For many people, even the most loving relationships can sometimes become toxic. Arguments and conflicts can often surface almost automatically – as if driven by an unseen force.
However, strong relationships are vital to happiness and a healthy life. Individuals with strong, quality friendships and relationships tend to handle stress better – and good friends can genuinely help provide support and comfort in difficult times.
Research shows that people with a supportive partner often recover better from heart attacks and other illnesses. In fact, physical affection between loving partners, parents, and children, or close friends can also help keep the brain, heart, and other body systems healthy.
Sometimes a person can have a great relationship with their partner, parents or kids, but perhaps have issues communicating with colleagues at work. Or, others may have great friendships but have challenges relating to the relationships with their children.
Almost everyone can work to enhance their relationship skills in some area of their lives. Think about your relationships and those that you would like to improve.
Why are healthy relationships so important?
One of the most essential ingredients for healthy relationships of any type is open communication. For starters, it’s important to always ask honest questions and provide honest answers. Don’t expect others to be able to read your mind. And assertive communication helps make your point more clearly, so try using ‘I’ statements instead of accusatory statements, like ‘you’.
Keep in mind, the ultimate goal with communication is to continually work to cultivate an environment in which a person feels safe expressing their feelings, thoughts, hopes, and dreams with another person.
I believe there are four additional, vital components to a healthy relationship. They include:
- Self-Love. What does loving yourself have to do with loving another person? Healthy self-love is honest, which means learning to embrace your imperfections alongside your strengths. Feeling good about yourself allows you to turn around and give the best you can to your relationships. While accepting our “whole selves” is a lifelong journey, it’s worth the effort as it keeps you exactly where you need to be to see others more clearly.
- Honesty. Being emotionally honest is key when fostering a relationship. This means not bottling up emotions or projecting them onto others. Instead, strive to talk about your emotions with the other person. For example, rather than merely share how your day was, vocalize the feelings you actually experienced, whether they were bad or good. “I felt happy when X happened” or “I was so angry at this point” are both ideal examples of basic emotional expressions, which display a level of maturity crucial to a healthy relationship.
- Trust. Trust is one of the essential building blocks of a strong, healthy relationship. So knowing how to foster trust and build it into a caring relationship should be a top priority. The whole point of building trust is for others to truly believe you when you say that you will do something. In my experience, trust is not something you can just switch on and off; it must be earned over time. Don’t expect too much too soon. To develop trust with others, take small steps, and as trust grows, you will more easily be able to make bigger commitments.
- Connection. Connections have to exist and develop on multiple levels for any relationship to really work. The extent to which these connections deepen and mature over time is likely to have a significant impact on the level of fulfillment each person experiences within the relationship. I believe that connecting on as many levels as possible – and with the right balance – is crucial to developing the degree of closeness that any relationship needs to survive and thrive.
Some Final Thoughts
Building healthy a relationship is good for you – it elevates your mood, enhances your mental health and your overall well-being. More importantly, maintaining each of these is extremely important to avoid stress and burnout.
As a Board-Certified Holistic Nurse and Certified Gemstone Therapy Practitioner, I believe that maintaining healthy relationships in our lives is critical, especially because it can impact our mental well-being when things aren’t working well.
As part of my process, I take clients through a study of their lifestyle and energy – we discuss diet, love, schedules, and elements including energy and chakras are evaluated and repaired. My goal is to get to the root of the problem and eradicate the negative energy that is holding you down and causing your stress or burnout. Only energy work, combined with my multi-system approach, truly addresses the problem you may be experiencing in your relationships.
Reach out today for more information – it’s your time to Burn Bright Today!
