All Blog Postings by Mary
Meet New Friends
Archive notice: This is a historical post from Mary’s years of blogging. Some older posts may mention products, courses or shop items that are no longer available, as Mary now focuses her time and energy on supporting widows inside her private Facebook community. The guidance and stories remain here as a free resource for widows.
For current ways to connect with Mary’s work, you can:
- Read her book on Amazon .
- Request to join her private Facebook group for widows .
Do you want to meet new friends? Think before you answer because new friends just don’t happen without some effort on your part.
It’s common for widows to be stressed by loneliness when old friendships fade away. But, and this is a big BUT, widows often don’t have the energy to go out and meet new friends.
Here is a tip – when someone say something nice to or about you it lifts your mood and makes you feel good, doesn’t it? Will then make a habit of passing this feeling on to others by sincerely saying something nice to or about a potential new friend. You will be amazed at what happens.
In this next stage of your grief journey the best things you should be doing, is things out of kindness and caring instead of grief and pain.
Widows want others to be there for them and I totally get that. But we also need to be there for them, to treat them as if they mattered to us. You can’t keep refusing to meet your friends and then months later question why your friends no longer call.
Of course some friends will disappear no matter what you do. They just are not into “grief” and you can’t do anything about that. Let them go and seek out those that like you for who you are.
As a widow I understand that we are all at different stages of our grieving. We have to start making right choices, even though our hearts are broken. At some point each one of us needs to make a decision that we are going to move from grieving to healing or we will be stuck in the past forever.
You should do what is right for you, whether you feel like it or not – it’s your life. Don’t focus on everything that is wrong, set your mind on what is working. Can you walk? Can you see? Can you hear? What blessings you still have, because many cannot. The key component of grieving and healing is being able to adjust to circumstances, to focus on what you have and to appreciate your blessings. Another word for all this is “resilience”.
Have a talk with yourself. You need to be your best meditator and supporter. Don’t give up your life to make someone else happy – it’s your life. You will miss your destiny if you try to please everyone. Optimism, resilience, social activities with new friends and faith in yourself will make your future brighter.
When you are doing the best you can do and old friends don’t understand, let them go. They may have plenty to say about why you can or can’t do something, let them go. Love yourself enough to avoid the stress that comes from negative people. You can’t change others, so instead you need to be resilient and be open to meeting new friends.