Amazing Friendships: How to Make and Keep Good Friends the Friendcraft? Way!

Copyright 2006 Paul Barrass.

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1   INTRODUCTION TO THE FRIENDCRAFT WAY

2   THE JOURNEY INTO FRIENDSHIP

3   WHAT IS A FRIEND?

4   BEING YOUR OWN BEST FRIEND

5   THE FRIENDCRAFT MODEL

6   MAKING FRIENDS

7   CULTIVATING FRIENDSHIPS

8   KINDS OF FRIENDSHIPS

9   FALSE FRIENDS

10   BOUNDARIES AND STRUCTURE IN FRIENDSHIPS

11   MUTUAL SUPPORT AND EFFORT

12   COMMUNITY AND BELONGING

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A book like this one does not just happen. I would like to acknowledge the kind assistance of the people who believed in my ideas and who helped me to communicate them.

Firstly, my lovely wife, Shirley, who supported me through the writing and editing process.

My close friend and collaborator, Mary Ann Chang, who has been the source of so much inspiration and support in developing the Friendcraft Way.

My editor, Melanie Rigney, for her very professional guidance in matters of form and presentation.

To those people who have warmed the journey of my life with their friendship, I give a sincere thank you. You are too numerous to mention by name, but I treasure the times we have spent together and look forward to much more of your company as we journey on.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE FRIENDCRAFT WAY

Activity One

Why Are You Reading This Book?

Friendship is a vitally important subject for us all. The people in our lives have a major impact on our happiness and satisfaction. We may not have much choice about our relatives, but we certainly can choose our friends. Sadly, too many people just allow their friendships to grow casually and then become disappointed and disillusioned when things don’t work out and people let them down. This happens because they have not used the principles of what I call Friendcraft in making, sustaining, and enhancing their friendships. They have left the development of this vital area of life to the winds of chance.

This book is for anyone who is serious about having good friends in life, and that should be everyone. This is a book that should speak to your heart. This is a book that should speak to your mind. This is a book that may speak to your spirit, for it is about what makes you you. You are a unique and special person. Why would you want to give the gift of your friendship to people who abuse, neglect, or misuse it? And yet, millions of people do this all the time.

Friendship is a very personal thing. Your friendship is something to be valued. It is not something to be casually given away. Nor is it a thing to be taken for granted. You can decide whom to have as friends and how those friendships can develop in ways that will be positive both for you and those you honor with your friendship. I will say more about this in the chapters that follow.

I have spent twenty-five years as a therapist in the British National Health Service working with staff, patients, caregivers, and others who have failed to make the friendship connection in their lives. I have spent over twenty-five years counseling friends, colleagues, and people from volunteer groups who have similarly failed to appreciate the need to consciously make life-enhancing friendship choices. My experience led me to develop a system that I call Friendcraft. It transformed my life. I recommended it to others, and it transformed their lives, and I finally have been persuaded to recommend it to you. It is my gift to you. I hope it enables you to make life-enhancing choices so that your friendships can be sources of happiness, fulfillment, and joy for you. This comes with understanding the journey of friendship and how the art of Friendcraft can help you be the person you want to be and have the friends you would like to have.

Friendcraft gives us a positive and realistic way of looking at our friendships. It puts you in the driver’s seat in making and developing your friendships at whatever level you choose. It is a special and unique system that will enable you to take control in finding, developing, and nurturing those friendships that will become a welcome part of your life.

If you read this book, think about what it contains, and apply its principles, beneficial changes will take place in your life and in the lives of those you influence through your friendships. I believe that you are a special and unique person and that your friendship is one of the most precious gifts that you can bestow.

In this book, we shall look at the concepts and subtleties of the Friendcraft approach. We will talk about the levels of friendship and define who is a close friend as opposed to a casual friend or a social acquaintance or a business acquaintance or somebody with whom we have some important but limited contact. We will look at these layers of friendship and how they add up to make a satisfying and supportive personal community. We will consider how we meet friends and how we allow them into our lives. Sometimes it is a question of whether we have allowed them in or they have intruded for their own purposes. I call people in the latter category false friends and, indeed, we will look at them in detail as well.

We expect different things from our different kinds of friends. For example, if you have a friend you consider a casual friend or acquaintance, somebody with whom you merely exchange a few greetings, you would not be sharing with him or her the important details of major events that are happening in your life except on the most superficial level.

I work with many people, most of whom do not know when it is my birthday. They certainly would not dream of buying me a birthday present any more than I would dream of buying them one. But at a major holiday such as Christmas, they may send me a card and I may send them one with nothing more than a casual greeting inside. With those who are closer friends, I might remember birthdays and share personal news in Christmas cards. But the most intimate and most challenging or even most joyous things I share only with those very few people who form the innermost circle of my very special friends.

We can think of the Friendcraft model of friendships as an archery target, with you as the goal (bull’s-eye) surrounded by your most intimate and inner circle of friends, who probably can be numbered on the fingers of one or two hands, at the center. In concentric rings outward are other kinds of friends, from the close to the casual to the