Five Tips for Healthy Relationships

As I mention in the video above, I’m talking about healthy relationships from two contexts.

The first: Are your relationships emotionally healthy?

The second: How are your closest relationships affecting your health, fitness and food choices?

So, keeping both of these in mind, below are five tips to building healthy relationships.

1. Personal Responsibility.

You: Ok, tessie, why did you have to start with this one? It’s not me, it’s them.

Me: Well my friends, you can believe what you wish, but I truly hold to the notion that we are the primary reason for how we are treated in every relationship.

I believe we teach people how to treat us. So, the first step is to take an inventory of how you are treating others.

Are you supportive? Are you reactive? Are you available? Do you listen? Are you compassionate? My bold invitation is to not only answer these questions by your own inventory, but actually ask the people closest to you. If you dare. 🙂

2. Gage Your Emotional Meter.

With each relationship in question, sit quietly and really think, if there was a meter, and you were looking at the needle, is it on the far left, very negative, or the far right, out of the park positive? How does that person make you feel most of the time?

3. Have The Tough Conversation.

OK, so it’s one thing to recognize that we have a relationship that maybe toxic and doesn’t make us feel good.

It’s a whole other process to actually do something about it. But nothing will ever happen unless you at least try. Now, after gaining clarity on your emotional gage with each relationship, this ‘tough’ conversation may be a no-brainer with some people. After letting them know you need to talk face to face with them, You simply say:

“Hey friend/co-worker/acquaintance/lover, this relationship is not working for me. I’ve noticed for a long time when I’m around you I feel sad, small, less-than, defeated, wrong, etc.

From the bottom of my heart I don’t mean this to say that you are making me feel this way, or that you have done anything wrong. I simply wanted to be very honest with where I’m at, and I think what’s best for me is to have a little distance.”

This conversation gets tougher when the negative relationship is not a relationship that will necessarily go away aka a family member or the like LOL.

But there are still some ways that you can take responsibility for navigating your own health in the relationship. You start with the same conversation above, and add in what you would like the relationship to be.

“Mom, I really love when you listen and when we talk about ‘xyz’ I feel so connected to you. I like it when we (go to lunch/laugh/go shopping/etc.) and when I feel supported by you. Do you think we can try ‘insert your request here’? And, is there anything I can do to improve our relationship?” If you are going to make requests, be prepared to give something as well.

Now, although this is written simply, please believe I know that it can be complex. Like I said, the point is that you come from a place of continually trying.

4. Be The Change.

On the health and fitness front, if you really are trying to transform habits with food and exercise, and your friends that you want to keep around don’t share those values, here are a few things you can try.

• Don’t be offended if they’re not into it. And at the same time, don’t feel bad about what you’re up to. It’s important they know that you are committed to trying on new habits like eating whole foods, limiting alcohol, and eating organic. The ones who are inspired and interested, will let you know 🙂
• Start with just one buddy. Have at least one person who you can share ideas with, be accountability buddies, workout partners, share recipes, etc.
• Lead a group challenge. You can do something like this on meetup.com with a bigger group of people and it might even be a great way to meet a few new friends that would be on board. Or, you can do it with a small group of existing buddies and do a 30-day healthy habit challenge. With this, please please don’t do a 30-day quick-fix, lose 15 pounds type of challenge for the sake of losing weight. Do the challenge as a way to come out the other side potentially picking up one small, tiny new healthy habit that you will actually hold onto.

5. Relax Into the Process.

Relationships are designed to challenge us 🙂 and the good thing about that is that the other side of the challenge results in personal growth.

So wherever your relationships are at, negative or positive, as you go through this process, remind yourself that everything is perfect the way that it is- meaning it is there for your personal growth and your highest purpose.

When we approach any life circumstance from this perspective, it is like taking a huge deep breath and melting into the beautiful, intricate journey we are all on.

Thank you for watching/listening, I look forward to staying connected. If you have inquiries, you can always contact me here: tessie@tessietracy.com

Here’s to your Healthy Dinner Table Buddies,

Tessie

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