Communication in Healthy Relationships

Maintaining healthy relationships can be challenging, particularly when mental health challenges are involved. Effective communication and establishing clear boundaries become essential components in fostering understanding, support, and respect. So let's focus on how to navigate relationships while managing mental health challenges, emphasizing the importance of open communication and establishing healthy boundaries.

Open and Honest Communication: Clear and open communication is the cornerstone of any healthy relationship, and it becomes even more crucial when mental health challenges are present. Sharing your thoughts, feelings, and needs with your loved ones can help them better understand your experiences and provide the support you require. Be honest about your emotions and articulate your boundaries and expectations regarding your mental health. Encourage your loved ones to ask questions and actively listen to their concerns. Together, you can work towards a deeper understanding and create an environment that fosters empathy and compassion. Look up “I Messages” in communication for a really easy and effective communication strategy.

Establishing Healthy Boundaries: Setting and maintaining boundaries  are vital for maintaining your mental well-being while navigating relationships. Identify what feels comfortable and healthy for you, and communicate those boundaries clearly with your loved ones. This could include limits on discussing certain topics, understanding when you need space or alone time, or establishing boundaries around providing emotional support. Remember, setting boundaries is not selfish—it is an act of self-care that ensures you can prioritize your mental health needs. Mutual respect for each other's boundaries strengthens the foundation of your relationship and fosters a healthier dynamic. I talk a lot about boundaries and use a green stop sign as an example (if I haven’t shared that with you, let me know and I will), how can you use your green stop sign in your relationship?

Reflecting on your own relationships and mental health challenges, how have your mental health challenges influenced your relationships in the past, and what boundaries or communication strategies could you implement to promote healthier dynamics? Explore any patterns you have noticed and consider how you can effectively communicate your needs and expectations with your loved ones. What have you tried (and maybe are still trying) that isn’t working?

Journal Prompt: A Deeper Look At Resiliency

I want you to focus on resilience and how it impacts different aspects of your life.  People often use the term resiliency when discussing someone who has experienced something traumatic or challenging and yet appears to have come through the experience unscathed.  Almost as if their inner and organic quality of being a resilient person is what allowed them to avoid any impact from the trauma.  We say things like “Well, her house burned down and her dog ran away and her best friend moved across the country, but she seems fine” as if this woman is so strong that she can sustain these experiences unscatehd due to her resilient nature. 

That is certainly one way to see it, but according to The Merriam Webster Dictionary, it is defined as “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.”

Recover from or adjust easily.  That little phrase right there is the meat of this concept.  Resiliency does not mean that challenges have no impact on us, it means that when we are impacted by challenges, we can bounce back or adjust course to suit the new situation we find ourselves in.  It means that after her house burned down, she found a new place to live and understands fire safety in more detail now, but doesn’t stay up all night in fear of another fire.  Or that her dog did run away, but she made a concerted effort to find him by posting on social media and hanging flyers until he was located.  And that her friend did move away, but they were able to maintain their connection via technology and planned a few trips to see each other next year.  It’s not that she is unscathed from these experiences, it’s simply that she was able to pivot and recover from each in a way that made moving along in life accessible.  I think the word “easily” throws a bit of a wrench in the whole concept, but it can be subjective and what is easy for someone else might feel differently to you.

Taking this definition of resiliency, are there areas in your life that maybe you didn’t give yourself enough credit for at the time?  Maybe you don’t view yourself as resilient but upon further thought, you realize you do in fact have situations that were challenging for you and that you navigated through by recovering and adjusting to your new normal.  Everyone on this planet recently navigated a global pandemic, and regardless of what your experience with it was or how you feel now two years after it started, the fact remains that somehow you did in fact pivot your life a bit to deal with the changes and challenges it presented.  Would you view your resiliency as growing during this time or being tested in new ways where you found yourself struggling more?  Take a few moments to ponder your own resiliency and how you have recovered and adjusted at various points in your life. 

Journal Prompt: Saying No and Holding Healthy Boundaries

Do you know how overwhelm feels for you?  It sounds like a simple question, but it feels differently to different people.  Some people get weepy, some want to hide and shut down a bit, and others get a little bit more angry and have a shorter fuse when they feel overwhelmed.  What does overwhelm feel like to you and can you recognize when you’re getting to that level?

• What do you need?  This can be two directional, both what do you need help with that you could outsource and also what do you need in this moment in order to say yes if someone asks for help.  Maybe you can say yes, but that means you are ordering pizza for the 3rd night this week and right now you’re feeling like you need more than pizza for dinner.  So you might want to honor that feeling and say no so that you can have a meal that actually nourishes you rather than a quick grab and go dinner.  Or maybe you can say yes, but that means you need someone else to pick up your kids from school.  In that case, maybe you can make a trade, I’ll drive your kid to sports if you pick them up afterwards.  Recognize your own needs in the scenario before committing.

• Feeling guilty?  Why?  Are you having a hard time with one of the statements above and feeling like people may be disappointed in you? In that case, where is that coming from?  Why is the responsibility on you to handle everything that is asked of you?  Sometimes we have to feel that discomfort and the tension of saying “no” and accept it for what it is.  It’s uncomfortable, there’s a friction there in our feelings, and we don’t like it.  But if you keep saying yes just to avoid that feeling, you will keep wearing yourself down.  Learn to sit in that tension in small ways so that you can build up your tolerance and maintain your boundaries.

• Be honest about your feelings, at least to yourself.  You certainly don’t need to tell someone who asks something of you “No, I’m not going to help you because I don’t care about you” but you might think to yourself “I’d rather not help this person right now because I’ve got my own busy schedule and their needs are not my priority”.  It’s ok to be honest with yourself around your own feelings.

• Practice.  Practice.  And more practice.  Start small, say no to your kid when they ask for candy after they’ve already had a treat.  You know they’re going to ask 10 more times and you also know you don’t want them to have more candy so it’s a little easier to sit in the tension of “no” in order to maintain the personal boundary.  And then gradually move up to saying no to staying late again at work, or taking on a project you don’t have time for, or even rescheduling your own day off around someone else.  Baby steps will help you build up tolerance to the guilt and anxiety that creates the tension and friction when you say no.

Are there spaces in your life where you can recognize that you are bending your boundaries to please others, and you know it is at the expense of your own emotional health? Regardless of whether you have an interest in making adjustments in these areas, can you spend some time identifying them and making a mental note of them.

I have a graphic for this journal prompt on my blog if you want to check it out here.