“Whatever relationships you have attracted in your life at this moment, are precisely the ones you need in your life at this moment. There is a hidden meaning behind all events, and this hidden meaning is serving your own evolution.”― Deepak Chopra

It’s a new year and it is an opportunity to move in a new direction. At the beginning of a new year, there is a feeling of hope and people are more open to change before we relax into the apathy. The new year is a great excuse to make some changes in your life. Around this time of year, on Facebook, I see people threatening to remove people from their friends’ list. It doesn’t have to be that dramatic.

But, it’s a good time to look at the relationships in your life and see if they are supporting what you are trying to accomplish. I like the quote, “if you’re not apart of the solution, then you are part of the problem.” Every relationship serves your evolution and some will naturally fall away. We’ve all lost touch with someone, run into them and it’s like meeting a stranger. You’re not the same person you were when you were friends and neither are they. There is a natural flow to how people move in and out of your life. Some are painful while others are quiet. The reason is because that person has done what they were supposed to do for your life. They were supposed to shine a light on an area of yourself that you were ignoring.

If you try to hold on to everyone, you can stunt your own growth. A great example of this was Tupac Shakur. He was building an amazing career that included movies and music, but he was still trying to hold onto his “thug life” and the friends that come with that life. When your life calls you to take the next step and you deny it, you are creating suffering and chaos in your life. When you try to hold on to people and things because you think that it means something about you if you don’t, you are preventing yourself from living your purpose. It’s like stepping on a hose. The water is supposed to flow through the hose to fulfill its purpose of nurturing the grass. If you step on it and say, “no, water needs to stay with water.” You are, not only, stopping progress, but you are creating a great deal of pressure within that hose which is eventually going to pop and spray all over the place.

You have to accept that the people who you are surrounded by are in your life to teach you something about yourself. When they have taught you what you need to learn, they may fall away. Some people will be around for a lifetime while others will disappear as you grow. When people say they grew apart in their relationship, this is what they mean. They are no longer serving one another’s growth. Take a moment to look at your relationships and ask yourself what are you meant to learn. Even a bad relationship can teach you something about yourself. Sometimes, it simply to teach you how to let go or how to hold on.