Hello, and welcome back to practicing human, the podcast where every day we're getting a little better at life.

I'm your host, Cory Muscara, and in today's episode, we're going to talk about why we might lose friends on our path of personal growth and awakening.

More to come on that in a moment. First, let's settle in together with the sound of the bells.

Okay. So, when we embark on the journey of bettering ourselves, we start meditating. We become a little more mindful. We're reading personal development books, maybe even some spiritual books.

It can be really exciting. We start to see all these different blind spots. We've had ways that we interact with ourselves, with others.

And it can be a bit of a wake-up call for us. But if we're leaning into it with curiosity, it's quite energizing because we see where we've been, how it's been perpetuating certain results in our life.

Meaning, it could be actions we've taken in the world and the fruits that those actions have been able to bear, or it could just be how we're feeling on a regular basis.

And once we understand that better, and why something is leading to a certain outcome, well, then we have an opportunity to change it.

And so, you know, if you're like me, I'm sure you've experienced the energy around this. It might be one of the reasons you listen to this podcast. There's some inspiration about the person that you're growing into.

And it would seem that the people who are closest to us, that we most love and who most love us, so it seems, would be happy about this growth.

Would be as excited as we are for all the things that we're learning and all the ways that we're changing.

However, as you may have also experienced, it doesn't always work this way.

Not all of your friends or family members will be happy about your growth. Even people who have seemed like good companions on your journey, who have seemed supportive, who have seemed excited about you, for you in your past.

And there's a lot of reasons for this, but the key one is a lot of these relationships and what has previously made them work or originally made them work and have continued to make them work, or contingent upon two different personalities that seem to complement each other.

To ways of working with one another that seem to complement each other, different triggers and insecurities about the other person that we accept, or that we can commiserate on together, maybe a fueling off of each other's anxiety.

And yes, sometimes we become friends with people because certain things they're struggling with make us feel a little better about ourselves.

And that's not terrible. We were complex beings. So we choose our social circles for a number of different reasons. It doesn't mean that we don't genuinely like this person, but there might be this sense of, oh, they're struggling with this.

And while we do wish them well, a bit of our self esteem is sort of based on us being in relationship to their struggle. And it works the other way.

And this is why, as you start to change, as you start to grow, it can bring up stuff for other people. And they might actually resist your growth.

They might say little things like, huh, you've never acted like that before. Or why are you doing that? Or why are you talking that way?

Well, why don't you want to just go out for a drink like you used to be so much more fun or easygoing. And now all you want to do is talk about this or that, whatever it might be.

These little remarks that might seem benign, but we can feel like, huh, I'm changing and I'm excited about this, but this person doesn't seem to be on board with it.

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