How to Be a Best Friend Forever: Making and Keeping Lifetime Relationships

How to Be a Best Friend Forever: Making and Keeping Lifetime Relationships

Think of your BFs now. You probably can recognize the presence of these three components in different amounts. But you have to have all three. They are the basics that define a friendship and also a best friendship.
Best Friends
Now to your best friendships, a special category. If a friendship is when someone has access to the information that is you, then best friendship is when you hand over the key to the vault. That is, you let the person know you at the deepest and most vulnerable level. You invite them in to what is most important to you, your

 • Dreams
 • Vision for Life
 • Feelings
 • Core values
 • Strengths
 • Hurts
 • Secrets
 • Sins
 • Mistakes
 • Past
 • Heartaches

These are not easy things to let others in on. But they are essential for having close friends. Handing over the key to the vault means you are saying, in essence, I entrust you with myself. Be safe for me and also help me be a better person. Just as a bank vault contains precious investments, your personal vault is something to be both preserved safely, without condemnation, and also developed and grown over time into something much richer.
A friend of mine attended a coaching team I was leading for professional people. He signed up for business growth with a personal twist. He didn’t know anyone on the team, yet a great deal of the time the team members spent with each other consisted of connection, honesty, and challenging each other to excellence. Over the months, he began developing relationships with these people, and he and his wife would go to dinner with other members and their spouses. The group became part of his normal network of friendships, as well as friends on a deeper level.
He didn’t expect this to happen, nor did he plan for it. But their shared commitment drew him in and an atmosphere of knowing, liking, and presence was created. The same thing happens every day in casual friendships that grow, in small groups, and in specialty groups sharing common hobbies and interests.
A best friend, then, is not someone who has some mysterious and unfathomable special quality no one else has.
Rather, she is someone who ideally has become a high priority relationship for you that you will invest in personally. You will find yourself wanting to know her at even deeper levels. You’ll find a growing and great well of love for her inside you, and become fiercely loyal to and protective of your time together, for it is vital to you both. That is the way it should work, and the way it works best.

BEST FRIENDS FOREVER

How do we know if a BF is really a BFF? When we use the word forever, we mean, “I don’t see an end to this relationship.” This is someone who is so important and special to me that they are in my Hall of Fame.

Excerpt taken from How to Be a Best Friend Forever: Making and Keeping Lifetime Relationships by Dr. John Townsend, published by Worthy Publishing a division of Worty Media, Inc.  Copyright © 2011 Dr. John Townsend.