Friends Make Life Sweet

There is nothing as comfy as spending time with good friends. I am blessed with having a community of special women and men I call "friend." What about you? Did you know the quality of our friendships, also known as our "social support system," plays an important role in our health and well-being?

Friends increase our sense of belonging, purpose and self-worth. In fact, just knowing there are people in our lives to turn towards in times of distress actually strengthens our resilience and reduces our experience of stress.

Some people benefit from having a large and diverse social support system, while others prefer a smaller circle of friends and acquaintances. Whether one friend or twenty, studies show it is our perception of the quality of our social support system that most influences our immune function.

In a recent long and delicious conversation with one such friend, I was reminded about this beautiful quote from Marianne Williamson in her book, A Return to Love:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

This is one of the great gifts friends offer us: Helping us to see ourselves clearly at those times when we sometimes forget about our own magnificence. May you be inspired to allow the light in you that already is, to be.