The end of a friendship is always painful. Whether because different paths were followed or because a different turning point was reached, this rupture can bring up feelings of anxiety, sadness and loneliness. Later, life will take you to situations in which you would normally count on the help of a friend, and it is these types of challenges that you need to know how to manage.
Breaking away from a friendship relationship that is no longer fulfilling (or that never was) may not be easy, but it can be the first step towards living in alignment with your true essence.
How do you know if it's time to leave a friendship behind?
According to Lalah Delia, spiritual mentor and author of the book Vibrate Higher Daily: Live Your Power , sometimes we are friends with certain people just because we've known them for a long time, because we studied together or because it's convenient for us. This type of context can keep us in friendships that no longer serve us. However, everything can change when we start doing our work of self-knowledge and healing.
What's the best way to get away?
This separation must happen with compassion and gratitude. This is the only way to achieve the best possible result for everyone involved. Ending friendships or other relationships abruptly is not always the right thing to do or fair to the other person, who may be a little lost or confused.
Instead, we can end relationships with compassion by having a conversation with the person to let them know why we are making the decision to leave their life and to listen to their response. This way, you can both move on with your life, without resentment.
When we let others follow their path, without attachments or judgments, we start to want – genuinely – that not only we ourselves grow from now on, but also the other person. The important thing is to get to a “place” where we feel more comfortable with our reality.
What is the first step to personal healing after a friendship ends?
After leaving a friendship relationship that no longer fulfills you, there is a period of adaptation, depending on the depth of that connection. Leaving a friendship behind can leave us confused, which is why we need to find our balance again, rediscovering who we really are without that person or those people.
The period after the end of a friendship is a cleansing process, in which we cleanse the ideas, thoughts, energy and vibrations that we carried, but that were not ours. A perfect example of these energetic charges are the times when we used to talk to a certain friend and agree with what he said to us, when in fact we disagreed. All of this becomes part of us and, over time, accumulates and takes on other proportions.
Positive affirmations are a great way to make this transition easier. Feeding your mind with words and ideas that support what you want, rather than what you don't want, can be the key to improving any cloudy phase you're going through. Try doing it before going to sleep and when you wake up (in that phase when the brain is in a natural state of meditative ecstasy).
How to face loneliness after ending an important friendship?
When we leave a relationship, we enter the unknown. We don't know what's next, and that can be scary.
We can practice visualizing that good things eventually happen. In this way, we will release what does not serve us because we have made space for something better. What comes next will reflect our growth.
This greater purpose, in which we visualize, feel and believe in what can be our best reality, will attract positivity into our lives. This is how manifestation works.
If you are going through this lonely period, prefer to look at solitude as a place of refuge, recognizing it as something essential to finding yourself to take your next steps.
Do all relationships have to completely fulfill us to be worth it?
There are some relationships that we can simply maintain without asking for anything in return. Sometimes we have a duty, as compassionate citizens of the world, to hold space for certain people in our lives, even if the relationship doesn't benefit us.
It is important to be aware that, when a person acts badly towards us, perhaps what is making them act like that is the pain they feel. If we say “no” to everything that seems toxic to us, we will not be practicing compassion.
Everyone does the best they can, according to the situation they are experiencing at the moment. Use your discernment and wisdom to understand what is worth doing for others and for yourself.
Article translated and adapted Goop.
