Radical Friendliness
“Being in relationship and in community helps us shelter from the storm because it makes us literally healthier, it’s an ongoing practice that teaches us how to get better at it, because connection to each other and thus to something bigger than ourselves not only feels good, it also creates good, and because if we ever want to be truly free, we can do so only in its context.
Needing each other is the most natural thing there is. There is nothing shameful about loneliness.”
Sah D’Simone, from his upcoming book Spiritually, We: The Art of Relating and Connecting From the Heart
For the next several weeks we are working with the principles and practices outlined in these quotes by Sah in Spiritually, We.
Sacred friendship begins with and is built upon radical friendliness.
When we are able to approach the world from a place of radical friendliness, it means that we are liberated enough—from our conditioning, from our preconceptions, and from the delusion that we are separate - to view all its people with love.
Radical love isn’t a feeling
It is an acceptance that we are all innately good and therefore an understanding that humanity does not need to be perfect, to our liking, or without complication to be deserving of love.
When we are socially integrated, we are connecting with the people around us, even if only for a few moments, in a meaningful way that underscores that their lives are just as real, important, and complex as our own.
How do you initiate a conscious social interaction?
First, invest in that person’s reality. That means remembering that, just like yours, that person’s life is full. Just like you, they have goals, dreams, unmet desires, joys and sorrows, triumphs and traumas. They are a real person who has lived a specific life.
Radical friendliness is about making space for people as they are now.
When we make space for others, we also make space for ourselves.The more we make space for others, accepting that they are enough just as they are, the more we make space to accept ourselves.
Relationships demand a mindset of paradox—the willingness to see people as not just this or that but this and that, opening ourselves up to being surprised, even delighted by them.
People are contradictory; they can be selfish and kind, small-minded and generous, extroverted and insecure. Our minds don’t like contradiction; it’s not comfortable trying to hold two seemingly opposing truths in mind simultaneously.
With a mindset of paradox, we can broaden our view of someone who has good parts as well as annoying parts. They also have parts that we don’t know.
It is possible to love complicated people, to love people who make mistakes, just as you hopefully love yourself despite your imperfections.
We can’t avoid dealing with people who push our buttons; it is in the everyday, in community, that wisdom is brought from the theoretical realm to lived experience.
Practice: Affirming the Good in Others
This exercise is focused on emotional validation. In other words, it’s about expressing acceptance of another person’s emotional experience, whether or not you see eye to eye with them (because this is not about you and how you view the world).
When you validate someone’s feelings, you validate that their experience matters.
When you validate that another person’s experience matters, you are validating their worth. True validation means seeing the person for who they are and letting them know they are seen.
When we can remind people of the best of themselves in an authentic and meaningful way, we are not only connecting with them, we are helping them connect with the truth of themselves: their fundamental goodness.
To truly connect to a person and to truly help them heal, you have to radically accept that person first.
You can accept somebody with love and with compassion and still determine that you don’t want to be in relationship with them.
Becoming compassionate to the self builds the habit of compassion in general.
When you’re compassionate in relationship, you work to build a bridge that your friend or lover or family member can cross back to you.
Together, and only together, you can work to meet the ultimate need. At the core, we all seek to be liberated from suffering.
This deep work is meant to be done in relationship. Join us for our Sunday free community class where we inquire, share, and strengthen each other. Details here.