and out of being pretty fucking angry too but back to my story.
So I'm angry and hurt and in the midst of processing my stuff, working to take responsibility for my experience, feeling my strong emotions, looking at the stories my ego tells me without totally buying into believing them and realizing that I'm stuck to the tar baby of attachment and intending to let go of all this bullshit. I'm also doing all this heart opening stuff cause really truly I love this guy so much and that's what matters the most to me, to just be caught up in loving him. But my ego is getting in the way and I know it needs to be busted. You see, my ego gets stuck in old patterns, starts nursing old wounds and is really just this pathological suck of a pain body. One of the valuable aspects of this particular relationship is that when my friend engages in his certain calling card behavior that triggers my pain body, I am once again blessed with another opportunity to process my stuff. Thank you sweet Jesus. It's true, it's good for me. Whether or not my friend is being mean and rude, or unaware, or whatever his story is that is removed from my perspective of him--it's really none of my business. What is my business is how I'm affected by it and what I choose to do with it.
OK, OK, I'm getting to the point. So I gave this friend the title of ego buster at the very beginning of our relationship because he's always played this role for me so well. And now during my current struggle, while I'm processing my stuff and coming to terms with what is, I find myself once again bestowing this term of endearment on him...and my ego says "Hey, wait a minute, don't give him the credit for busting your ego, you are the one who makes the choice to do all the hard work and turn his bad behavior into something good for you. You are the one who is making lemonade from a lemon. You are the ego buster, not him!" And I say, heck yea, you're right, and congratulate myself for being pretty hot stuff.
Sneaky devil that ego mine.
Friendship Quotes:
Friendship should be a responsibility, never an opportunity.~ Source Unknown
~Don't wait for people to be friendly, show them how.~ Source Unknown
~In a friend you find a second self.~ Isabelle Norton
~Friendship is a horizon -- which expands whenever we approach it.~ E.R. Hazlip
~True friendship ought never to conceal what it thinks.~ St. Jerome
~The language of friendship is not words but meanings.~ Henry David Thoreau
~It takes a long time to grow an old friend.~ John Leonard
~I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them.~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
~Friendship consists in forgetting what one gives, and remembering what one receives.~ Dumas The Younger
~There is a scarcity of friendship, but not of friends.~ Thomas Fuller
~He whose hand is clasped in friendship cannot throw mud.~ Source Unknown
~Make friends before you need them~ Source Unknown
~A true friend is one soul in two bodies.~ Aristotle
~It is not what you give your friend, but what you are willing to give him that determines the quality of friendship.~ Mary Dixon Thayer
~A friend is a present you give to yourself.~ Robert Louis Stevenson
~Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.~ St. Thomas Aquinas
~A true friend is someone who is there for you when he'd rather be anywhere else.~ Len Wein ~Often we have no time for our friends but all the time in the world for our enemies.~ Leon Uris ~Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.~ Socrates ~One who looks for a friend without faults will have none.~ Hasidic Saying
~Real friends are those who, when you've made a fool of yourself, don't feel that you've done a permanent job.~ Erwin T. Randall
~Love is only chatter, friends are all that matter.~ (Frank) Gelett Burgess
~A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world.~ Leo Buscaglia
~Friendship is Love without his wings!~ Lord Byron
~Most people enjoy the inferiority of their best friends.~ Lord Chesterfield
~Be more prompt to go to a friend in adversity than in prosperity.~ Chilo
~A friend is, as it were, a second self.~ Marcus T. Cicero
~A good motto is: Use friendliness but do not use your friends.~ Frank Crane
~A friend is someone you can be alone with and have nothing to do and not be able to think of anything to say and be comfortable in the silence.~ Sheryl Condie
~I'm treating you as a friend asking you to share my present minuses in the hope that I can ask you to share my future pluses~ Katherine Mansfield
~Friends are needed both for joy and for sorrow.~ Samuel Paterson
~Friends will keep you sane, Love could fill your heart, A lover can warm your bed, But lonely is the soul without a mate.~ David Pratt
~Go oft to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path.~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
~A friend is known when needed.~ Arabian Proverb
~Hold a true friend with both your hands.~ Nigerian Proverb
~Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty.~ Sicilian Proverb
~A friend is one who knows us, but loves us anyway.~ Fr. Jerome Cummings
~A friend hears the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.~ Readers Digest ~To find a friend one must close one eye--to keep him, two.~ Norman Douglas
~It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
~In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.~ Kahlil Gibran ~Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.~ Tehyi Hsieh
~Give me work to do, Give me health, Give me joy in simple things, Give me an eye for beauty, ~A tongue for truth, A heart that loves, A mind that reasons, A sympathy that understands. Give me neither malice nor envy, But a true kindness And a noble common sense. At the close of each day Give me a book And a friend with whom I can be silent.~ S. M. Frazier
~Happiness isn't the easiest thing to find, but one place you're guaranteed to find it is in a friend's smile. -Allison Poler
~True friendship is a plant of slow growth. -George Washington
~Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes.
~Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down. -Oprah Winfrey
~Friendship is a horizon-- which expands whenever we approach it. E.R. Hazlip
~Friends are relatives you make for yourself. -Eustache Deschamps
~You just don't luck into things as much as you'd like to think you do. You build step by step, whether it's friendships or opportunities. -Barbara Bush
~The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship. -William Blake
~Better to be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
~We should get into the habit of reading inspirational books, looking at inspirational pictures, hearing inspirational music, associating with inspirational friends. -Alfred A. Montapert
~There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity. -Samuel Johnson
~As iron sharpens iron, a friend sharpens a friend. -Proverbs 27:17
~I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I cherish the friend who for me does not consult the calendar. -Robert Brault
~Friendship is like a silver teapot. Sometimes it’s put away longer than we realize and it becomes tarnished, but after it’s polished, it’s like new again.
~A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
~A friend is one who takes me for what I am. -Henry David Thoreau
~STAY is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary. -Amos Bronson Alcott
~Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance. -Rabindranath Tagore
~Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help lift him up. -Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
~A mirror reflects a man's face, but what he is really like is shown by the kind of friends he chooses. -Proverbs 27:19
~A mere friend will agree with you, but a real friend will argue. -Russian proverb
~My friends are my estate. Forgive me then the avarice to hoard them! -Emily Dickinson
~We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best that we can find in our travels is an honest friend. -Robert Louis Stevenson
~I have learned that to be with those I like is enough. -Walt Whitman
~Never injure a friend, even in jest. -Cicero
~Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words. -George Elliot
~Friendship demands attention. -Thomas Moore
~The real test of friendship is: Can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy together those moments of life that are utterly simple? They are the moments people looks back on at the end of life and number as their most sacred experiences. -Eugene Kennedy
~There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise. -Oliver Wendell Holmes
~A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults. -Charles Kingsley
~One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood. -Seneca
~We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over. -Samuel Johnson
~A friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out. -Walter Winchell
~The only way to have a friend is to be one. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
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