What Is a Healthy Relationship?

Healthy relationships include not only romantic partners but also the relationships we have with ourselves, family, friends, work, food, pets, nature, and community. Healthy relationships are grounded in mutual respect, trust, and open communication.

Most importantly, take care of your relationship with yourself. Healthy relationships are built from the inside out.

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Speaker 7 0:43

Welcome back to a Magical Life. I'm your host Magic Markley. Today I wanted to address a question that I get given a lot when I'm on other people's podcasts, and that is what is a healthy relationship? A healthy relationship isn't just the partner in your life. A relationship is the one that you have with yourself. One that you have with your children, with your parents, with your pets, with nature, with obviously your physical and emotional body. It is a work relationship. It can be a relationship to your community. There's a lot of types of relationships, but. Healthy relationship is something that harbors mutual respect, trust, open communication, and support. We've spoken before about the body's one job in the world, and that is to keep you safe. Healthy relationships help you stay safe and the relationship that you have with yourself. For example, now if it's healthy. You'll respect yourself. You won't be putting yourself down. You won't be denigrating yourself. You won't be lowering yourself to adjust to other people's expectations, which we've also spoken about on this podcast before. A healthy relationship with yourself means that you will value who you are, what you are, what you stand for, and what you can do for yourself and others around you. A healthy relationship with your family. Means keeping toxic people at arm's length, protecting your peace and supporting your children, but also having them support you in return. This mutual respect has to come in. We are not just givers and givers and givers as parents. We can receive also. And healthy relationship with your friends. We've spoken about this before and you know, I had a big L painted on my forehead for a long time because I allowed my friends in inverted commas to take advantage of me. I thought that I could only be liked if I was useful to them, and that is not a healthy relationship with myself or with them. So a healthy relationship with friends means that. You can vent to your friends, but they can vent to you. You can support your friends and they can support you. You can lift up your friends, build them up, and they can do the same for you. A healthy relationship with our food is important with nature. We've spoken about that before. We really do need to get out into nature. It has all of the healing properties we need, and we far too often shut ourselves away from it. We need to build and maintain healthy relationships. Friendships don't just happen. They create a need for work on both sides. I have a very dear friend, and I've spoken to you guys about this before on this podcast, and she lives three and a half hours away from me. Do we talk all the time? No. Can we reach out and for an hour, listen to each other, support each other? Maintain our relationship. Yes, we can. And we do. And I would have to say she is one of my closest friends and yet one that I speak to the least of all of my smaller circle of friends, but I know there's no judgment there. She knows that too. And when we do get together, it's like we just saw each other yesterday and that is a healthy relationship. Healthy relationships with food. We've spoken about this before. Feed your body. Fuel your body. It requires that from you, but respect your food. You know, I had years of eating disorders because I didn't fuel my body. I didn't have a healthy relationship with my food. I used it to punish myself to control my life. That is not okay. So a healthy relationship with food. You look forward to eating that meal. You're eating it with all of your senses. You're smelling it. You are looking at it. You're tasting it, you are touching it. You can hear it cooking, you can hear it sizzling, whatever it is that you're doing. Or if it's a salad, you can hear the snap and the freshness of the vegetables. This is a healthy relationship with food. Do you need to go overboard and have five servings? No, that's not healthy. You need to eat enough to fuel your body, to satisfy your hunger, and to really enjoy with all of your senses what that meal is and what it's doing for you. Healthy relationships with our pets. Having pets does not mean that you have someone that is subservient to you that. Waits for your every request. That is not okay. Give your pet space. But again, just as you would with your kids, give them boundaries. Let them know that you are there to give them love and peace and security when they need it. Healthy relationships with wild animals outside. Now, this is something I see a lot of. In my wildlife rescue part of my life, don't be feeding the wild birds. Just don't. That is not a healthy relationship with them. What you think you are doing to help them is not. It is killing them. Do not do that. Don't use poisons in your garden. Have a healthy relationship. Try to use permaculture principles where you can and. The birds, the animals will show you their beauty and their absolute amazing existence in a healthy way. Bring wildlife to your garden because what they can do for your happiness and your dopamine levels, your serotonin levels is just amazing. But respect them and treat them with kindness. Have that healthy relationship. Understand that everything you do in life affects someone else. Now, this doesn't mean shying away or changing yourself to suit others. As I said, I've done enough years of that to know and to learn and to be able to tell you be who you are, but try not to hurt others. Sometimes it's unavoidable. I know. Sometimes we just can't be the perfect person. But try not to hurt others. Don't use people, don't hurt people. Don't make yourself seem better just by putting them down. Don't do that. It's just not okay. It's not cool. It's not healthy for them, and it's not healthy for you. Be a better person and encourage other people to get there. Now, healthy work relationships, something I've been thinking of for quite some time to talk to you about. You don't need to put other people down to make yourself seem better, but by the same token, you don't need to cover up their laziness. Their inability to do something or their inability to want to do something or want to achieve or want to better themselves. You're not there to do any of the coverup, okay? But you're not there to be a porn in their games either, and don't support mediocrity. The reason I say this is because we often don't lift ourselves up in the workplace, right? We don't take pride in what we're doing. We don't shout from the rooftops basically, Hey, I'm really good at what I'm doing and I'm so proud of myself doing this. Maybe we have to, maybe we have to raise the bar to have our colleagues and workmates meet us there. Instead, we lower the bar so that a minimum achievement from us looks great. Don't do that. Raise the bar and encourage others to meet you at that higher level, and you will have a much healthier, much more cohesive workplace when you're all achieving. We don't want just one person achieving. We all want to achieve. We all wanna work for the same goal, and that is to be the best people we can be. Now, we've spoken before about young relationships. Encourage your young people to try to get out there. It's a very fearful world. It's a very hateful world these days. You know, what my kids are going through is not at all like what I went through. It's harder now to meet people. Encourage them to try and support them. And as long as they know who they are and they're standing strong in that, and they're raising the bar higher for themselves, they'll find the right good relationship with your pets. Have a healthy relationship. Don't stand for poor behavior. Give them boundaries. Give 'em expectations. Give them ways that they know they can be an integral part of your family in a healthy way. Don't allow them to misbehave every single day because then you're going to have bigger problems later on as they get older. We've spoken before about healthy relationships with food, and I just mentioned before, but make sure you eat seasonally. Because the nutrients in that food that you are growing is highest at certain seasons of the year, and this is super important. So what are 12 signs of healthy relationships? Respect, mutual respect. I said it before, I'll say it again. Trust. That each party in the relationship has trust. Okay? Your food won't trust you, but you can trust your food. That when things get tough, you find a way to work through it. With communication, with response, you know, how many times do we get annoyed with someone in our lives and we go quiet on them? Don't slow communication down. They're not mind readers. Speak it out. Talk it out. Communication is key. Agree that sometimes you have differences, and that's okay. If we were all the same, life would be boring forgiveness. Forgive others. Forgive yourself. Forgive the weather. Forgive public transport. You know, there are some things that are completely out of our control, and then when some things do happen, we hold onto it and we keep re-injuring ourselves. So make sure that you can forgive. Commitment is another thing to any relationship, any healthy relationship. Be committed. That includes the relationship with yourself. Make a commitment to yourself. We've spoken about kindness. We've spoken about enjoying other people's companies and sharing and supporting each other's goals. Now this goes for your family and your pets also make good decisions. Any relationship requires you to make decisions, Making healthy and good decisions is so, so important. Don't rush to judgment. Don't rush to a decision. There's time. You can decide what is healthy for you in your life, and you can create a healthier process to achieve things. Don't dodge the difficult stuff. You know, we always put things in the too hard basket, and I think sometimes we actually have to face head on the difficult things because that's how we grow. You know, it's a little bit like when you cut your finger with some paper. You get a paper cut, it hurts like buggery. As soon as you do it right, then it starts to get red and itchy and a little bit inflamed. That's the healing process starting. That's good. Inflammation. Right. That's trying to start the repair process. So when we dodge difficult situations or decisions or whatever it may be, we are missing out on starting the healing process. You wanna really, you. Take control, not in an over controlling way, but you wanna start the process of healing. And you know, that may be that you have that difficult discussion. It may be that you address something you don't quite like in yourself. It may be that you have to start eating something that in your mind you don't like. Guess what? Your taste buds change over time and you may like it now and it's probably very healthy for you. So. Don't dodge the difficult situations. Be comfortable in who you are and be independent. Now, this is something very important for men and women to learn, and that is if you are okay in yourself, you won't be as susceptible to the wrong people in your life. Allow yourself to have down days. If you're in a romantic relationship or in a family relationship, be honest. Just say to the people around you, do you know what? I'm just not feeling so great today. Give them an opportunity to support you and build you up, and this is so, so important because you know, too often, too often we shy away and we don't let people know what's going on with our thoughts, feelings, and emotions. And so we react in a way that isn't truthful and then they react or they process that facade. And so their response is to something that's not truthful. And then we get annoyed because we're like, why can't they see me for who I am? Guess what? You didn't project who you were, you projected how you wanted them to see you 'cause you weren't feeling so great. So. We need to create that space for people to have healthy relationships with us and really comprehend that what we project isn't always who we are. But if we're getting annoyed with them because they're reacting to what we project, how can we have a healthy relationship now? Talking in circles here a little bit. What it comes down to is just a few things. Work on yourself, project who you are, not what you want them to see. Work on mutual respect and healthy admiration. From everything to the food that you eat, to what you wear, to nature, to your pets, to your kids, to your partners, to your parents, to your friends. Work on that. And the final thing, and this is just so important, is respect yourself. Really, really respect yourself. You are not. Who you used to be. You are not the decisions you made, the things that you did, the health issues that you may have had. None of that is who you are. Who you are today, who you understand yourself to be is what's important. You know, I, I made a quote many years ago that our social and health mistakes don't define who we are. Mistakes are that inflammation that starts the healing mistakes are what we learn from to become better, to do better. And that is what is important. Don't shy away from mistakes. Don't feel guilty about mistakes. We all make them. It's how you bounce back. It's what you do to recover. It's what you do to learn from it, and it's what you do to move on that matters. And this all builds healthy relationships. Just a short one from me today. But if there's something else you would like to talk about, definitely pop on over to our Facebook page at a Magical Life Podcast. Send a message, get into the conversation. Have a look at our website, www.holisticnaturalhealth.com au, and really reach out and get involved. Let's help build healthy relationships together. For now, please like, subscribe, share, and review this podcast everywhere that you see it and go forth and create your magical life.