February is a month dedicated to love and relationships, so I thought there is no better time than to focus on how relationships can foster resilience. This is true for romantic relationships, friend and family relationships, even work and community relationships.
Not all relationships are created equal, however, and not all are healthy. Relationships that cultivate resilience must have these three foundational characteristics:
- They encourage a sharing of ideas, feelings, opinions and information.
- They require meeting each other’s needs and expectations.
- They require attention and maintenance.
These characteristics might seem exceedingly elementary…and they are! For any of us to begin to weave the richer tapestry of meaningful relationship, we must feel heard, accepted, safe and nurtured. We cannot be fully vulnerable to the experience of relationship when anyone one of these is absent or wildly out of balance.
Based on these three attributes, what relationship is cultivating your resilience right now? What relationship needs tending? Or pruning?
Renee Branson 