Key Tips For Healthier Relationships

Hello and welcome to episode 320 of The Mindful Kind podcast and the third episode in my relationships mini-series.

If you’re new to this podcast, first of all, welcome! And second of all, make sure you also listen to the previous two episodes of this relationship mini-series where I’ve been focusing on strategies and ideas for strengthening all of the different relationships you have in your life.

In this episode, I’m really excited to share some of my best tips for creating healthy and vibrant relationships.

Just before we dive into it, I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has supported this podcast by tuning in each week, leaving kind reviews, and sharing The Mindful Kind with their friends and family. After more than six years of creating a new episode every week, we just reached 10 million downloads, and as wonderful as that is for me (and my partner Dec who edits every episode!), we know we wouldn’t be here without you. So thank you very much and we hope you continue enjoying The Mindful Kind.

Ok, so let’s dive into some key tips for creating healthier relationships.

Tip 1: Very clearly ask for things you might want or need

Recently, I was chatting with a new friend of mine and we talked about how we’re both quite giving people and we put a lot into our relationships. But sometimes it can feel like we don’t get the same support in return when we might need it.

And one of the conclusions we came to was that we both need to practice asking for help and support! Of course, it would be great if our loved ones intuitively knew when we needed help or understood us well enough to know when to offer help… But that’s not always the case. Even when we might feel like we’re struggling, that does mean other people can see that. And that’s why it’s important to ask for help in specific ways.

And I actually have an example from my own life when I didn’t do this and I hope it inspires you to not make the same mistake as me. Last week I had an appointment in town and I wasn’t going to have the car to get there. I called some of the local taxi services and none of them would drive out to where I live and there’s no public transport - not even a bus.

So, I messaged Dec and asked if he could pick up my bike (which is still at my mum’s place at the moment). I explained that the taxi couldn’t pick me up and I was going to ride to my appointment.

But then I looked at the map and I could see I’d have to ride through some busy streets and I’m not super confident on a bike. So, I told Dec not to worry about the bike - I was just going to walk. It was going to take me about 2 and a half hours one way in the middle of the day in 30+ degrees Celcius, so I wasn’t feeling great about it. But I felt like I had no choice.

Dec called me about an hour later and said he’d called a friend of his who was happy to give me a lift. And actually, Dec’s friends’ wife (who’s one of my closest friends) was free and she could give me a lift and we could have lunch together. It all turned out really well and I had a wonderful time with my friend and got to my appointment.

But here’s the thing.

I was stuck in a tricky situation and I still refused to even try asking for help. Sometimes, it feels hard to ask for help and it brings up feelings of guilt and it just feels like I’m a burden and I should be able to figure out solutions on my own.

If that’s resonating with you, then please learn from my mistake. You can ask for help. You might not always receive it, but at least you’re giving your friend or loved one the opportunity to be there for you.

Tip 2: Learn how to disagree with compassion

This has been a massive learning curve for me. I grew up thinking that it was important to agree with the people I love and that if I disagreed, it was a bad thing. And so I was often this little social chameleon who made herself fit into different relationships by changing who I was and what I believed in.

If my friend said coconut sorbet was the best flavour, I wouldn’t say that I thought it tasted horrible. I’d just nod politely and agree. My dad was a really enthusiastic supporter of the Collingwood football team, and so I supported them too, even though I liked other teams better. Those are just little examples, but I had so much inauthenticity in my life that I barely knew who I was and what I liked.

It wasn’t until I was in my mid-twenties that I started learning how to be my own person and disagree with people.

And here’s what I learned about disagreements; they aren’t necessarily “bad” or “wrong.” You can have a different opinion from your partner, parent, friend, or child, and that’s ok. I think it’s important to learn and be open-minded, but you’re also allowed to disagree.

I like to think of it as a compassionate disagreement. This basically means that yes, you might have a different opinion from someone, but you’re also understanding of the other person and you allow them to have their own opinion, too.

Tip 3: Work on your emotional intelligence

I was chatting with Dec the other day about how our relationship has changed. We’ve been together for 8 years and I was in my early twenties when we first started dating. My emotions were still really challenging for me and I spent a lot of energy trying not to feel certain things like anger, jealousy, and sadness.

I couldn’t regulate my emotions (sometimes they would just spin out of control) and I absolutely hated making mistakes or getting any kind of negative feedback. I think I also interpreted other people’s feelings towards me as being negative a lot of the time when they weren’t. For example, if someone was distant, I would jump straight to the negative conclusion that they were angry with me.

The more I’ve learned about mindfulness, psychology, relationships, and mental health in general, the more I’ve understood how important it is to develop emotional awareness and emotional intelligence. We feel emotions every day - sometimes lots of them.

I think it’s really important to know how to support yourself through different emotions, how to process them, how to be accepting, and how to look after yourself. When you can do that fairly well, it can create so many benefits in your relationships. For example, you’ll set better boundaries, you might be able to talk about and express your emotions in healthy ways, you’re less likely to explode with anger or resentment, and you can navigate the different emotions that arise in relationships, like frustration, jealousy, disappointment, or regret. But also, having greater emotional intelligence means you can also understand other people’s emotions, too, which I think is super important in relationships!

If I hadn’t started working on my emotional intelligence by learning about it, making small changes, talking to my psychologist about it, supporting myself, practicing mindfulness and meditation, and the other things I’ve tried along the way, I honestly don’t think Dec and I would still be together. I 100% believe that becoming more emotionally intelligent has helped our relationship grow stronger, more authentic, and more enjoyable in so many different ways.

Now, if you’re looking for a fun and meaningful way to strengthen your relationships, then I highly recommend the video course, *Creating Friendships and Deep Connections For Teens on Mindvalley. Even though the course says it’s for teens, I personally learned some really interesting concepts that I’ve already started implementing into my relationships, like connection languages.

“Feeling seen” is my connection language and knowing this has helped me understand some of my important needs in my relationships. So, if you’ve been feeling like you want to develop stronger friendships with people I can’t speak highly enough about *Creating Friendships and Deep Connections For Teens. My only advice would be to make sure you actually do the recommended activities, journaling exercises, and other tasks. Don’t just watch the videos. Follow the recommendations to put everything into practice.

*As an affiliate, I might earn a commission if you decide to enrol, but it won’t cost you anything extra and it’s a great way to help support this podcast!

Thank you so much for listening and I hope you have a wonderful week Mindful Kind.  

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