Heaven, protect me from my good friends….

We have to be careful who we allow to advise us. We all know this. Frankly, we all need to stop taking bad advice from good friends. Friends, while well-meaning, may not always be the best source of advice, particularly in areas like work, family, or relationships. Their counsel often stems from personal biases, misconceptions, or even selfish motives. 

We don’t mean to, but we often complicate matters for people we do genuinely care about. I am going to share something below that changed my life and my relationships. This is a picture of the daily reading from an Al-Anon book:

Yes, this is written from saying “When an Al-Anon member..” but this should be used in all aspects of giving advice. Despite their love and good intentions, friends and family lack the expertise and objectivity required for sound advice. They may inadvertently project their own fears or desires onto us, leading to misguided recommendations. While some may offer genuine help, others may subtly undermine our success. 

Think about it, we go to someone who has been in a similar situation as us to seek advice. Their perspective may be tainted with what went well or didn’t go well for them. And it’s true, some people do want to see us fail and have self-serving purposes for the “wisdom” they provide. The people who we surround ourselves with are invested in the choices we make, some think we should always do what they would do in a situation or they feel they know how we should live our lives. It's not easy for us to admit, but we do it too.

We all have baggage. Sometimes, our friends are our baggage. Certain friends may desire for us to pursue actions they themselves wish they could undertake to try and live vicariously through us. Then there are some friends who might project their own anxieties and fears onto us, telling us to be more cautious than we need to be or only see the negative outcomes that could unfold. Or the exact opposite, encouraging us to be careless when we should be cautious. Just like us, our friends and family have baggage, baggage that they (intentionally or unintentionally) pile onto their advisement. 

When I first met a good friend of mine, her husband and her were having marital problems. It was in one of our early conversations that I said to her, “I will be here for you and listen to anything, but I am never going to validate your resentments against your husband. I will only have one perspective and it is not possible for me to have all the details, even if I got you both in the room, because there will always be details and a history between you that isn’t included in what you are sharing.” I continued by telling her a lot of times we just want some form of affirmation to our own resentments or behaviors. I explained to her that it I s through the simple things such as saying “girl, he should not be treating you like that,” "you deserve better", or “and remember when he/she did XYZ” (bringing up old resentments), that others can negatively impact any healing between two people. 

I could tell she was a little lost for words at first, which is very unusual for her, but once we talked more about it and I shared with her the reading that I shared with you above from Al-Anon, she understood. I wouldn’t have known to even have this mindset if I hadn’t had the opposite done for me that ended something otherwise beautiful in a very messy way. 

We don’t mean to, but we often complicate matters for people we genuinely care about. We typically know one side; one story about a situation. Usually, even from one perspective, it isn’t the full perspective. Sometimes others advise the silent treatment. We can go to a person and tell them that we just want to check in and talk to a person, and they may advise against it. I have had this advice given to me, the other person received the same advice, and we made each other feel so unloved and unworthy that the relationship was beyond repair. If we had shared with each other, and communicated, we likely would have been able to support each other, even if it was just to say “This really hurts, it’s really hard, and I hope you know you are deeply cared for.” We could have remembered there was pain and there was also love, but the people we sought advice from only pointed out the pain. There wasn’t compassion given. The people who gave us advice likely didn’t mean harm, but their advice did cause it in both directions. And the truth is they did have self-serving reasons. This doesn’t make them bad people, it just meant they were not the right people to provide any guidance on the situation - they, in fact, knew very little about the situation and had preconceived notions and labels for both of us. Both of us were at fault due to whom we sought advice from. We were both aware that previous advisement from this person(s) had caused us as individuals to feel unloved and unheard, they also had given previous advisement completely against what we knew to be right and what we felt was against God’s will. The fact is their egos, biases, and personal motives control their lives, not the word of God. They don’t take the time to focus on God’s truth and they are delusional about reality which likely stems from their own inner turmoil. It is each of us that must discern God’s will for our lives and if the Spirit puts something inside of us, we shouldn’t run from it. God will always give us the answers we need. Humans will not. 

We get ourselves into situations or find ourselves at a crossroads and want so badly to know what to do next. We seek advice from people, we want certainty and assurance that things will go how we want. When we feel overwhelmed with despair or confusion, we can become so overwhelmed with unhappiness that we cannot figure out what “right” even looks like. This can leave us paralyzed with the inability to make decisions while we sink deeper into despair. 

It was through Al-Anon that I found my personal mission statement, “Do the next right thing.” A lot of people would hear this and try to implement it in their lives by trying to do what is right for everybody. That’s not what it is. It’s a “healthy selfish” here - doing the next right thing for oneself. And for me, this includes God. Another thing to point out is to think I know what is right for someone else only tells that person how little I actually think of them or their capability. It belittles the person.

A lot of us have tendencies to be a perfectionist and this also complicates things. If you haven’t figured it out, let me tell you a secret: it’s not our perfections that connect us with people. It’s our brokenness.  Trusting oneself to determine what is truly "right" can be hard at times when we solely rely on our personal judgment and given the flawed nature of the world. I finally saw that it didn’t matter what decision I made, someone would find fault in it and the only person I needed to please was myself (and by “myself”, I mean myself as a child of God). I have an audience of one. Once I discovered this, I found myself the happiest I have ever been. There was still a lot of “mess” in my life and complicated things, but I could make decisions based on what was best for my life and what honored God. 

The greatest power I have found in “doing the next right thing,” is that you don’t have to worry about what other people think of you. You don’t need to defend yourself if you do what is good, right, and true. It’s completely unnecessary. I still make plenty of mistakes and I am a sinner just like you, I mess up every single day, but if I keep my life in alignment with focusing on this it sure does help my own inner peace. 

It's essential to discern between caring friends/family and effective advisors, recognizing that they're not always the same. While toxic influences should be avoided, genuine friendships should be cherished, but with a cautious approach to their advice. I have so many wonderful and loving friends and family members, however, there are only a select few I know I can turn to for advice that is going to be completely objective and unbiased. These few also understand that whatever they advise is not concrete and that it still must be me who discerns what is truly right for me. 

There is complexity of seeking advice from friends and family. While their intentions may be good, their counsel can often be altered by personal biases or limited perspectives. I hope you recognize how crucial it is to differentiate between genuine support and sound advice. Remember, true guidance often comes from within, guided by faith and personal discernment. So, as we navigate life's challenges, let's treasure our relationships while remaining mindful of whose advice truly aligns with our highest good and deepest values.

"The world will ask you who you are, and if you don't know, the world will tell you."

-Carl Jung

Here’s a link to an article that has two of my favorite pieces about doing the next right thing from Carl Jung included. Check them out and below are a few more quotes from Jung that I love.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

"We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses."

"Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness's of other people. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely. Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes."