Life can get really busy, and you can lose touch even with once close friends, but you never know how much it Can mean, just to reach out. But before you go on and message them, please don't say " Hey what's going on how's life " - If you're unable to create space to hear it. I'll explain...
Let's say your friend just went through something very difficult. Lost a relationship, or a job, or is having a struggle with a child... there are sadly endless ways things can be going wrong. If you ask, and they start to open up to you, and you aren't ready to hear it and Create space for them, they will close up. A good analogy is a thoughtful guy that offers a ride home to 4 different people from an event, but then he changes the time he plans to leave , in a way that cripples the people from being able to find any other ride, as all the rides left already. He started as the nicest most thoughtful guy 4 hours ago, and by the end of the night he turned himself into an inconsiderate self-centered person. (worst of all he probably didn't realize, and will do this again ). A lesson to learn from this story is don't give others rides. I'm joking I hope you don't walk away with that message. The correct message to take away- please be considerate when being nice, to do it the right way. Imagine criticizing the nice people who offer rides, what a nerve right, it's not like that at all. I used to offer people favors a lot and didn't realize this at first, and I meant so well but ... that's not how it played out . Until I internalized that if you're doing a favor you need to be mindful while you're doing it. As it says - when you give charity, do it with a smile!. It can be the difference between night and day, when we are mindful when doing acts of kindness.
Back to reaching out to others. American culture has something that seems awesome, whenever you see someone you say. " Hi, how are you ". Now if you are seeing your sibling for the first time in 5 years and you are so excited to see them, and want to hear all about the life they created for themselves for the 45 min ride from the airport. And you are ready to help them in any way possible whether that be financially, emotionally mentally, physically, spirituality... Then " Kol hakavod" . That's a Hebrew expression with means fabulous. I have the utmost respect for you!. However, if you're not ready to create space for the other person, nothing personal people have so many personal struggles many people aren't capable of creating space for others and that's totally understandable, I pray for all those people, they fall under the category of many. However, remember if you're going through a period in this stage it's 100% ok and the right thing is to take care of YOU as a priority, no one else. But when people don't realize this, and they want to act nice to they say to a friend when they meet them in a supermarket and say "hi how are you" but aren't ready to hear much, it takes the good intention of the words and turns them into empty words that cause your friends to close up. Your friends will feel when they have a struggle they can't talk to their friends about it, and they will close up, and hopefully see a therapist Because if not, it can bottle up over time or worse. These friends don't necessarily need a therapist, but rather a good friend that knows how to create space to find solutions, to help bring their friend emotional support, clarity, advice, maybe a loan, a job, who knows!
In a different post I'll write about how to create space for others and become that special friend we all can be, but for now, when greeting friends a simple- Hey, great to see you! with an authentic smile is more than perfect for a greeting. Let's slowly phase out empty words of " Hi how are you " in our lives. And when you do that you will find in other areas of speech that you'll be much more mindful not to say words with little to no meaning, and you will reap the endless benefits of doing so. To list a few, people will value your words more, they will come to you when they need someone because they know you are trustworthy to create space for them if you say you are. As you are more mindful of what you say, Your prayers become even more precious to God. You'll speak less slander and be on your road to shining your true colors.