You are Supposed to lose Friends along Your Life Journey…
It’s taken me years to realise that an authentic life is one in which, just as we shed our skin, we shed our friends so we can re-birth. This process is not only natural, but it is vital to creating a fulfilling life. Of course, we are unlikely to see it that way at the time! However, resisting that change not only holds us back, but creates an unnecessary lack of self-worth and avoidable tensions…
Yes, friendship really is an elevator.
Over the years I don’t think I have ever come across a better analogy. Possibly because it is my own… at least a Google search doesn’t reveal anybody else referring to friendship as the ebb and flow of people stepping in and out of a lift the higher up the skyscraper we climb! Yet that’s exactly how it is.
We start off at Infant School, we progress to Junior School then High School, then some of us go to college and University. Next it’s the world of work, for many of us babies, for some of us back to work in quite often a different capacity. All interspersed with our hobbies and interests, those friends we meet through friends, those friends we come to greet into our inner circle through our partners. And then the totally randoms; the kind of people we bump into on holiday but become inseparable with, or the new next door neighbour who just happens to totally be on our wave length.
That’s a lot of floors in a very tall skyscraper. There’s bound to be some jumping in and out of the elevator!
If for no other reason than it is simply impossible to keep in touch with everyone.
The tendency to hold on is a beautiful, beautiful thing. We invest emotion and time and energy into our friendships. They are tied up in special times and places; the group crush on Take That (or – sigh, whatever happened to taste? – nowadays One Direction… before they split); the bond that is a pre or postnatal baby group; the sheer force of alliance that is facing those pesky directors together in a male dominated office, and the unlikely acquaintances who over the space of a weekend become our new BFFs courtesy of all being thrown together in a hotel for a hen do with copious amounts of Cava.
But alas, where are the hours in the day to genuinely keep up with them all? We, and they, start off in earnest of course, but before long it’s fast fizzling out. Hardly helped along by the rate at which we all seem to migrate to new countries these days!
And in other words, the current friends in our personal elevator are those we are “aligned” with.
I came across a quite magnificent quote in Joshua’s “A Radical Change in Your Approach to Life” last night:
“You will be aligned with those to which you are vibrationally compatible. As you raise your vibration by living consciously, you will meet many new people who also vibrate at this level. There is never anything to be worried about. If you were not a vibrational match you would not meet… You are moving up and they are there to greet you.”
Which makes me feel so much better about those friends who have stopped returning my messages, or drifted off the radar. This is the design of life. The ego may want to fight it and reel them back in like fish. But it really is the natural flow. Change is normal. Change is necessary. When we allow ourselves to relax into it, we may feel our elevator empty out a little… or a lot… but pretty soon it fills up again with all sorts of wonderful people; people who are far more in tune with where we currently are physically and emotionally in our lives.
Sometimes it’s easy to feel nostalgic.
We look back at those treasured friendships of the past and wish we could have carried them forward. Many of my old school friends live in the same town and county that we grew up in and their bond is like blood. Sometimes I feel a real tinge of regret that unlike them, I didn’t stick around, I don’t have that return for loyalty. But a life in one place was never for me. Travel and adventure fizz through my veins and with that has come so many new faces – fleeting perhaps, but totally unforgettable!
Each has added intrigue, or the opportunity to uncover my limiting beliefs, or simple a whole lot of fun. Some of those friendships have offered me all three – at once. I couldn’t live my life any other way. And equally, I respect the fact that those old school friends think I am utterly nuts for shunning the wonderful that is their life.
But I have actually come to relish an almost empty elevator…
Yes, at those rare times when it feels like there are just two or three constant friends inside (who I get to see physically… this is often what happens when you live somewhere as transient as Spain!), and a small cluster of others who are in regular touch via good ole’ Facebook, I feel glad. The anticipation builds because I know it means I am spiritually evolving; great new relationships await me on the next level. Friendships made now, at this time in my life, seem to get better and better. Without a doubt it’s because I am stronger, more self-assured, no longer giving off the “victim” vibe of my past which led me to narcissists, taker-under-wingers, two-faced-madams and blowers of hot and cold.
You’ll know them well too. We’ve all been there!
Yet, all those people were a lesson to us. We simply attracted them through our lack of self-worth until we “got it”… and then like a puff of smoke they moved town, hooked up with someone else or cut us out of their life – and thankfully it’s over. We’ve moved up to a bigger, brighter level. Hallelujah!
Ultimately though, no matter how many floors we travel in our friendship elevators…
All friendships are eternal. At least if you’re even slightly spiritually minded, this will resonate with you. I truly believe that our friendships have no beginning or end. We’re all in this thing called life together. We have been in many lives together. We simply come back and do it all again and again for the thrill of it, coming together through our love of mutual interests; for the lessons to be learned about ourselves, which in turns helps the universe expand.
Joshua’s pearls of wisdom from their second book, “Health, Wealth and Love” make the perfect finale, and nip any thought of getting sentimental again in the bud:
“It is not necessary or even worthwhile to hold onto old friendships after you’ve lost interest in the subject that drew you together in the first place. The friend was an aspect of your interest in the subject at that time and place. If you are no longer involved in that interest, it is alright to allow the friendship to fade. You came together out of your mutual interest. You can never lose your friend, for all relationships endure eternally. You will meet again. There is no need to keep the friendship alive in this lifetime when the interest has diminished.”
Phew. I don’t know about you, but that really lets me off the friendship hook.
Onward and upward!
