Outgrowing Relationships
Question: I have decided to finally cut off an ex-boyfriend and his friends because they were pursuing a lifestyle I felt was unhealthy and wrong. I tried to use your way of viewing things around my ex, in an attempt to be his friend and perhaps help him, but he took offense to it, not wanting to deal with my view at all. I am heartbroken at so many people exiting my life at once. Was I too pushy with my ex, or was he not even worth the bother? What can I do to heal, move on, and stay more positive? I am beside myself with grief at losing the ones closest to me even if I shouldn't have been keeping them as friends.
Answer: I know these times seem hard to you. It is necessary that before real changes take place in our lives, what was -- must be no more. It is a law. Before new construction there must come destruction. Most people go through their lives merely recreating themselves because they refuse to go through seeing that what once made them happy no longer serves that purpose. So, instead of seeing the truth, and letting go of what they have outgrown, they merely learn to tolerate what they live with; these people literally die while they live, as they refuse the New Life that wants to release them so they can realize higher and higher levels of themselves. All of this is to say: What has happened to you with your former friends is not just good and right, it is necessary. The pain will pass; let it go by refusing to answer it with what it wants to drag you into, i.e., returning to the same old Patterns and people that make them up. Be patient. Work on yourself by remembering and actualizing higher principles. Make them your friends for now. Keep their company, and in a while you will be brought to a whole new level of yourself that will, naturally, attract to you what is healthier, brighter, and altogether better for the you are growing up to be in God, in Truth.
(Adapted from correspondence with students)
Question: As a result of my deepening interest in truthful ideas, quite a few of my friends feel I have gone off the deep end, and I have noticed a growing separation between us as I work more and more for my own spiritual freedom. It is not that I don't care for them, but rather I am becoming less concerned about the things that have always driven all of us. My fear is they will eventually want to have nothing to do with me. Is it normal for friendships to pass as people change their life and level? Is this what Christ meant when he said, "Let the dead bury their dead"?
Answer: Yes, quite often old friends will fall away as you work on changing your interior relationship and begin seeing more about this life and its true purpose. Think of the company that a caterpillar keeps and then, as it is transformed, how its new friends have wings and inhabit the sky. Letting go of those who want to remain earthbound is at least in part the true inner meaning of this passage of Christ's that you have cited.
Excerpted from Seeker's Guide to Self-Freedom
Question: How do we find others who are also searching for their true selves? At times the search causes us to leave former friends behind -- not because we are better, but because we are different.
Answer: Here is a highly encouraging thought: The study of Truth leads us to those relationships that are beneficial to the Truth we are studying. It could be said that as you grow in your love of Truth/God, your newly emerging nature is a law unto itself that naturally repels what is dissimilar to it and likewise attracts what is helpful, healthy, and loving. In short, while it is good to find others who are interested in the Truth as a part of our own free will, the search for others who are embracing their true nature is ultimately directed by our own wish for the Truth.
Excerpted from Seeker's Guide to Self-Freedom
Question: I have been in a relationship for many years now. Because of the way I was raised -- in a family with parents who were stand-offish and critical -- I have had difficulties expressing and experiencing emotional intimacy with my partner, who is outgoing and passionate, and craves that kind of connection, and who now refuses to respond to me after being shut out for so long. Your books and talks have been instrumental to me not going into total despair over this situation, and after much soul searching I am finally able to see what it means to yearn for intimacy. Unfortunately I think it may be too late. Though I am trying not to spread the feeling among those who are around me, every day I feel less and less "connected." I realize that I have been called to this lesson and that God is in it with me, but sometimes it's hard to hear His silent voice.
Answer: There come times in our lives when our wish to be new, coupled with our interior work to realize this wish, produces certain "effects" that can be most trying; in fact, times such as these are a kind of trial. What happens, is that the spiritual changes occurring within us -- and their new values -- outrun the existing physical conditions that helped give rise to these changes in us. In this instance, it seems you find yourself inwardly "finished" with certain external conditions, yet because the passage of time (and its relatively slow process compared to spirit's works) you are still living in circumstances no longer suitable to who you are now. So there is a disparity that can't be reconciled as easily as just walking away from the situation because the rest of the elements in it are still "in the oven," so to speak, awaiting the fulfillment of what must become of them due to the changes in you.
Be patient, be kind, and remain intent upon being true to yourself with regards to your growing spiritual wish to be whole and free. Things will, must, come to a "head," and there will be a change; it's inescapable. Don't fear, or at least, don't allow that negative state to make you act against your own best interests. When relationships pass, as most must, it doesn't mean that the love that caused them to appear must disappear. A new form always rises when an old one passes...watch for it. Continue to bring this matter before God, and as best you can, wish a simple wish for His guidance.
(Adapted from correspondence with students)
Question: I am having trouble understanding how to leave relationships with my friends and family alone. It seems that the changes I feel are affecting them, but neither they nor I understand some of these changes. It is an extremely confusing time for everyone in my life. Can you help me ease this effect?
Answer: The Truth asks us to give it its way in our lives. The relationships established before the dawning of any such light within us are naturally going to be put through necessary changes by the inclusion of this new understanding as it dawns within us. Try to understand that we live in a world of which we see only a tiny, tiny part. But even in those small glimpses of our physical reality can we see hints of the celestial one. What happens to the creatures living in any environment when that environment is changed? Some naturally stay, some must leave, and most importantly, as it concerns our work, new creatures are attracted. Continue with your work. Be willing to let the chips fall where they may with all of your relationships. Be kind, but above all, be true. The rest will take care of itself.
Excerpted from Seeker's Guide to Self-Freedom
