00:00 

Hey there, you're listening to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 27, "Healthier Relationships." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:22 

Well, hello there, my friends, so glad to have you here today. Thanks again for joining me. I really really appreciate you taking the time out of your life to listen to this and to hopefully become a better person and a stronger person and someone who understands a little bit better how to really find the contentment and the satisfaction that comes from a well-lived life. 

00:49 

Now if you didn't take offense from my last podcast then here you are. So I appreciate you being here. Thank you so much. My last podcast, if you haven't listened to it, was called Taking Offense so and I probably said some things that could have offended but here you are. So I'm proud of you for showing up and thank you and let's talk today about healthier relationships. 

01:13 

Alright, one of the most important things we can do to build a healthy relationship is to have healthy boundaries. We have talked about boundaries, but in review boundaries help define what is you and what is me, what is okay and what is not okay within that relationship. When we have healthy boundaries we keep resentment at bay and we allow our heart to be open to love and compassion, right? When we don't have healthy boundaries, we allow resentment to creep into our hearts and to fill up all the space in there that should be used for love and compassion. So really the heart of bad boundaries is resentment, right? So we've got to learn to not do things that help to create resentment. 

02:02 

So a very important part of establishing healthy relationships is having a very clear understanding of what is you, where do you begin, and where does the relationship begin. Alright, I saw a diagram a few years ago that changed the way that I see relationships. It was on Kristen Snowden's website. You can find that at kristensnowden.com. I will post this graphic that I'm going to talk about in the show notes so that you can access it, so that you can see what we're looking at if this interests you. 

02:33 

This graphic starts off by showing three circles side by side. One circle in the middle represents the relationship and two circles on either side overlap into the relationship circle. The two outside circles represent the two people in the relationship. Because the people circles overlap into the relationship circle, feelings and emotions that one person feel bleed into the relationship circle and are picked up by the other person in the relationship because their circles overlap into that relationship circle, okay? So now some of you may be thinking that that's what we need to really be invested in a relationship and we may not see this as a bad thing. But let's look a little bit more closely as to what can happen when this occurs, when we have this type of relationship. 

03:27 

When one person is sad, the other person becomes sad. The two people in the relationship become dependent upon each other for their feelings. They become enmeshed with one another, not really knowing exactly where one person begins and where the other one ends. In a healthy relationship, each person is 100% responsible for their own feelings, their own happiness, and their own sadness. They are each responsible for their own growth and development and they don't rely upon the other person to fulfill or to complete them, okay? But in this unhealthy relationship that we started talking off with, the two people in the relationship are dependent upon the other person to help them be whole or to help them be complete. They don't have a sense of identity without the other person. 

04:26 

Now, this is not to say that we don't look to other people and other relationships to help us work through problems and tough situations, we definitely do. And it's not saying that we don't have a confidant in our companions and that we don't trust and support each other. But what it is saying is that I can have that person there to support me and help me figure out things when necessary, but the actual fixing is not their responsibility; it's mine. And this type of unhealthy relationship begins to expect the other person to share in my responsibility, if not be entirely responsible for their feelings and experiences because in that situation if I'm not happy, it's my partner's fault. And these are really tough relationships to be in because we lose our sense of identity, we lose our sense of what we love and don't love without the other person's input and we lose our sense of who we are and what we value...except that we value that person so much that we may feel we can't even survive without them. 

05:35 

Okay, but let's take a look at a healthy relationship in Kristen Snowden's diagram she shows another set of three circles and again the relationship circle is in the middle and there are two people circles on either side but the circles border with the relationship circle they don't overlap in two the relationship circle. So here we have two separate people who are connected by a relationship, but they aren't enmeshed with the relationship. So in this more healthy situation, each person takes complete responsibility for who they are, what they think, how they feel, and how they act. Each of them look to the relationship for support and comfort, but they are not dependent on the person for their happiness, and they also don't get sucked into the other person's sadness or the other person's anger. One person in the relationship can be very depressed and the other person doesn't pick up their depression and hold it close. The other person can and will empathize with them, but they are not defined by what their partner is feeling. They don't become what their partner is. When we become defined by our relationship, we start giving up responsibility for ourselves and we find it easier and easier to blame our partner for our unhappiness or our sadness or our frustration. 

07:09 

So I'm going to give you one example of what this can look like. Now obviously there are so many ways that this can look that we could never identify them all, but I want to help you see how this plays out in one situation. I was recently working with a client and I'm going to call her Julie here, and we were talking about her adult daughter who has a pretty severe chronic illness, and this daughter still lives with Julie and it tends to be a pretty tough and enmeshed relationship. And here is where we get to the thought model, because the thinking is what creates the unhealthy aspects of this relationship. 

07:48 

Alright, so Julie expressed the thought while she was telling me about the situation that there may have been some things in her daughter's childhood that may have contributed to her chronic illnesses. So the circumstance, if we start looking at the model, the circumstance is that her daughter has a chronic illness. That's a fact, that's something that could be proven in a court of law. The next thing is that Julie gets to have a thought about that fact. And Julie's thought that she gave me about the chronic illness is that "there may have been some things I could have done when she was a child to keep this from happening." So there's her thought, right? So then thoughts create our feelings. The feeling that Julie has from this thought is guilt. She has guilt that it might be her fault that her daughter has this illness. 

08:38 

So what does Julie do? What are her actions? Remember feelings create actions. What are her actions? She tries to make herself feel better by overcompensating for her daughter by enabling certain unhealthy behaviors. She gives in to her daughter's mood swings. She gets drawn into feeling depressed when her daughter is struggling and feeling depressed herself. She tries to take over her daughter's health plans. She tells her daughter what she should be doing differently. Okay, so these are all actions that result from that feeling of guilt. 

09:14 

So what's the ultimate result of all these actions? The ultimate result is that Julie is now contributing to the chronic illness by not giving her daughters the tools to work through it. Isn't it amazing how the result circles right back to the thoughts? The thought created the result that Julie is responsible for the illness. And here's where we start to see the enmeshment begin in the relationship. This is where we can see just how unhealthy relationships really struggle to connect, all right? As soon as Julie has the thought that it's her fault and she feels guilty for her daughter's illness, her thoughts have turned inward. Now her behavior, her action, is trying to address her own feelings of guilt. Her thoughts have become selfish, which is ultimately going to create selfish actions of trying to alleviate her own guilt, okay? 

10:20 

And you see that in the fact that she would get drawn in to feeling depressed. She would try and take over her daughter's health plans. She would tell her daughter what she should be doing differently, all right? So she's trying to alleviate her own guilt. She is not helping her daughter to become stronger and more self-sufficient in dealing with her chronic illnesses. She's actually enabling her daughter to depend on her more and more because Julie is trying to feel better herself. She's trying to not feel guilty. And in the process, she's crossing all sorts of boundaries since this daughter is an adult and should be taking care of all those things herself. 

11:03 

In fact, Julie mentioned that her daughter will tell her to stop telling her what to do. Her daughter is becoming resentful toward her because she is continuing to treat her like a child rather than the adult that she is. So remember, boundaries, one of the biggest indicators is that resentment that starts to build up in our heart. And so Julie's daughter is starting to feel that resentment because boundaries are being crossed when Julie is trying to do too many things for her daughter and she's doing too many things. Why? Because she is trying to alleviate her own guilt. Alright? She's turned inward. So she's become selfish in her behaviors. Her behaviors are selfish, trying to alleviate her own feelings. 

11:57 

So Julie and I talked about how this scenario would be different if she had a different thought about her daughter's chronic illness. So instead of thinking the chronic illness was her fault, what if she thought, "I bet it's so challenging for her to have this illness." So when we talked about this and I asked Julie what feeling that thought would create, she immediately identified compassion. She immediately said, "oh if my thoughts were on the challenge that she's going through, I would feel so much more compassion toward my daughter." So if that's the feeling, what actions would that compassion create? Julie identified that she would be more patient when her daughter was struggling. She would listen more intently and without frustration. She would give her daughter the space she needed to work through her physical, emotional, and mental struggles that are all associated with this illness. 

12:55 

The result here from those actions is that then Julie helps to create a relationship where her daughter feels supported in confronting such a challenge. Okay, now see how that result circles right back around to the thought, right? That it must be such a challenge to have such an illness and then her daughter feels supported in that. The relationship as well is strengthened because boundaries were respected and the connection that is so necessary for a healthy relationship is deepened. When Julie engages in listening more intently, giving her daughter the space to work through her stuff, her daughter doesn't feel resentful toward that, but rather her daughter feels compassion and love and gratitude for her mom, right? It changes how she feels, all right? 

13:51 

And this happened... And because Julie's new thought is not focused inward on her own pain, but it's focused outward on her daughter. Her new thought helps her to become the person that she really is and that she really wants to be, a person who respects boundaries, a person who gives her daughter the space to walk her own path and figure out how to manage her illness as an adult. So, where Julie consistently feels as though she takes on her daughter's depression and frustrations, this new thought model helps her to feel compassion and to treat her daughter with empathy without having to internalize her daughter's emotions. 

14:34 

In this new model, Julie is no longer enmeshed with her daughter. She's actually more compassionate and loving than she was when she was feeling guilt. And their new boundary relationship allows both of them the space they need to discover their true selves while respecting and loving the other person. Julie no longer feels the necessity of taking on her daughter's depression, of taking on her daughter's anxiety and frustrations. She can be compassionate and she can be empathetic toward it, but she no longer feels that she is a part of that. She and Julie can go on and be happy and be loving and kind and whatever else she wants to be without having to become what her daughter is. 

15:24 

Alright, so this creates a much healthier relationship and a stronger connection because having clear and appropriate boundaries are so important in our relationships. And if we value the relationship, we have to have clear boundaries. And generally the closer the relationship is to you, the more boundaries there are going to be and the more clear they need to be. And clear boundaries begin with thoughts that help us to be clear about where one person begins and the other person  ends. Thoughts that allow us to feel compassion and love for the other person rather than thoughts that cause selfish feelings. 

16:07 

I love growing up, don't you? I love when the pieces start coming together and I start realizing the power and the control that I have been given as a human person. I have been given control over my thoughts, over my feelings, over my actions. I have control over the results I see in my life. Can I control the circumstances? No, just as Julie cannot control the fact that her daughter has a chronic illness. But what she can control are the thoughts that she has, the thoughts that then create her feelings, that create her actions, that then create the ultimate results in her life. Amazing stuff. I love it and I love it when it all starts coming together like a big puzzle. 

16:58 

If you would love some personal help from me and to learn how to have healthier, more boundaried relationships or just navigate some really tough situations you've got going on in your life, you can contact me at tanyahale.com. You can book a free 20 minute coaching session to get you started because I would love to help you discover how to have healthier boundaries with people that you love. And last of all, if you feel like this podcast is helping you out, please do three things. Subscribe, then you'll never miss an episode. You can leave a review and you can also share this with people who you feel would also benefit from this kind of information. I hope you have a really, really terrific day and that all goes well with you and I will talk to you later. 

17:41 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya!