If you want to help your friends, don't be receptive to their negative states

Even if people who are miserable can take some comfort in the thought of not being alone in their suffering, telling them when they are in tears that you understand and share their sadness is not enough to really help them. And instead of adopting the same long face as they do, you should do the opposite and nurture within yourself such great faith and so much joy that these neutralize their pain.

You have friends you want to help. Don't be receptive to their negative states, but go inside yourself to meditate on joy, and then return to shower it on them.

You say it's impossible not to share in your friends' suffering, nor to show them you're doing it. No, if you love your friends, give thanks to heaven and earth, and project yourself all the way to the throne of God. Then, all the luminous beings in the invisible world will part to let you through, saying, 'Let's allow this person to come up, because they carry an irresistible love in their heart, and we must help them to make this love a reality.

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov