44: I have a friend that I feel needs to change, how can I help them?

“I have a friend who I feel often fishes for compliments and pats on the back. I know she lacks confidence, though I feel that if I pay her these compliments it would be insincere. My usual reaction is to withdraw. How can I better handle this?”-Anonymous.

One of the challenges about being a spiritual person is that you bear a greater responsibility then someone who is not spiritually aware, regardless of your religious orientation. Because you know your friend lacks confidence, it means that you’re sensitive and aware, your asking for advice means you’re spiritual and caring.
You’ll notice that I rephrased your question above to make it more general because I do believe that it is part of a general challenge that we all face often. I can’t judge your ability to assess your friend’s lack of confidence and how it manifests, but I will address your question as though your assessment is valid. That means that you have a friend that needs to change, and you’re aware of it. You want to handle it better than withdrawing and I understand this. Personally, many times I need to withdraw from situations, so that I can figure them out, before reacting in a way that’s thoughtless. Ultimately, your right, if you want to continue the relationship, a change will need to take place. Either your friend will have to change or you will have to change by not being effected.

In a relationship, communication is everything. The thing is though, everyone takes criticism in there own way. It’s one of those cases where we can’t really ‘do on to others’ because other people may not handle criticism the same way we do. It’s even trickier when the thing you are critiquing is confidence, since the person will most likely take it as an attack. The best policy is to begin as delicately as possible, to communicate your point. Maybe you could joke like, “if you need a confidence boost so bad, hire a side kick, ha ha ha.” Or “how many times do you need to hear ‘your pretty’ before it gets through the wax in your ears, hehehe?”. Obviously I’m more of a philosopher than a comedian, but maybe you can come up with something that won’t get you slapped ;-) Doing this would be sincere and hopefully ‘lite’. If that doesn’t work, or you know that you need to be direct, you will have to sit your friend down and tell her how you feel. The thing is though, no matter what you have to say to a person, you can’t control what they hear. Other than being as nice as you can, you can’t control another person’s receptivity to your criticism either.

My policy is that I try to be able to tell a person’s receptivity and base my criticism on that. If they are not receptive, there is no point in criticizing. If they are receptive, it’s good, because it makes it easier to communicate to them.

Of course you must realize that no one is perfect. Despite our criticisms of ourselves and other people, one person has no greater value than another. Our uniqueness disqualifies our ability to judge others. As much as I may criticize another, I may criticize myself, or rather fine-tune myself. The same goes for everyone. We have to decide what about other people should be criticized and what should be accepted. My definition of love is that it’s an active acceptance, so if you love someone, it means you don’t NEED to change that person. If that person’s behavior is intolerable and you’ve discussed it with them, then you need to decide how close you want that person to you. Hopefully, even if talking doesn’t help, you can show them the way by love and example. In the case of your female friend if communication isn’t working or even if it is, maybe you can do things to help HER increase her confidence. Help her set some achievable goals. Take her focus off of physical beauty because no matter how she looks now, time changes us, so we need a stronger foundation to our confidence, than appearance. Encourage her to explore her interests. Do the things you think an ideal friend would do for you!☺