I’ve been racking my middle-aged brain, trying to recall where, for the first time, I heard the phrase: “The people closest to us will reject the changes we are making with the greatest resistance.”
You know it, I know it. We all play specific roles in our Relationships. Staying the same helps friends, Family, and our kids know the rules of our interactions.
No doubt if I handed you a spiral notebook and a sharpie, you could list your friends and colleagues down the left and your role after their name: organizer, follower, decision maker, comedian, caregiver, therapist, drinking pal, fixer, sad friend, happy gal.
Parents will balk at us leaving jobs we’ve had since college or making big choices like moving to a new town. Friends will question how you are choosing to live. In turn, you might wish your friends wanted a new path with you, but they fall back from your chosen way.
Your work wife will start being jealous of your new ideas taking off in the boardroom.
When you start changing, up leveling, people have opinions.
Have you ever stated, “When I go home to my parents’ house, I revert back to my 12-year-old self”? Cementing your role in relationship ecosystems has a comfort, until you’ve changed.
Relocations shift your surroundings, moving to a new state or home, but shifting your internal focus brings pivotal changes to your group of confidants. It’s a hard pill to swallow when your life and relationships are both in flux.
If we can all describe our relationship patterns, what happens when we no longer fit the mold of that archetype?
We make friendship edits.
I know because I’ve been there.
Resistance kickstarts if you begin to move the dial in a new direction. As your people start to hold onto old patterns you’ve subliminally contracted, everyone wants to make sure they know who they are and who you are in the community.
Blank stares, passive aggressive comments, or bold confrontations create more questioning of your new decisions. Meanwhile, change occurs after months or years of buildup. Exacerbating loss even more, your loved ones, whom you wish were supportive or curious about where you’re heading, start a battle to keep you in your lane. In fairness, their off-putting inquiries might be conscious or subconscious.
What if you want more in your life?
What if your energy goes up in different ways in a new spaces and places?
What if the things you are good at and even used to Love are no longer bringing you joy?
What if you no longer want to do the things you’ve been tasked with emotionally, financially, or physically?
What if you’re burnt out in your circle of friends, too?
My friends call me an adult camp counselor, the one planning trips or dinners out. As my Health has come and gone, I’ve slowed that part of my life down. Many are asking me what is next. I can sit back and affirm: nothing is next in my friend gathering calendar. I need a real break.
Sometimes I channel my organizational skills into my family parties, but shifting back to work feels better than camp counselor if I’m being honest with myself.
Focusing on my family is a flex but there are consequences.
(Except when I ask them to put their clean laundry away. The girls would like me to stop asking them that.)
Inevitably, there will be friend layoffs.
This shedding of your circle across your life is sad.
However, there is an added bonus to the elimination of unaligned friends, making room for new people in your next phase.
They loop in the same stories, living in negativity
They take too much, creating severe imbalance
They lack commitment to plans, always canceling
They live in a fixed mindset
They are energy vampires, sucking the life out of you
They make fake offers, never following through
When the void gets too big, a separation without severance is key.
Before you cross people off your holiday card list, some will fire you first, unable to handle the changes you’ve made or disagreeing with choices that aren’t theirs.
(Another article on ghosting adults is for another time.)
Others will stick by you, a soldier beside you, asking questions and supporting your next steps. These are the long haulers who focus on your heart and mind, less on your wallet or social standing.
After change settles into your energy, creating new neural pathways, those who don’t show up becomes evident over time.
Severance packages would mean you owe them an explanation. A reduction in force is your personal preference to remove that wasteful role from your life.
Not all layoffs are sudden. There can be a slow decline in relationship. There will come a time when you lay people off from your life, surgically stopping interactions that cause you suffering of any kind.
And perhaps the hardest part is the most freeing. Who does not serve your current purpose, let them go. Make room for you.
Are You Interested in Changing the Way You Show Up at Work & Home? I’m here for you.
I have 25 years of Wall Street Experience with nearly a decade of Coaching experience.
I help women quiet the noise, trust their intuition, and reconnect with their deepest purpose.
Email [email protected] for more info or check out my offerings here.
I help women quiet the noise, trust their intuition, and reconnect with their deepest purpose.
