“Like leaves that fall to the ground in autumn, friends fall out of our lives during a change of season”.– Keisha Blair.

One of the life lessons I’ve learnt is that some friends are only for a season. During the major transitions in life – this becomes far more evident. Whether its widowhood, divorce or any other type of separation, you will have the opportunity to see who your real friends are. Some people were only a part of your circle because of your husband or because of your husband’s family, or because of some other reason. When your life changes, either for the better or the worst, these friends somehow drop out of your life. Sometimes it happens immidiately, and other times it happens over a period of time, maybe years but you start to notice that things just aren’t the same.

Here are some tips for those times when friends betray you.

Don’t Tie Your Life Goals to People or Things

”If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.” – Albert Einstein.

The majority of people, including friends, that you connect with in your life are temporary. It’s a sad fact of life, but the sooner you accept this, the happier you’ll be. You cannot tie your life to friends (people) or things.

If you’re working towards specific goals or aspirations, try not to tie your success to friends, people or things. Keep in mind that people change, their goals change, and life has a way of being unpredictable.

Learn to Let it Go.

We cannot control life, or the friends we choose to journey through life with. Those that accept this will be much happier. The same way you can’t make someone love you, you can’t dictate to the universe precisely how you would like your life to play out. If a friend betrays you. Learn to let it go.

Worrying is pointless. We all get nervous about significant life milestones, but anxiety is one of the worst joy-sucking vampires. You’ll only cause yourself stress, and likely create an unfavorable energy field around a situation by focusing so much negative energy on it. Acceptance is part of letting it go. If you accept that its a normal part of life, then you wont feel so stressed about the situation. I know its extremely hard, because I’ve been there many times, after my husband died, but I’ve had to keep reminding myself that “like leaves that fall to the ground in autumn, friends fall out of our lives during a change of season”.– Keisha Blair.

Don’t Listen to The Negative Nelly’s

Friendships have a way of being self-reinforcing. I’ve noticed that when friends have similar goals and can express them freely and they are met with positive praise and reinforcement – the friendship is better for it. When you have different goals – the friendship needlessly suffers.  Don’t feel you should continue to hang out with a group of friends when they don’t share your dreams, goals or give you support.  I can almost guarantee you that when you share your goals and dreams with friends and family, there will always be at least one negative nelly.  For instance, if you want to ditch your 9-5 job and you tell your friends and they tell you to forget your ‘daydream’ and instead continue your nine to five job working for someone else, then that’s probably not the support you need. If everyone listened to such people, there would be very few successful brands and empires.

Let go of caring what others think. Focus on the steps you need to take to make your dream a reality. Trust me; those people will always be the first to gush about how they always believed in you when you make it. Sigh. You have nothing to prove to anyone except for yourself.