The Sky’s the Limit, but Not Really: A reflection on the Healthy Relationships Presentation

Earlier this week I attended a presentation on healthy relationships and unhealthy relationships. Discussing the underlying pinning of both healthy and unhealthy relationships is a tall order, so naturally I felt that the presentation was not as in depth as I would have expected or liked it to be.  I also would have liked it if some attention was given to what a person should do if they found themselves in an unhealthy relationship.  It’s all too easy just to say, “Seek help,” so some descriptions of strategies might have been informative.  However, given the time constraint of 1hr I felt that the presentation covered the basic fundamentals or characteristics of both types of relationships fairly well.  A good deal of emphasis was placed on the main factor of a healthy relationship.  Can you guess what it is? To be honest, when asked this question all I could think of was the typical answers such as good communication or trust.  According to the presentation, the key to a healthy relationship is loving yourself and everything that accompanies such love (e.g., respecting yourself or believing that what you want matters).  In hindsight this is not too surprising because we have all probably heard, “If you don’t love yourself, how can you expect someone else to love you.”  However, I think a better saying would be, “If you don’t love yourself, how can you believe you deserve the love of others.”  I think it is very possible that someone could love a person who may have a distorted view of themselves, but it’s very likely that person would have a difficult time believing that they deserve such love. But that is just my opinion.

One topic in this presentation that really seemed relevant to me now was the idea of setting limits in your relationships. The most obvious relationship that this idea seems imperative in is sexual relationships.  Specifically, if you set limits early on in the relationship, you could be saved from having to figure out all the details during a hot moment and risk killing the mood.  However, setting limits can also be applied to other relationships such as friendships and can sometimes safe you from awkward and uncomfortable moments.  For example, I had this friend who was very touchy-feely.  I generally do not consider myself touchy-feely; however, I wanted to be polite so I let her hug me whenever she wanted.  Unfortunately after some other issues in our friendship, I became annoyed and resentful with all the touching and wanted it to stop, but the hugging had already been going on so long that it become extremely awkward when I tried to explain my change in behavior (i.e., she was annoying me).  Ultimately, I’ve learned that I need to need to find the balance between pleasing others and respecting my own limits.

To conclude this reflection I would like to present a fun fact from the presentation: If your intuition is telling you something is wrong when you happen to be walking in the dark and a person is walking toward you, you should stare that person straight in the face.  If you stare at the person’s face, they are more likely to avoid you because you now have a better chance at identifying them.  Moreover, if the person is interested in hurting someone, they will look for someone who appears weak and scared, but by staring at his/her face, you will be seen as unafraid (remember first impressions are made from thin slices!!!). Please note that this is not to say that every person walking in the dark is a murder or criminal, after all, you yourself would be walking in the dark :)