The concept of wellness crosses many areas, including nutrition, exercise, strength, flexibility, emotional health and stress management. But our discussions of wellness often leave out an important interrelated factor — our relational wellness.
Obviously, our daily lives occur within the context of interactions with others and our ongoing relationships with our family, friends, coworkers, clients and the community at large. And, when we stop to think about the impact of our daily interactions with others, they are a huge contributor to what we think about, our emotional responses, the stress and support we feel. In fact, relationships are often a mediator or “go-between” for our life experiences and responses.
The Global Wellness Institute defines wellness as “the active pursuit of activities, choices and lifestyles that lead to a state of holistic health.” This definition resonates well with the concept of relational wellness, involving those lifestyle choices and activities that impact the quality of our relationships.
What is relational wellness?
Similar to other areas of wellness in our lives, the scope of relational wellness is broad and includes many categories and necessary skills: communication, support, friendship, cooperation, handling requests from others, making requests of others, resolving conflicts and more.
In essence, relational wellness is the experience of having the necessary relationships that enable you to interact with others in ways that benefit both your and their overall well-being. Interestingly, this includes our relationship with ourselves; thinking accurately about who we are (our strengths, deficits and areas for growth) and self-knowledge (understanding our personality, values and responses).
Additionally, relational wellness is comprised of our relationship with others — our family of origin, current nuclear family, extended family, friends, community (work, neighborhood, social circles, parents of our children’s friends, sport-based/coaches, place of worship). Obviously, quantity of relationships varies from person to person, as well as over the span of our lives. Some skills are foundational to relating well with others:
Effective communication: The ability to give and receive messages, which lead to understanding one another.
Respect: Respecting ourselves (including our values, beliefs, strengths and weaknesses) and accepting and valuing others’ opinions, boundaries and autonomy.
Connection: The ability to connect with others is critical for collaboration and cooperation: working together to achieve goals you cannot accomplish by yourself. Connection is also foundational to feeling (and being) understood.
Perspective-taking and empathy: We need to be able to see situations from others’ viewpoint in order to understand (and accept) why they are different than we are, and be able to empathize with their life experience.
Conflict resolution: Conflict (often the result of differing desires or goals) is a natural result of two or more people living in relationship with one another. The ability to understand and resolve conflict is critical to maintaining relationships over time.
Gratitude and appreciation: Maintaining a positive outlook and learning how to communicate authentic appreciation to your colleagues is key for a healthy workplace culture.
Unhealthy relationships
Parallel to the absence of physical health being characterized by deficits in areas needed for wellness, plus the presence of negative factors (injury, disease), relational wellness has a dark side as well. Generally, this includes patterns of relating to others that are unhealthy and lead to problematic results.
One overarching concept is having healthy boundaries. Psychologists Cloud and Townsend authored a classic book, Boundaries, that has been helpful to millions of people by describing what healthy and unhealthy boundaries look like in daily life — and exploring the underlying dynamics which lead to relational difficulties.
Similar to cell boundaries in our body, our relationships are permeable; we give and receive resources from one another, such as emotional support, encouragement, attention and care. We also interact with each other in ways that diminish our resources: requests, demands, conflict, expectations and confrontation.
Unhealthy boundaries exist on either end of the continuum. This includes either being totally closed off to receiving help from others (and giving help to others), which essentially cuts us off from the world around us socially, or by having too permeable of a boundary, where resources flow away from us too easily (i.e., we give to others more than we should, or others take from us seemingly without our having any way of stopping them from doing so.
The healthy level of permeability in relationships (like our physical bodies) is partially dependent on the relational context. Is it to be vulnerable with the other person? Or do I need to protect myself? Unhealthy relationships are often characterized by one or more of the following components: excessive control, manipulation, disrespect, poor communication, distrust, dishonesty or abuse (physical or emotional).
Pursuing relational wellness
Building a life characterized by relational wellness, like physical health, takes intentionality, reflection and skill-building. Many of us overlook the foundational aspect of our relationship with ourselves, but this is a critical starting point. How do we think and feel about ourselves? How do we treat ourselves — do we listen to the signals our bodies send us? Do we abuse ourselves through destructive behaviors and thoughts? Addressing these issues may be a good starting point.
Then review the list of foundational skills for relating well to others. Identify one or two areas where you need to do some “relational training,” such as listening to others, communicating yourself clearly, reaching out to and connecting with others, striving to understand those different from you or learning how to resolve conflicts without inflicting wounds on others.
Final thoughts
Ignoring this fundamental area leads to distortions and wounds that will make a truly holistic healthy life unattainable. But when relational wellness is integrated into our pursuit of activities, choices and lifestyles, a rewarding life of health is likely to follow.
PAUL WHITE, PHD, is a psychologist, speaker and leadership expert who “makes work relationships work.” He has been interviewed by the New York Times, BBC News and other international publications. He is the coauthor of the best-selling book “The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace,” which has sold more than 550,000 copies (with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of “The 5 Love Languages”). For more information, go to appreciationatwork.com.
