Next, I sat with the ones that haven’t worked and aren’t working well, and I felt... I felt how those relationships make me feel. The answer is a rollercoaster ride of nearly complete sadness.
As I’ve been exploring, this is what I’ve learned thus far for myself.
I am a good friend, but friendships have almost always left me feeling sad and alone. Why?
Well, in every type of relationship in our lives, there generally is one person who wants to be the leader of followers. And, there are many who want to be the followers of that leader.
I’ve always wanted to be the equal.
That can cause problems. Some leaders can’t handle those who see equality.
As I’ve been observing life and relationships, I’ve learned that a lot of moms and daughters are like my mom and me. My mom taught me about unhealthy relationships, as she followed what the world instructed her to do. Like many, my mom was the leader-motherly-controller. She saw herself as the superior-controller of me and taught me to be her (and the world’s) follower-people-pleaser.
Even when I was young, this confused me because I knew I had my own mind with different ideals, but I learned to live this way because it’s what the world teaches to survive. It became my pattern. It became so deeply my pattern that I didn’t even know what it was.
We need leaders who are educators of equality. The problem is whether or not they choose to see themselves as the abusive-controller-motherly person who only knows how to take their followers on controlling (rollercoaster) rides with them. As long as they’re controlling you, all is good.
We also need those who are learning in a healthy way from healthy educators... those who are learning in order to go out equally into their life. The problem is when we’ve been trained to become a people-pleaser and we just allow ourselves to be pulled along on their controlling ride without realizing that we have our own mind and can speak up (or leave). As people-pleasers we don’t even realize why we’re so sad most of this time... until we do start to trust ours and see past the control.
In people-pleasing, we never realize that we have choices... every relationship is the same to us and the controlling leaders want it that way. In people-pleasing, we’re attempting to figure out how to please people without ever taking lead in our own lives... life is only about the happiness of others and never about ourselves.
I am a good friend... to those who will be equal with me. The way I now tell if I’m in the presence of a friend is whether or not we are equals. Are we standing on solid footing together or I am back on the rollercoaster of mostly sadness?
Now when I find myself standing in line for a rollercoaster ride with a person who wants to control me, I trust myself. I now know that someone else may want to be in control of me, but that’s their stuff. I have a decision to make... get on the rollercoaster ride and sit with them knowing I am their equal, take a different seat from them and enjoy my own ride, or find something else to do.
— Lisa Pratt, April 2021
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