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Mastering-the-Art-of-Maintaining-Healthy-Relationships-The-Aartery-Chronicles-TAC

Mastering the Art of Maintaining Healthy Relationships

Relationships are important, and we humans thrive on them. It is a known adage that “Man is a social animal”. Maintaining these relationships is an art and requires understanding, warmth, love, assistance, compassion, patience, loyalty, trust, respect, honesty, concern, forgiveness, and communication. With time, relationships have changed and are more complicated nowadays. Progressive thinking has shortened the lives of relationships, which are now measured on wealth, social status and ‘need basis’. No relative /friend will give you the time of day if you do not possess a certain wealth quotient or social stature. Very sad, but a bitter truth!

These are a few of the qualities that are required to forge a relationship:

  • be a good listener
  • be understanding
  • be respectful
  • be trusting and committed
  • be caring
  • be honest
  • be compassionate
  • be non-judgmental
  • be a good communicator
  • be loyal

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel

Types Of Relationships

Our connections with the people who are a part of our lives can be divided as follows

1) Personal relationships: Family relationships like parents-children, siblings – form our relationships, in which we can be ourselves, without worrying about “what they will think”. We are not judged for our actions and are accepted and loved as we are.

2) Marital relationships: Marital relationships are between spouses or life partners/live-in partners, irrespective of gender, caste, creed, or religion. These are relationships where we learn to love and respect each other, with our flaws, accept them, grow together and thrive.

3) Friendly relationships: These are the relations with our friends, which are lifelong, in which we can goof around and do as we please, knowing that our friends will always support and stand by us.  

4) Social relationships: Social relationships are with distant relatives, acquaintances, neighbours, community.

5) Professional relationships: Professional relationships are with our organisation, employers, colleagues, and staff members.

6) Support relationships: Support relationships are with those whose support is required in our daily lives – service providers, transporters, security staff, house-help, vendors, etc.

7) Spiritual relationships: Spiritual relationships are with our inner self and God/supreme power, which guide and teach us how to become detached.

8) Social media relationships: social media-based relationships are with our followers, celebrities, and various general groups.          

9) Self relationship: Self relationship is the relationship we have with ourselves – our inner self and outer appearance.

Benefits of relationships

Our relationships benefit us in myriad ways 

  • Boost our self- confidence
  • Effectively makes us communicate our thoughts and feelings
  • Build a rapport with others
  • Makes our mindset positive
  • Makes us happy
  • Makes us efficient
  • Makes us accept our mistakes and let go of unwanted feeling/emotions/ego
  • Makes us ready to help others without expectations
  • Increases our focus and discipline
  • Makes us good problem resolvers
  • Makes us capable of dealing with daily pressure/stress
  • Keeps us occupied, after all “the empty mind is the devil’s workshop”
  • Teaches us to live life to the fullest
  • Teaches us ‘sharing is caring’ so we can share our knowledge with those who need it
  • Makes us empathic, kind and compassionate
  • Makes us say no
  • Makes us meet new people and improve our communicative skills

Every relationship is work

We gravitate towards relationships that are fulfilling and positive. Our confidence levels rise with enhanced focus and concentration and lowered stress/anxiety. We learn and grow from each experience, becoming stronger, capable, mindful and sorted. We look inwards, grow spiritually, and detach from material possessions/toxic relationships/negativity as inner peace and happiness are of prime importance. Our relationship with ourselves makes us value ourselves by accepting ourselves with all our flaws and desires. We look good and presentable, thereby increasing our self-confidence. We learn to love ourselves, as we are, without considering others judging us.

Relationships require time, patience and effort to bloom. If you are too rude, disrespectful, egoistic, unforgiving, unkind, unreliable, proud, money-minded, selfish, angry, overbearing, then you may not thrive in relationships. Relationships are to be nurtured and not for selfish motives. However, toxic relationships are best broken because they cause nothing but pain, sadness and hurt, which may lead to substance abuse, depression or suicidal tendencies.  

It is our prerogative to maintain our relationships, an ongoing lifelong process. Every day we learn and grow. So, maintain your relationships, learn and grow.

Ms Rupal Sonpal

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