Personal Reflection
I
woke up this morning really wanting to write something. As I struggled
with what to write about, I found myself thinking, 'should it be something
encouraging, personal, honest?' What I
landed on was something that has been on my mind for a little while.
Interestingly
enough, something related to this just came up with family members here in the
cabin. The discussion was around how someone can be happy or sad about
losing a friend. While I see how people may can think that this isn't a
happy situation, there is some
merit to the fact that they lost that friend for a reason. There was something about the relationship
that caused pain or stress. To rid that pain/stress, the
relationship needed to end; thus creating a happier life for the impacted
party. I guess from my perspective, if both parties are happy and the
relationship is beneficial to both, there is no reason for it to end.
Why
is this relevant to my post today? Relationships are something very
important to me. That being said, I put effort into nourishing and
protecting them. It bothers me to have people in my life that fabricate
their feelings/interests for selfish reasons. So let me explain that a
little further. Relationships
are built on trust, respect and some type of commonality between
two people. In order for them to be
successful, you have to truly care (or even like) the other person. If
you don't, it becomes work to be with or around them and the feelings of
dislike become more visible.
Emotional
discord causes many unhealthy habits and responses to normal situations. Thinks of it as a job you hate going to, every day you wake
up and pray to simply get through it as quickly as possible without any
setbacks. You give yourself pep talks
and try to avoid things that you know will cause more work on your end. If we aren’t paying attentions that can easily
happen in relationships as well. Do you
really want that continued stress in your life?
As my husband likes to say so often, have
you done the risk/reward analysis
on the relationships in your life? I
know it is hard because of what these relationships represent. I TRULY DO UNDERSTAND. There are
relationships that I wish were better, stronger; but I couldn’t be in them by
myself and I couldn’t continue carrying the emotional baggage that came with
them.
Depending
on the nature of the relationship, they don’t have to completely end. Some can be salvaged but the determination of
what’s most important to you and your life as an individual has to occur. Once you know what that is, you can decide
your approach. Maybe you have a
conversation with that individual about what you are feeling to see if it can
be salvaged; maybe you just slowly let the contact with that individual die out;
maybe you the contact is just on holidays or events. The choice is yours. I just encourage us all to make that
assessment of all existing relationships (personal and professional). Are they comfortable? Is there a calmness
that comes over you when you think of them?
Are they beneficial to both of you?
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