A Friendship Has Gone Quiet and I Don't Know What I Did - A 10-Minute Meditation for Friendship Grief and Anxiety

There is a particular kind of loss that doesn't come with a day. No one moved away. There is no rail, no falling out. There is nothing that you could point to and afterwards say, "That's where it happened."

It just went quiet. A little less often, then a lot less often. Then you looked at one evening and realised you couldn't remember. The last proper conversation and that you'd stopped expecting one.

An underneath it, running quietly all day, the question you'd been embarrassed to say out loud. What did I do? That's today, my friend. A friendship has gone quiet and you don't know what you did.

This is calming anxiety. I'm Martin. For a good many years I was a paramedic and now a clinical hypnotherapist. Today's episode is sponsored by me.

Well, the app anchored. It's all my shows, plus so much more. So if you do listen to me regularly, please do consider downloading anchored and having all these shows in one place. You can download them for whenever you need them.

Thank you. Now find your quiet place. Somewhere company where you won't be disturbed for a while. You can sit or lie down, whichever feels best for you.

Let your hands, your palms be open. Close your eyes if it's safe. And let's give this feeling, this emotion, somewhere to go. Today we'll use the 4-2-6 breathing.

Sometimes called the sighing exhale. We breathe in through our nose for a count of 4. A small pause to reflect for 2, then out through the mouth for 6, with a sigh you can actually hear. It's that slow out breath that slows and caresses the vagus nerve.

Ready with me my friend. Then 2, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4, 5, 6.

On the out breath, feel that sense of release. Once there every time you just have to open your mind to it. And again with me. Breathe in 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Drifting ever deeper, further and further down, letting the surface beneath you hold your weight. You are safe and you are calm. Round 3. As you breathe out this time, let the sigh carry the sentence you've been holding all day.

You don't have to say it, just let it go out with the breath. Breathe in 2, 3, 4, 4, 2, release 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Breathe in 2, 3, 4, 4, 2, relax 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Now let your breathing find its own natural rhythm. No counting, just in a small settle at the top and a long sigh out.

Good. Now in this moment of calm, this gift of space within your thoughts. Let's view these words in your mind. You don't have to say them out loud, just feel them as I say them.

And as you breathe out, imagine that warm golden light, the colour of a lamp in a window settling over your chest, not filling the gap, just sitting beside it, keeping you company.

I think real has ended and I am allowed to grieve it.

A friendship has gone quiet and that is a loss even though nothing has happened.

I do not need to know what I did because I may not have done anything wrong at all. People drift apart for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with me.

I can stop going back through it now. There may be nothing in there to find. I miss my friend. I am allowed to miss my friend.

I loved someone and it went quiet and the loving was still real.

It is not the company I am missing, it is the person and that is why it hurts and that is all right. I am safe, I am here, there is nothing to fear right now.

And this sadness is not a fault in me, it is the shape love takes when there is no one left to put it. You are not the silence, you are not the unanswered thing or the unsent message or the version of you that has been cross examining all week. You are the one who loved someone enough to know this, they had gone. You are the sky, this is only weather moving across it.

To take this sense of understanding, of self compassion with you, not just today but in the days, weeks and months ahead. Here are your three daily caring tips. One, the next time you go to tell them something and you will finish the sentence anyway, say it out loud in the car or write it down somewhere, do not just swallow it. Two, today say it once, plainly to one person, I think I have lost a friend and it has been sitting with me, not to fix it, just so that it exists somewhere outside your own head.

Three, give yourself one small moment today. To notice what this friendship gave you, it might be a laugh, something you have learned or simply a time when you felt understood. You do not have to hold on to the sadness to honour what was good. Now relax and unwind, a little deeper and let's come back gently, deep in the breath slightly, wiggle the fingers and toes, take a big breath in, hold and as you breathe out roll the shoulders then stretch out the arms and when you are ready my friend, open your eyes and come back into the room.

Feel whatever is underneath you taking your weight and let it take all of you so you don't have to hold yourself up for a moment. Today landed somewhere true, anchored is where the rest of this lives and that one line after a session is there for exactly the sentence you didn't get to say today, put it somewhere, it shouldn't have to sit in your chest all evening, anchored on iPhone and Android, thank you. Take care of yourself. Life moves on, time truly does heal, it can hurt as we move through it, but we all do, I have you have and we will both do this again at some point, but we'll bounce back quicker, more focused, so never give up, thank you.

Have a lovely day please and then to your beautiful self, be kind.