Episode 345
Nurturing Healthy Relationships
"Use the relationship that we have with God as a compass to define what healthy relationships look like." - Wesleyne
Word of the Day
"The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love."- Psalms 103:8
Wesleyne addresses the struggle many face when realizing they've never had a healthy relationship. She acknowledges the sadness and despair that can accompany this realization but emphasizes the strength in recognizing the root cause of one's pain. Using Psalms 103:8 as a guide, Wesleyne illustrates how God's attributes of compassion, grace, patience, and love serve as benchmarks for healthy relationships. She encourages listeners to assess their relationships based on these qualities, asking if they receive compassion, grace, and love from others. Wesleyne emphasizes personal responsibility, reminding listeners that relationships can only be as healthy as the individuals in them. She urges self-reflection and the importance of working on oneself before expecting healthy relationships. The message is clear: take one step at a time, giving yourself grace in the process.
Takeaways:
- Recognize the strength in realizing the root cause of your pain.
- Use God's attributes as a compass for healthy relationships: compassion, grace, patience, and love.
- Assess relationships based on whether they demonstrate compassion, grace, and love.
- Take personal responsibility for your own actions and emotions.
- Prioritize self-reflection and personal growth before expecting healthy relationships.
Chapters:
- 00:00- Celebrating Self-Realization
- 01:51- Using God's Attributes as a Compass
- 03:23- Assessing Relationships
- 05:41- Personal Responsibility and Growth
- 07:08- Giving Yourself Grace
What questions are you struggling to answer? Wesleyne would love to answer these questions for you personally. Send any questions or prayer requests to hello@askwesleyne.com
Follow Wesleyne on Instagram @wesleynewhittaker
Transcript
I often meet people that are in a state of sadness and despair because they realize that they've never had a healthy relationship, whether it's with a romantic partner, with friends, with their parents, or with their siblings. And when you...
sit back and are at a place where you can realize that you've never had a healthy relationship so you don't have an idea or a view of what healthy looks like.
It does bring you sadness and it does bring you despair.
But I first want to allow you to celebrate yourself that you realize it. Because once we start realizing the root cause of our pain and our despair, there is so much strength in that. When we can understand where something is coming from, then we're able to work through and come up with tools and things to resolve it.
And oftentimes what I tell people is use the relationship that we have with God as a compass. Use the things that the Bible tells us that the Lord does as a compass to define what healthy relationships look like.
Wesleyne (:in Psalms 103 verses 8. It says, the Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.
So God is compassionate and he gives us grace. He doesn't get angry quickly and he is full of love.
So take a person in your life. Take a relationship that you're trying to decide, is this healthy or is this not? Does that person give you compassion? Do they give you grace? Or are they keeping score? Are they saying, well, three weeks ago you did this, or the last time we went on a trip, or...
the last time you submitted this project at work.
it wasn't good, so I'm not going to accept it this time. I'm not going to do this with you again. So compassion is simply understanding that someone is going through something a little bit difficult and...
Wesleyne (:You may never have gone through that yourself, or they may never have gone through it themselves, but they understand and they give you grace. They don't hold the things that you are working on. They don't hold those tender parts inside of you against you. Being slow to anger, we are all responsible for our own actions and emotions.
A person should never say to you, you made me angry. If they're telling you that you made them angry, they are not taking responsibility for their emotions. So being slow to anger means that yes, we all get angry. We all get upset because we are emotional beings, but that anger, how fast does it escalate?
When the other person gets angry, are they able to remove themselves from that situation to calm down, to come back and then take responsibility? And the last part of that says abounding in love, full of love.
Remember, love is an action word. It is patient, it is kind, it does not keep score. That is what love is. So again, as a person patient and kind, not keeping score, are they full of love for you as well as love for God? Let's not forget that
God is the one who teaches us how to love. If this person that we have a relationship with doesn't have a relationship with God and they don't show that love through their actions, then that person may not be healthy for you right now because a relationship
Wesleyne (:can only be as healthy as the people in it. So if there is a person in the relationship that is unhealthy, then the relationship is unhealthy. And this doesn't mean that you just go and slash every single relationship that you have in your life. No, it means that you first examine yourself and say, well, I see that that person is unhealthy. Am I too unhealthy? What work do I do?
I need to do on myself so that I am compassionate and gracious and slow to anger and abounding in love. Always reflect on yourself before you put it on someone else. And so if you've listened to this and you're like, well, I have this relationship that's unhealthy and that relationship that's unhealthy, the very first step is working on yourself.
doing this hard work of healing, coming to terms with the root cause or the reason why you are unable to be compassionate or you are not slow to anger or you're not abounding in love. Just take one step at a time. Don't bite the whole thing off. Just one step at a time.
Wesleyne (:And remember, your job is to give yourself grace.
