A story as old as human relationships speaks of the dynamism of personal change in the face of pathologies of your immediate closest surroundings trying to keep everything the same.

Have you ever had an experience in which you’ve decided you’re done with some period of your life, be it neediness, victim mentality, helplessness, blaming, stagnation, self-destructive behavior… and once you’ve really started to visibly change your ways, in your pride of doing so, you’ve noticed something else starting to emerge. A surprising backlash from those closest to you, from the people who love you – be it a family member, a partner or a friend. The moment you start to grow you feel them slamming the breaks of the relationship. What happened here? Your advancement awoke old pathologies, insecurities and fears within them. You showing them so obviously that change is possible in proportion to the strength of a character striving to change, made them feel inadequate and as they have failed in changing what they feel is not right in their own experience of life.

Most of this won’t be done on purpose or with bad intent, but it will be a recurring theme permeating each growth process. You will lose some of these people, maybe not physically due to the bonds of blood or law, but emotionally you will. Their love might have been stipulated on exactly the same things that are changing now – they might have needed you weak, lonely, complacent, depressed, unsettled – they might have needed you to need them to constantly lean on and have built a relationship with you on these foundations. This is where some personal growth will stop, especially for women more attuned to keeping the peace within relationships, but this pull back can be compensated by distancing yourself willingly, speaking to the person honestly, trying to pull them up with you, stop speaking of your progress to them… or just by severing the relationship if nothing else works. Don’t let yourself be clubbed into submission by a fear of rocking the boat, and don’t let yourself be on the other side pulling someone else down when they start to grow Be honest to yourself and others – that’s the only way to be able to come to the finish line with grace, no matter what happened in between.