How to Have Dynamic Relationships- YLAM240022

SPEAKER A This programme presents ways to optimise health and wellbeing when considering lifestyle changes. Please consult with your health care provider to ensure they are suitable for you. SPEAKER B Hello and welcome. I'm Kaysie Vokurka. Social relationships are powerfully linked with our wellbeing. According to the Relationships Australia Relationship Indicators Report 2022, greater satisfaction in a person's important relationships predicted a greater sense of well being. In contrast, feeling lonely was the best foreteller of a person feeling dissatisfied with life. So how can we have dynamic, fulfilling relationships? Stay with us as we explore this topic. This is your lifestyle as medicine, a production of 3ABN Australia television. On this programme we explore ways that you can shape your lifestyle as medicine. This programme is the first of a set of episodes on healthy, loving relationships. To cover this vital topic, we have health psychologist Jenifer Skues joining us again. Welcome to the programme, Jenifer. SPEAKER B Thank you, Kaysie. It's good to be here again. SPEAKER A Yes, indeed. And you know, Jenifer, relationships are such an important part of our lives, aren't they? SPEAKER B And they're a major part. SPEAKER A They are indeed. Tell me, like, just so that we're all on the same page to start with, can you give us some definitions of relationship? SPEAKER B Okay, this is looking up some online definitions and it describes a relationship as between two people or groups, and it's the way they feel and behave towards each other. So as I say, actions speak louder than words at times. So it's not just about what we say, it's every. The nonverbals and the verbals are in that, and it about a close connection between two people. And it's also to do between two things in the way in which they are connected. Okay, so how do we connect? So. And that might be in the sense that the connection is. It might be work connections, home connections, there's all sorts of connections, family, friends, that sort of thing. SPEAKER A That's very interesting. I found it quite significant that it just talked about how we have feelings and behaviours in our relationships. Does it go deeper than that, though, in terms of the connection we have? SPEAKER B Well, I believe that connection is also spiritual because you look at our relationship with God, which is emphasised, and we're going to look at this as highly important as our most dynamic relationship that helps to connect us with others. So that's an important part of our relationships. But we have different types of relationships. I mean, you can think of a few. We have acquaintances, you know, we might work with or say hello to. We've got friendships which can vary, they can be platonic, like we know them but then we can have really deeply connected best friends. And when you have a best friend, then if, you know, look, I've got best friends all over Australia, I've got a few of them and because I've lived in different places and I find that if I haven't spoken to one of them for months at a time, as soon as I speak to them, it's like we never didn't connect. The connection is there and I'm sure people can relate to that. As Paul says, an extended wide range of family type relationships, romantic relationships, and then we of course get married. And romantic relationships are to do with what we call the chemistry of love. There are marital and there are intimate relationships and intimacy isn't just physical, it's also that spiritual feeling connection. So we're going to explore these types of relationships as we go. SPEAKER A Yeah, it's so intriguing. Like so many aspects of our being are coming together and interplaying in the space of relationships, aren't they? You know, both physical behaviour, feelings as well as spiritual, emotional, mental, like they're all feeding into this same space. SPEAKER B Absolutely. And this is where the Bible has so many good verses about the order of relationships and types of relationships and I've just picked a verse and it teaches us how to have happy, healthy, loving relationships. And the verse is Luke 1027 and there are some main points outlined there and it says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and all your mind and your neighbour as yourself. So that includes all three aspects. So we've got, we have to love God in every possible way and I've known, I've lived in the world and now I'm living with God and there's a huge difference and I'm really appreciating that. And of course the order is, if I love God and that is accepting Jesus in my life, then I can love myself and I've got to love myself to love my neighbour. And how many people say, oh, I don't like me at all, you know, I'm a terrible person or I don't love me, but we're taught to love others but not ourselves. That was my upbringing and I'm not sure what young people think today so much, but their idea of love is different, I think, from what I'm used to, although there's lots of lovely young people out there who adhere to these principles that I'm aware of too. SPEAKER A Yeah. So I found it interesting what you said there, that from your experience, it was when you learned about how to love God, that you also learned about how to treat yourself well and to give the same, I guess, love that God gives you, to give that to yourself, which then has improved your social relationships as well. SPEAKER B Absolutely. And it gives me that connection because it's a heart, spiritual mind, every aspect with heart, soul, mind and strength. We can then love others if we're doing that with God. But one of the interesting things is from a human perspective, what is love? So we're going to look at that or loving relationships. But I found some interesting, I guess you could say ad hoc research in the sense that a researcher interviewed a group of children and asked them what love is, what do they think love is? And I've got a few responses and they, I mean they're so they hit the mark. And these children are four to four, six and seven years of age. And the first one says, if you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate. Oh, that's pretty interesting. Well, I think as adults we need to listen to that. SPEAKER A Wow. Out of the mouth of a child. SPEAKER B Yeah, out of the mouth of babes, as they say. Then my mummy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night. Aw. Yeah. Which is her? The way they see love is mummy kisses me, therefore she loves me. So we've got to demonstrate love not just to adults but to children as well. This one is love is when your puppy licks your face, even when you left him alone all day. SPEAKER A Wow. SPEAKER B Pet therapy. Why do we love pet therapy? Because animals love us unconditionally. Even if we treat them badly, they still are faithful and loyal and loving. If we give them a hard time at times. And this is another one, you shouldn't say I love you unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget. SPEAKER A How often that's such a good advice. SPEAKER B Well, I often get people who say, particularly women who say, you know, I know I love my husband and I just wish he'd tell me he loved me. And if they ask the husband often or the male says, you know, of course I love you, I'll let you know if I don't. Sort of principle, so I don't have to keep saying it. People want reassurance, love. And I think we need to show love actions as well as our expression is important, particularly with children and growing up. I mean we all love to be touched, cuddled, shown love and respect. So that's important. And love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen, that just gives us an idea of some children's perception. Yet I've worked with young people who've told me they can't connect with God because their father wasn't loving, he was abusive, alcoholic or whatever. So if God's my father, they don't want to know about it because of their own father. So there are very, very sad situations in life, as you know. And of course, I get to see a fair bit of it because of the counselling work I do, but. So why do relationships break down? SPEAKER A And this is where it is. SPEAKER B A good question. Very good question, yeah, and we've got a good list there. And the average duration of a marital relationship in Australia is 12.8 years. And here we know. I mean, I was married for 36 years and. Yeah, and all this sort of thing. So there are people who have longevity. So that's saying a lot of people don't survive marriage and they find with marital relationships, at about two years into the relationship, when that chemistry of love has died down and it is a chemical factor, when you fall in love, then the relationship either has to build on something more or it has to be able to express love in a more mature way. And if that doesn't happen, they say, I don't love you anymore, and they leave the second. That's the divorce point or separation point. The second is because when the kids have left home, they might have 20 plus years of marriage and they look at each other and go, well, who are you? They haven't built a relationship with each other, they've built the relationship with their children and they then separate. That's a high point. So this is where we need to build relationships because they break down. What else have we got on that list? Programme beliefs and values have a lot to do with it. Poor communication skills, relationship expectations, boundary violations, how we defend our self defence mechanisms, our personalities have a lot to do with it. And the differences between gender. So there are multiple things and more that we look at, and these are some of the things we're going to cover as we go. So it's important to look at all those aspects when we're wanting to look at how healthy is a relationship, how can we rebuild a relationship? That breakdown process is very powerful. SPEAKER A Yeah. And it's interesting because we're talking about how I'm having healthy, dynamic relationships and that word dynamic. There's things happening all of the time. And earlier, when we were talking about the children's expressions of love and everything. It's kind of like you need to express love constantly because it's a dynamic, it's a moving thing, the relationship. And of course, with these issues of breaking down, like that's an ongoing thing to manage. These little threats that, or big threats at times that can come into the relationship to threaten it. So there's quite a lot to maintain it, isn't there? SPEAKER B There is. And this is where if it's not maintained, it does break down. And then either they separate or get counselling or help. Some people do. Sometimes it's beyond repair because of the personal or hurt that people have experienced, but not always. And when they learn decent skills, they reconnect and learn to love each other in the way that they would both like. So I believe all relationships are redeemable if two people are willing to look at that breakdown process. SPEAKER A Yeah, yeah. And also to just clarify, that slide was, of course, talking in the context of marital relationships. But I'm, I'm guessing that a number of those principles would apply to other friendship type relationships as well. SPEAKER B All relationships, I believe, are relevant to that because we all have those beliefs and values, we all have to have communication skills. It was just taking that stat, the statistics with marriage. But generally, what we expect, we violate boundaries, we step on people's toes or don't set boundaries. We defend ourselves in inappropriate ways, our personalities get in the way, call them poisonalities. When they're a bit damaged, we certainly can express it. And of course, those gender differences occur. And I find when people don't even just that one variable, even with male and female friends and relationships, that I find that what happens is it becomes a problem because of those differences. You know, and I know nowadays there is a huge range of gender factors and it applies to any relationship as well. So this is important in understanding those principles. And if you have healthy relationships, you make better choices, you maintain them and you're more able to work with that person and express love. So it's an ongoing process. And sadly, we're brought up with a lot of damage, personal damage. And this is where the breakdown of the relationship occurs. And the principles we just looked at, we're actually exploring in these four sessions. So we will be addressing some of those variables that can make or break a relationship of any sort. Okay, now the causes of relationship breakdown. And there are five main principles that how that relationship breaks down. And this was by, it's called the five R's of relationship, relationship breakdown. And it looks, it was put together by Doctor John Grey, who was a certified family therapist. But he was also. People might have read one of his many books, men are from Mars and women from Venus. And it looks at the physiological and other factors across gender that is significant in understanding and building healthy relationships. So if we have a look at this list, it says the first step is resistance. And this is where the thing is, you connect with someone, they think, oh, they're such good friends or good people in my life. And then you start initially what they call that honeymoon phase, and that's with friendships as well. It's all going well and they're such lovely people and isn't it great? I feel connected. And then you find that something starts creeping in that you're not happy with. So you start to find fault or criticise. And that is the first step. And that's when we start to see, because when you meet someone, you're not going to show them all your faults, anyone, doesn't matter who it is, you're going to be on your best behaviour because you want them to like you, you want to like them. So. But that only goes on for so long because we've all got faults and flaws, whether we like it or not. It's part of our human nature. And that when that kicks in, that's going to make or break that relationship process. So if you're following, you're criticising and fault finding, you're starting to resist the other person, then it goes, if you keep doing that, you then become resentful. And I know what that's about. I think we've all probably experienced that, so then we really dislike and blame the person. So instead of looking at, what am I doing wrong, we look at what they're doing wrong. So this is that criticism, fault finding, we don't like them anymore, we're blaming them for the problem. It's like, I'm okay, but you're not okay, is the principle. SPEAKER A So this is really like, this is the first part that we got to really watch out for. Like early in relationships, it's like when we start catching ourselves, you know, getting into this mindset or having these thoughts pop in about, oh, they did this or that, or, oh, look at that, I didn't know about that, that wrong thing. And, oh, you know, you start getting these things, that's the chance to recognise it for what it is and try and make a choice at that point to stop the slippery dip going deeper. SPEAKER B And that's a good point. If you come back to resistance the criticisms and fault finding. You'll find if you criticise someone, look for something nice in them as well. SPEAKER A Yeah. SPEAKER B And if you're criticising them, it's like, well, what am I going to do about it? I've either got to let the criticism go or talk to them about it. What action can I take? SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER B If we're finding fault, have a look at what they do. Right. Because we're all going to do right and wrong things. And this is where that communication factor comes in. So this is where if we communicate with the person, we're going to help stop it at that resistance stage. Okay. If we still doing that and we go to resentment. If you start disliking and blaming the person, look for evidence. What have they done and what have I done? How did I respond? Start to become self aware but also looking at defining what they did and if it was something that they're doing that is inappropriate in that relationship, doesn't matter what sort of relationship it is, then they need to address it. And that's where that communication, because as you said, if you stop it at those two points, it's not going to get break down more and more and more. Most people I see get to those bottom level and the third one is rejection. We then rejected people. Then they wonder why you're being distant and difficult and because they're not aware of the problem, because we've not told, okay, we've not tried to resolve it. So if we start rejecting that means we're openly dislike and blaming. And I mean what sort of things do people do? What are some of their nonverbals? When you, you openly dislike, what do you say? SPEAKER A Well, sometimes it's a, is a personality. Some people are very vocal, other people shut down, don't they? SPEAKER B That's it. Some people just go silent. But they give, they use nonverbals. They give the look or they show they're not interested or they show on their face that they're angry with them but they don't say anything. See? So this is where we start to look at that. And when it comes to open rejection, it might be giving them negative feedback or you always do that the wrong way. What's wrong with you? Or you're so stupid. We actually are then showing we openly dislike them. And the thing is, and this is what we're going to learn as we go, we can learn to attack the behaviour and work with that and not attack in an aggressive way, but we need to not attack the person. So when you're identifying these as you go, you have a look. What is it I don't like about the person? And it's usually what's the evidence and it's what they're doing. SPEAKER A Yeah, right. SPEAKER B So I don't like what they do versus I don't like the person and if I don't like what they do, what am I going to do about it? SPEAKER A Yeah, that's quite a difference, isn't it? SPEAKER B And if you blame someone, what are you going to do to say, well, how much am I part of this process? I'm blaming them, but what am I doing that's making it worse? We've got to then look at ourself and that's that thing, we've got to love ourself, to love others. And I know if we don't do that and we keep going, in the end we've still got to deal with what we did in that relationship. And it is two people that are the problem, but we see the other person as a problem. That's part of that breakdown problem. So we have to step back. And I find writing things down, looking at pros and cons list or writing down what don't I like, what are they doing? And put it in behaviour, not in, with anger and emotion. Right. And then being able to use that to talk to them. And in one of the sessions we're going to look at, well, how. And that's the boundary system, how do I express this to someone? Because you don't want to do it the wrong way. You want to open communication and be able to explore what the issues are. And some people like it being direct and some people are so sensitive. You've got to be very careful how you give them that feedback. So these are some of the things we're going to look at as we go. Then if we keep going, we repress, we shut the heart down. And if you've ever shut your heart down, you become cold and distant and you're just feeling often that's where we get the anger starts to come in, but when we shut the heart down, it disconnects totally. People refer to them as being hard hearted. In actual fact, the hard hearted people who shut the heart down have deep feelings, deep, deep feelings. And I find when people go through this, if they're not careful, it can damage the heart or affect the heart in a way that the person's heart is going to have problems, as in physical problems. Physical problems is a thing called the broken heart syndrome. When we've had lots of rejection, abandonment, grief and loss, then, and we don't resolve it, the heart becomes overloaded and pumps excess blood, and that causes a similar reaction. It's like a heart attack, but it's not a heart attack. It isn't normally fatal. There are very few people who've died, I believe, from that, from my research. But it is something that we then think we're having a heart attack and we're nothing. So, yeah, and it is treatable and it is diagnosable. I know I had a client many years ago who had this problem, anxiety, suffering. She knew it was the heart doctor, finally sent her to the hospital, and she actually then was told she had the broken heart syndrome. So it is a medical term that is known. SPEAKER A Wow, that's amazing. Because those are significant problems with the heart, like, from a physical, medical perspective. Perspective. And yet you're saying that they are linked back to things like deep rejection and suppression in relationships. SPEAKER B Yes, because you look at it, if we look at it from our side, we're feeling resistance from the person we're feeling. They resent us. We feel like they reject us. If we're on the other side of the coin and they're distancing, they're disconnecting, they're not showing us yet. They used to love us and like us and do that. But this breakdown process has occurred, and the last one is rage. The volcano erupts. And if you have seen people in rage or you've had rage, it's a horrible, horrible experience. And that is the bottom line. And that's when people become destructive, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually hurt other people with their rage, and others are in fear of that, because it's not something. Sometimes it just explodes, but other times, they're walking around, you go, whoa, they're angry. And it's sort of in there bubbling away, seething. And the pressure cooker's building, and eventually the person will say or do something, the other person, and the rage kicks in. I only said that, why are you so angry? But it's the build up of all this process that goes on to. Yeah, so it's a very good list to have. And I think if we look at that and assess ourselves from that, it's a very powerful thing to do. SPEAKER A Yeah. Because I guess that's really showing us levels of depth in terms of where those feelings and issues are going in our hearts. And so if we look at it, we can sort of see, whoa, I've got some of these symptoms. No, I need to deal with it. SPEAKER B So we don't go deeper and stop blaming. SPEAKER A Yeah. SPEAKER B And own it. This is where we can use this list to assess ourselves as well as assess others. SPEAKER A Yeah, yeah. And, you know, we had in a previous session, or a number of sessions with you talking about forgiveness. Would that be a helpful thing to deal with, this downward process, to go back up? SPEAKER B Absolutely. Even at the first thing, when we criticise and fault, find if they've done the wrong thing and it's obviously they've done something that's hurtful, then we need to forgive, but we've got it. Well, first, I believe we go to God and seek forgiveness, pray for them. But going to the person and finding out, you know, why. Why they are criticising you or finding fault, if we don't do that, it's not going to get any better, it gets worse. So. And that's, again, we're going to look at communication skills, but also on how do I do that? How do I approach someone? Because a lot of people fear that they either blurted out and hurt the other person, even though they're hurting, or they actually don't know how to verbalise it in a way that they're feeling confident. So we can give some very good skills and variables for them to work with that will help them to communicate. That's the most powerful thing. The biggest thing with this is communication breakdown, if you have a look at it. SPEAKER A Yeah. And I guess from what we were looking at before, it seems like if we don't actually address those other issues with the other party or the problem we are having with the other person, then we're not really giving them a chance. If we are, then, you know, shutting down and not treating them well because of a problem, they may not even realise it. SPEAKER B No, they don't. SPEAKER A Yeah. So hence the need for addressing. This is quite apparent, isn't it? SPEAKER B It is, because most people in relationships are looking at the other person, not necessarily themselves. Or if they do look at themselves and they see that, hang on, I'm doing the wrong thing, they feel so bad, they shut down or I disconnect. There are people who will sabotage and leave a relationship before it ends for that purpose. SPEAKER A Yeah, yeah. No, very interesting and very helpful models there that you've brought up that can give us an idea of where our relationship dynamics are going. Yes, absolutely. And how we can send it back into a positive arena to really foster that healthy space. So looking forward to talking to you more about this topic in the next sessions. Thank you so much, Jenifer. SPEAKER B Thank you. Hi. SPEAKER A We've been talking with health psychologist Jenifer Skues about how to have dynamic relationships. In the next episodes, we'll be exploring matters relevant to relationships in more detail, so please join us for these if you have questions or comments about this programme, or if there's a topic you would like us to discuss, then contact us on [email protected]. and remember to shape your lifestyle as medicine. SPEAKER A You've been listening to Your Lifestyle as Medicine, a production of 3ABN Australia television.