12 minute read

By Bethany Rees

A large percentage of new year resolutions were created around the goal to become a healthier person. Typically this means we become more conscious of what we put into our bodies and we use resistance (weight, distance, aerobic movement) to build stronger muscles. With these habits of eating, drinking, and using exercise in a safe way, we will in fact become healthier in every part of our physical body. 

Isn’t it amazing that just by watching what we put into our mouths and moving our bodies more, our body begins healing itself. One of my favorite movies is Here Comes the Boom with Kevin James. In his amazing biology lesson he explains how well the body can work to heal itself. 

Yes, our bodies are amazing creations, but so are our relationships with others. We need deep meaningful relationships with others to mentally survive just like we need our bodies to physically survive. And, just like our bodies, our relationships can become healthier when we are more conscious of what we put into them, and how we use existing resistance to grow stronger. 

Whether it is romantic relationships, family or friend relationships, or work/public relationships there are some intentional actions you can take to foster healthier relationships. 

5 Intentional Ways to Foster Healthier Relationships:

1. Make God Your Absolute First Priority 
2. Pray for Your Relationships
3. Stop the Stories and Toxic Spiral of Thoughts
4. Remove Image Management & Build Healthy Boundaries 
5. Lean In and Turn Towards 

1) Make God Your Absolute First Priority: Put God above your spouse, child, relative, friend or coworker

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. ~Matthew 6:33

It’s usually polite to put others ahead of ourselves, but to put others before God? That’s the antithesis of the whole message of the bible. If you want to change your relationship with anyone, start with your relationship with God. Focusing on your relationship with God will greatly impact your relationship with every other person in your life. 

Why? By spending time with God, He will reveal more of who He is. And remember what we learned last week: God is AGAPE love (What’s Love Got to Do With It post). He will also reveal more things about you, your intrinsic motivations or desires, and whether that aligns with His. Through time with God, your heart and thoughts will be transformed to become more like Him, and you will better understand how to love others.

So how do we actually put God first? 

Start by looking at your typical day and your schedule. Who/what do you spend the most time with, talking/listening to, and thinking about? Where does God fall in the order of people or things? 

Are you more likely to spend time running kids to their activities, working on your job/hobbies, or binge watching your shows than you are spending time focused on God? 

Now don’t be legalistic in your thinking and start justifying your schedule ("but I’m the parent of small children," "but I work 12 hour shifts", etc). Of course the parents of small children are way more needed for the safety and well-being of their children, and a 12 hour work day demands your attention. So in reflecting, be holistic. Do you work to focus your thoughts on God throughout your day or just when you are at church, before meals, and as you fall into the bed at night? 

You see, most of our time spent with God should be beyond the church doors and an occasional meal time prayer.  There is so much more time and attention we can give Him throughout the day (Bible reading, prayer, thought life, worship songs, serving others, etc), yet we tend to give God our last fruits (what is left over) instead of our first fruits (prior to knowing the scarcity or abundance of our time). If we are being honest, we tend to focus on other things or people. 

The first step to building a healthy relationship with ANYONE is to put God first in your life. An “easy to implement” first step is to start scheduling time with God with activities you are already doing. Add bible reading to your morning routine of drinking coffee. Listen to worship music while you are showering and getting ready for work. Pray with your children as you drop them off for school or your spouse before you leave for work. Listen to worship music, audio bible readings, or sermons on your commute. Turn your work passwords into scripture references so you can think on the verse every time you type it. Before going into a meeting, pray for the people involved and the decisions needed to be made. Look how many times you can add God to your day and your relationships… and those ideas all take place before lunch. 

By focusing on God first and foremost, your heart towards every person you encounter will begin to change for the better. That’s what God does: He restores, He provides, He protects, He comforts, He guides. 

2) Pray for Your Relationships: Pray for God’s Will, Not Your Own

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. ~Ephesians 6:18

In case you haven’t thought about it, all people are different from us as individuals. They have their own free will so they cannot be controlled by you or me…no matter how much pressure we apply to the relationship. Whether it is a difficult spouse, child, parent, colleague, or work stakeholder, we cannot force him/her to act a certain way. In fact, it’s important to know that our expectations of that person may also be cattywampus, askew or awry. 

A confession example is when I was a newly wed at church. I would listen to the sermon focusing on whether or not my spouse was internalizing the message. I would think things like “I sure hope my husband heard that because he needs to work on it.” Instead of listening for my own spiritual growth, I used to listen and hope that my spouse got the message. Pitiful…LOL! So as we pray, let’s make sure we pray for God’s will and not our own because God’s will is always better than ours. 

To build a healthy relationship with others, we must remember that we serve an all-powerful God, period. He knows everyone and everything, and he cares for everyone and everything, and His plans are always the best. Thus, we should focus on praying for the people in our lives, even those we are really struggling with…nay, especially those we are really struggling with. By prostrating ourselves before God and pouring out our hearts and our concerns, it relieves us from carrying the burdens on our own, and it allows God to refocus our hearts on Him as He guides us through our given situations with others.

Even if relationships become strained enough to be severed, it is imperative that we do not give up on praying for that person and our relationship with him/her. You see, even though some of us take the harder path, God is always pursuing us, His children. So pour out your heart to God about those people in your lives, and be amazed at how He can grow and restore those relationships. 

3) Stop the Stories and Toxic Spiral of Thoughts: Lay Tracks for Different “Trains of Thought”

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.~ Philippians 4:8

One of the biggest root causes of conflict within relationships is a lack of clear and meaningful dialogue. Oh sure we talk a lot or “listen” a little, but rarely do we have meaningful dialogue in which both parties seek to understand each other. We usually fill in gaps of missing information with our own stories about the person we are speaking to and their intentions. Most stories paint us as the victor or the victim and the other person as the loser and villain. We then develop a spiral of toxic thoughts and hold on to them as though they are true. As mentioned in the book Crucial Accountability and my blog post “What we have here is a failure to communicate,” 

“While we provide ourselves grace because we know our own heart, we often tell ourselves 'ugly or unflattering' stories about the other person and their intentions, and then act on those stories as though they were true. ”

To foster a healthy relationship, work to stop any story telling that your mind may jump to, and instead seek to understand the other person first. You can in fact stop your current train of thought and lay a new track.  Don’t assume you know all the facts or their intentions; instead make it safe and in a humble tone ask an open ended question that allows them to share their thoughts or intentions. 

4) Remove Image Management & Build Healthy Boundaries: Know what is you and what is not you

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. ~Galatians 6:7-8

So often our relationships are self focused.  We focus the relationship around a mirror image of us. In other words, we tend to believe that the way the other person behaves or responds is a reflection on us. Or as Sharon Hodde Miller put it in her book Free of Me, 

“Rather than seeing them - who they are, what they need, and how to love them - we see ourselves, our aspirations, and our fears.” 

So we work to manage the image others project by putting pressure on them to be like and behave in a way that is more closely aligned with ourselves. 

Image management is toxic to relationships because it is focused on one and not both parties, and confuses the boundaries of what is us and what is the other person. When we do not have clear boundaries between ourselves and others, it is a lot easier to become co-dependent, controlling, or taken advantage of.

Being a long time educator I have seen parents idolize their children by making the child’s success their top priority. I’ve consoled parents that were angry or sobbing over their child’s grades or “play time on the court” because it “ruined” their future at their premier college of choice. It was almost as if the parents’ livelihoods depended on the success of their 16 or 17 year old. That is a lot of unneeded pressure on the child, and the parent. I again couldn’t agree more with Sharon Hodde Miller when she speaks specifically about parenting and image management when she says: 

“When image management steers our parenting, our kids become responsible for their reputation and our reputation, their insecurities and our insecurities, their fears and our fears.”

For this reason, it is imperative that we work to build healthy boundaries between who we are and what represents us, versus who our loved ones or colleagues are and what is NOT a reflection of us. In establishing clear boundaries between ourselves and others we are more free to let go of the pressure in the relationship and better love them for who they are and where they are at in life. Even if where they are in life is aggravating (e.g. a teenage child or a disgruntled colleague) in which we should go back to #1 and #2 above. 

5) Lean In and Turn Towards: Recognizing Bids for Connection

And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them. ~Mark 10:13-16

Have you ever felt rejected by someone? It hurts doesn’t it. Whether it was a straight forward “I don’t like you,” or a non-verbal turning away from you, rejection never feels good. 

As a part of Dr. John Gottman’s research of couples and what separated relationship “masters” from relationship “disasters,” he discovered and coined the term “bid for connection.” Bids are any attempt (verbal or non-verbal) from one person to another for attention, affirmation, affection or any other positive connection. A brief synopsis of his research has been found in multiple articles like the one from Logan Ury, “Want to Improve Your Relationship? Start Paying More Attention to Bids.” In her article, Ury summarizes Gottman’s research in which there are three ways to respond to someone’s bid for connection: 

• Turning towards (acknowledging the bid)
• Turning away (ignoring or missing the bid)
• Turning against (rejecting the bid in an argumentative or belligerent way)

How we respond to others’ bids for connections are internalized by those that put their bid for connection out there. When there is consistency in the relationship of us turning away or against bids, the relationship moves from hurt to harmed. 

To build healthier relationships, learn to recognize other people’s bids for connection with you and turn towards them. One way you can do this is to learn how the people in your relationships relate to others. For example, you can learn about their personalities or love languages or you could just ask them. Some general, easier to notice bids are: sighs, proximity to you, starting up a conversation, a request for your time (hang out, watch something, etc), or physical outreach (loving squeeze or pat).  The point is that we need to become less self-focused and more “others” focused. When we get out of our heads and pay attention to what others are saying and doing, it will produce very fertile soil for growing deep and meaningful relationships. 

We all want to build healthy relationships with those around us. So as you reflect on all the different types of relationships in your life, remember the key is to work to become less self-focused and more God-focused and others-focused. These are, after all, the greatest two commandments: 

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” ~Matthew 22:37-39

Know Better. Do Better. Live Better. Foster Healthy Relationships

Rocks before Sand!

Scripture: 

"Above all, love (agape) each other deeply, because love covers over a multiple of sins."

~ 1 Peter 4:8 (agape emphasis is mine)

Theme Songs: 

Casting Crowns - Broken Together

Casting Crowns - Slow Fade

 Pat Benatar - We Belong

References Used:

• “Kevin James dropping science with a parallel on society (Here Comes the Boom)” YouTube, uploaded by Clips2evoke, 24 January 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H42e_cR06Q. 
• Hodde Miller, Sharon (2017). Free of Me: Why Life is Better When It’s NOT ABOUT YOU. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books.
• Patterson, Grenny, Maxfield, McMillian, Switzler. Crucial Accountability. New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2013. Print.
• Ury, Logan (February 11, 2019). Want to Improve Your Relationship? Start Paying More Attention to Bids. The Gottman Institute. https://www.gottman.com/blog/want-to-improve-your-relationship-start-paying-more-attention-to-bids/
• The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=james+1%3A2-4&version=ESV