Welcome back, everyone. This week, I want to explore the second half of the topic we started last week. If you read last week’s newsletter, you read all about the toxic mind-body-spirit life balance. This week, I would like to explore the aspects of a healthy mind, body, and spirit.
Now, before we dive into the second part of this topic, or before we take that next step toward becoming positively improved, I would like to do a recap on the four definitions I gave last week.
Recap:
In last week’s newsletter, we started with the four most important words defined. This week, we will just recap these definitions before we jump in. Once you are refreshed, we will jump into our look at what a healthy relationship looks like
Life balance –
This is when you can balance your time work along with your time building relationships, creating new memories, and time for yourself as well
Healthy –
indicative of, conducive to, or promoting good health.
Toxic –
When you or someone you know is very harmful or unpleasant in a pervasive or insidious way.
Relationship –
the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected.
What a healthy relationship has to make it healthy
Trust –
Did you know that the most successful relationships in the world have this one ingredient locked and loaded. Trust is hands down the most important ingredient to any healthy relationship. Without trust, a relationship can not grow; instead, it will decay and fall apart. Trust helps to provide safety, security, and stability in the connection, which opens your relationship up to grow stronger.
Personal responsibility –
This is something that many relationships struggle with. Still, the truth is that even with the ability to take responsibility for your actions and to see when and where you may need to improve, your relationship with others can never be completely healthy. This is an essential ingredient to a healthy relationship and the growth and longevity of your relationship with others.
Effective and Empathetic communication –
Any kind of honest communication is a definite plus for your relationships. Still, effective and empathetic communication is like taking things to the next level and will enhance your relationship in more ways than you can imagine.
What do I mean when I say effective communication? I refer to exchanging ideas, thoughts, opinions, and knowledge to receive and understand the message with clarity and purpose.
When you can send messages and receive other people’s messages with empathy and understanding, you can walk with the knowledge that you have an advanced form of communication that will allow all your relationships to thrive.
Interest in each other and each other’s needs
Have you ever been in a relationship where there is nothing in common and neither person is interested in the other person beyond a need of their own? If you have, I would gather it was neither healthy nor did it last very long.
An essential ingredient of any healthy relationship is being interested in the other person and doing your part to meet their needs. Just as they should be doing their part to meet yours, when this step is locked in, you will find that your relationship almost has a natural flow to it, enhancing your overall harmony.
The ability to forgive and show grace.
This one is big, and in so many cases, our relationships lose forward movement. In every relationship, to overcome disappointments and hurts, you must forgive people’s doings and move past the hurts or disappointments that every relationship has to endure.
It is only when you can forgive and show the other person the grace required to let go so that your relationship can be truly healthy.
The ability to learn and grow from your mistakes.
This one is also an essential ingredient to a healthy relationship. When you develop the ability to learn from your mistakes and grow not just as an individual but also as a couple, you have one of the most incredible ingredients a relationship can have to find authentic success and growth in an extremely healthy way.
Questions you should ask yourself about your relationships to know whether they are good or bad for you.
- Do I feel safe with my partner?
- Can I be myself when I am around this person?
- Does this relationship build me up or tear me down,
- Can I tell them how I honestly feel?
- Is there supportive and Empathetic communication?
- Can I trust this person?
- Is there a power balance in this relationship?
- Are both of our needs being met?
- Do I feel loved or unloved?
What now?
Now comes the time to really step back and assess your relationship. Take the time.to ask and answer the questions above. Read and reread the information provided here, and if you still need more to make a clear choice as to whether your relationship is healthy or toxic, I would strongly encourage you to do more research and, more importantly, do some soul-searching as the absolute clarity will come from some time with yourself. Our best insights always come when we go within for answers.
Final Thoughts:
So now that we are coming to the end of this topic exploration, my greatest hope is that you take this information in and use it to ensure that your relationships are as healthy as possible. If, however, you find that this is not the case, I encourage you to do the work needed to repair what you can fix to help your relationships get healthier.
However, if for some reason you find that you can not make forward movement in your toxic relationship, then you will have the knowledge to know it is time to move on. Please take the steps needed if this is the case.
Now, I hope you found this information both interesting and informative. If you know someone who would gain important information from reading this newsletter, please share this with them. If you want to add your two senses or insights on this topic, please do so in the comment section below.
As always thank you for joining me along this journey of positively improving. I hope you will join me again next week. Until then, namaste.
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