Society is suffering from a loneliness epidemic. We have more ways to connect than ever before, yet finding community as an adult feels harder than ever.
Creating meaningful adult relationships – both platonic and romantic – are a struggle for many of the clients I work with as a Dallas Life Coach. My clients are cool, compassionate and seem like people I’d want to be friends with. You wouldn’t think they’d have any trouble making friends, but they do!
Trust and Vulnerability In Friendships
This is where the problem begins. Let’s be honest, most adults have been through some sort of falling out with a friend or romantic partner, and when this happens, our ability to trust others decreases. It is way too common for people to allow pain from their past relationships to influence current and future relationships. This causes us to self-sabotage – we will unconsciously block healthy adult friendships from forming because we are scared of getting hurt again. If you feel like this is something you might be doing, we need to uncover your limiting beliefs around relationships so that we can clear them out, allowing you to actually create meaningful adult relationships.
Overcoming loneliness in adulthood is impossible without vulnerability, and a lot of people aren’t able to be vulnerable because they don’t even know who they really are. It’s hard to speak your truth and stand in your power when you are disconnected from your authentic self. Things like past pain, limiting beliefs, and the expectations of others often cause this disconnect. If you are struggling to build lasting connections, let’s figure out what the block is so that you can experience the support and joy that having community brings.
Friendship Building Strategies
The best thing you can do for yourself to strengthen social bonds is to reconnect to your authentic self and to clear out your past pain so that it doesn’t sabotage your efforts to move forward.
Here are a few other helpful tips to help you make friends as an adult:
- Get comfortable with being uncomfortable – this means reducing your social anxiety so that you can talk to new people and start forming connections.
- Go to the same place at the same time regularly – most of my friendships came from workout classes. It was easy to form friendships because we had something in common and saw each other regularly. It’s the same concept as why it’s easier to make friends in school or at your job. Find some hobbies that bring you joy and do them regularly.
- Be open – if you’re looking at your phone, have earbuds in or have closed off body language, you are not approachable. Practice looking up and make it a goal to smile at everyone you pass, even if they don’t look your way. Your smile might make someone’s day or be the start of a new friendship.
We aren’t meant to go through life on our own. Having a community around us makes life more fun and fulfilling and lifts us up during the hard times. If this post speaks to you, I invite you to apply for a free consult. You can live anywhere and coach with me.
