There are certain people in the world where it just feels better to have been with them. It’s often not that something wonderful happened, or that there’s anything of particular note that’s obvious to a bystander. It happens, though that there’s an afterglow that shows you how much more settled you are now than when you were on your way to see them.
There’s a kind of friendship that I cherish in my life. And that’s one where both people are growing, both people are enquiring into truth and what it means to live a meaningful and fully participative life.
We’re in a world where so much of life is about working, getting released by work at 6pm, partying at the weekend, giving everything to your job and treating those closest to you with the dregs of your energy. We’re in a world where getting through the day is an achievement. So few of us finish the day having experienced our lives as a truly meaningful contribution to life.
And we may be doing the most ‘good’ or ethical work, but it can still feel hollow, empty and sleepy to be alive.
Today I am swimming in the sense that it feels like I could do anything as long as I was alongside the kind of people who I look up to, who I admire for being honest, real, open and genuine. Those people who are not ‘keeping up appearances’, but who are vulnerable, imperfect and truly intelligent.
It’s like having a dose of sanity, a dose of the presence we’re all longing for and yet running from in all our asleepness and our aloneness.
Who are your soul mates? Who are your play mates? Which people do you feel filled up around? Which people do you feel depleted by or less worthy around?
Who we spend our time with is a huge contribution to who we’re becoming each day. Do the people in my life affirm my brilliance by what they bring out of me, or do they diminish my contribution by not being in a position to see what I’m bringing?
Here’s to being intelligent about who our tribe is; here’s to feeling into who brings joy to us by standing with us in this life. And here’s to walking with members of our soul tribe through this life.
Banner image: Birds 2012 by Tracey Emin