If your “new year, new me” plans included letting go of people who are no longer on the same journey as you, this is the piece for you. Growth is a scary and sometimes uncomfortable. It requires us to get rid of some of our long-standing habits and relationships in order to expand to fit the size of our new being. It can cause us to have some pretty hard discussions not only with ourselves but with the people we’ve grown with to this point. Growth can feel like breaking, at times, and it can mean that we take in a lot of loss in order to get to our breakthrough. When we find ourselves at a crossroads with the people in our lives, it can be hard to walk away without some inciting incident leading the way. Perhaps things that you once forgave or even ignored in order to keep the connection find their way to the surface and you find yourself faced with a brutal truth: this is not someone I want to have in my life during my next chapter.
We’ve all been there.
And when it comes time to bid our adieus, it can be tempting to categorize the people we’ve decided to leave behind as “bad” in some way. This is not only unfair but it can be used to take the sting off of a hard but necessary decision—and that impedes your growth. Someone can be absolutely good but not a safe space for the part of your story you’re currently authoring. There can be nothing inherently wrong with them and they can just not be right for you. This goes for friends, partners and family members. It’s a tough job to trim the fat in our lives and it’s important to keep the proper perspective when doing so. Filtering people into immovable categories like good or bad cause us to be unable to see others as growing beings too. Everyone is trying their best to become the best version of themselves and, though they may not be someone you want around right now, that doesn’t mean that the story between you two is done being written. Identifying someone as unsafe for who you are now leaves room for them to, possibly, become someone who is safe for you again. It also acknowledges that as you grow, you’ll be better suited to handle relationships that may feel like too heavy of a burden in present tense. Of course, this is assuming that this relationship is one worth revisiting down the line.
We are all works in progress.
None of us show up the exact same way in every area of our lives. We can be both the hero and the villain depending on who is writing our story and we all are worthy of some grace. So, even if a person’s presence in your life is no longer serving you, there’s no need to villainize them in order to defend your decision to cut ties. You can simply let them go and turn your attention to attracting the people you do want to have in your life. You can have gratitude for God allowing your paths to cross at any point and extend a blessing to them as they leave to find their community. What we focus on comes to fruition and the more we spend our energy destroying someone else’s character because we no longer share the connection we once had with them, the more we tell the world to send us more of the same. This is not the point of growth. The new version of you does not need bodies to stand on. The story of the new you does not need an anti-hero, it only needs you.
Relationships come to an end for any number of reasons but the overall conclusion is that this person is no longer speaking to your heart, mind and soul the way they once were—and that’s ok. The only constant in this world is change and resisting that only causes us harm. Release what you no longer need and make room to receive the relationships that will help you usher in all the things you’ll need to journey forward. But leave the character judgements behind too because they, ultimately, serve no one.