When we decide to make big changes to improve our lives, there will always be people who try to hold us back—and usually they won’t even realize they’re doing it. 

From their perspective they don’t want to see us change because they feel like they might lose us. Most likely, they will be completely unaware of the things they’re saying or doing which are actually serving to hold us back.

How do we deal with this?

We might have to let these people go. That doesn’t mean we don’t love them or care about them anymore. It means we’ve transcended their friendship. That might sound like a “holier than thou” kind of phrase, or somewhat harsh, but it’s not. It’s part of life. It can happen the opposite way too. People can become drawn into darker things, like drugs, and fall out of our life for that reason.

We attract people into our lives who resonate with us.

That’s what it means when people say things like, “I like this guy’s vibe.” We’re literally resonating with other people—like tuning forks on the same frequency. It’s the same as going to a place that has “bad vibes.” We’re simply not in resonance with the energy, or frequency, of that place.

When we make big changes in our lives, we’re changing our vibration—hopefully by raising it.

People in our life might unconsciously try to stop us from “transcending to higher energies” because they aren’t ready to make the changes that we are.

“Higher energies” might sound a little woo-woo to some people, so allow me to explain. At the atomic level, all things are moving. These vibrations create waves. Waves are frequencies.

Emotions are frequencies. Thoughts are frequencies. Everything is composed of different frequencies and only a small fraction of these frequencies are detectable by human senses.

The visible light spectrum, for example, is composed of frequencies having wavelengths between 400 and 700 nanometers. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter, so that’s pretty small. Try surfing on that!

Our ears can detect frequencies between 20 and 20,000 hertz. In terms of wavelength, sound is on the totally opposite end of the spectrum as light. A frequency of 3,000 hertz—squarely in the range of what we are most easily able to hear—has a wavelength of 100,000 meters! That’s around 60 miles. Talk about long waves!

The point is that the set frequencies we are naturally attuned to fall into very narrow and specific ranges. There are an unlimited amount of possible frequencies, some of which are detectable by our senses and most of which that are not.

We naturally sense some of these frequencies, specifically the ones generated by thoughts or emotions—even though we cannot see them. We’ve all had the experience of meeting someone and not liking them for no other reason than having a bad feeling. This is an example of picking up on someone’s “vibe.”

The sum of all of the frequencies emitted by a person—all of their thoughts, emotions, their visual appearance, what they’re saying and even the vibrations coming from their physical body–-–create a person’s overall frequency or vibe. Typically, the higher someone’s vibe the more that person is in resonance with things like love, joy, bliss, excitement or peace. These are “high vibe” frequencies as opposed to “low vibe” ones like fear, anger, hate or ignorance.

When we change our vibe, we’re naturally going to repel certain people and attract others. Like attracts like, or rather, like amplifies like in the world of vibration.

Considering any frequency, including those produced by people, when two frequencies of the same wavelength come into contact, their amplitude increases. In other words, the energy increases. That’s why when a whole stadium of people come together to cheer for their team the energy is really high compared to watching the same game alone on TV. When everyone is on the same wavelength––the same page––the energy is amplified.

It’s easier for our friends to try to deter us from changing our vibe, or resonating with other things, than it is for them to change themselves, so they might try to hold us back in certain ways.

I experienced this when I made the decision to take my health to the next level. I set out to eat completely clean and began seeking out the highest quality food I could find. I committed to not eating anything processed and I eliminated all preservatives from my diet. I found the highest quality water and started taking a few different mineral supplements religiously. I was 100 percent all-in and committed to my health. It was for sure a decision to raise my vibration.

I received a strange reaction that I didn’t expect from a few friends. They would actually make fun of me for being so strict with my diet!

Friends would say, in a patronizing tone, things like, “Oh, hold on, don’t eat that! There might be preservatives in there!” Or, even more patronizing, “Are you sure that’s organic?” They would even try to make me feel foolish for my decisions by saying things like, “There’s GMOs in that? Here I’ll eat it, thanks. More for me!”

When we make big changes in our lives, especially positive ones like making a commitment to our health, it points a finger at the people around us. To them that finger might be saying, “Look at all this stuff you could be improving about yourself, but you’re not.”

We don’t have to let these kinds of people bring us down. They don’t really know better. It’s just how they are reacting to us and it doesn’t really have anything to do with us. That does not mean we should be arrogant about the changes we’re making though. It means we should ignore negative reactions from people and, depending on the situation, completely stop interacting with these kinds of people.

This phenomena can be especially difficult with family members.

People in our family tend to have known us the longest, so when we change, it can feel to them like they’re losing us. They might feel like they don’t even know us anymore.

To reassure our family––because in most cases we should avoid cutting our family out of our lives––it might be helpful to say something along the lines of, “Hey guys, so I’m going through some big changes right now. I’m still the same person, I just have a different set of beliefs and values now. I might do things a little differently in my life, but that doesn’t mean I’m not the same person you have known. I’m still here, the same person you remember, I’ve just decided to grow in a big way.”

The hardest part about making big changes can be leaving people behind.

There’s a fear that we won’t make new friends. It might seem easier to hold on to the people in our life now, especially if they have been with us through tough times.

We have to be brave and take the road less traveled. There might also be a part of us that wants to “bring people with us.” We might try to get our friends into all the new, cool stuff we’re doing or “help them” change their mindsets. It’s okay to try, but it’s never a good idea to force someone to change. We might end up wasting our energy on people who just aren’t ready to make the moves that we have.

We have to have the courage to grow and realize that we might lose a few friends along the way. If we do, there will be plenty of amazing people waiting for us on the other side. Additionally, and potentially a more inspiring take, when we completely change and transcend a relationship or friendship, so to speak, we might inspire those very same friends who “fell by the wayside,” to make the same big changes in the future.

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Author: John Miller

Image: Ines Hegedus Garcia/Flickr

Editor: Travis May