How to find Relationships Worth Keeping
When I was a young girl about age 5, my mother volunteered weekly at a nursing home. Because she was a stay at home mom, I was required to tag along with her. While she would wheel all of the residents into the front room and sing prayers and read devotionals, I simply couldn’t sit still for all of that. I had people to see and things to do. Weekly, I would pop in and out of residents' rooms while mom banged on the piano down the hall. In and out of each room I would float, loaded with question upon question for each resident.
At the ripe age of 5 I knew something about these people that many struggle to see. I didn’t see them as sick, helpless people preparing to leave this world. Oh I was fully aware that their last and final days would be spent in this place. I was fully aware that many of the folks sat day after day with no visitors, no family and no sense of community. And while that broke my heart, I saw these people as productive individuals-teachers, attorney’s, homemakers, accountants who had stories to share and things to offer. I saw them as humans who had contributed to society, using their gifts and talents to leave the world a better place.
I loved cruising those dark and dim hallways just to see who would make eye contact with me so I could strike up a conversation. My curiosity was never just contained to the hallways of the nursing homes either. Many times my mother would find me, at a neighbor's house down the street, shooting the breeze, asking question after question to experience just a snippet of their world view and hear their life stories.
Often, I think my mom was taken back by this behavior, thinking it was intrusive rather than a gift. Many times I was told not to bother folks or to be quiet. She didn’t do it to be cold hearted or cruel, I simply think sometimes my endless curiosity and questions felt exhausting to her. Like the time I insisted she buy me a purpose. I demanded to know what “a purpose” was and where we could buy one. It didn’t make sense to me that we couldn’t just get in the car and drive to local five and dime to pick one up.
While I have come to see my curiosity as a beautiful gift and one of my strongest skills, I didn’t always see it that way. Often in school I was told I was too social, too talkative. My deep love, curiosity and appreciation for others wasn’t something a lot of other people saw beauty in. As a child who was also highly empathic, I felt EVERYTHING. I was so attuned to other people’s feelings and because I didn’t know my own boundaries and needs, I often took responsibility for others feelings, which meant I couldn’t make space for my own.
Looking back, I can see how I have always been the cheerleader and the “Yes girl” within my friend groups. I was the one who would rally the girls, and include everyone-because I believed from an early age that everyone mattered and everyone’s story mattered. And frankly, I am not willing to stop using this precious gift of mine. Holding back on using my curiosity in my relationships would be out of integrity for me and not showing up as my authentic self.
However, these past few years in particular, I began to notice that these relationships I cared about felt one-sided. Most folks love being around me. I am fun, vibrant, always asking questions about what they have going on, how they got from A to Z and using my curiosity to go deeper with people. Let’s just say that folks feel well loved in my presence. However, I began to realize that while I was spending the energy and time, getting to know this person, this same person really wasn’t getting to know me.
I started to pay attention to how I felt after being around certain people. It was evident that when I would return home after time with particular friends, I felt empty. Sure we may have had a “good time,” a few good laughs, but for me, something was missing.
I turned my own gift of curiosity on myself to explore what that might be.
What I began to realize was that many of my relationships were one sided. In order for a relationship to be healthy, it has to go both ways. There just isn’t opportunity for the relationship to deepen when it’s only one sided. While I love getting to know people, and deeply understand them, I have realized this past year that being known by the other person is something I crave and need in my life too. I need my relationships to be two sided. It’s easy for me to allow my curiosity to run rampant and build relationships-but now that I am aware of this deep need within myself there are a few questions that are imperative to ask myself before giving my time and energy away. Maybe these will be helpful to you too.
Do you take turns sharing about various aspects of your lives?
Do they know about your interests or struggles, just as you know about theirs?
Does this person reach out to you? Or, are you the only one initiating?
If you want to develop healthy relationships, the first thing you have to do is to identify the unhealthy ones. It’s hard to forge healthy friendships if your time and energy is spent on dead-end relationships. So while it never feels good to release old friendships, in order to make room for the new, sometimes you have to release the old.
Healthy relationships aren’t created by luck. They are created by knowing what you need, what matters to you and then seeking out or asking for that in your relationships.
The truth is that for us recovering people pleasers, we were often taught to:
• Be nice.
• Get along with others.
• Be polite.
• Never rock the boat.
However, being nice, having good manners, and working to make the waters smooth for other people is not how you make good friends. It’s how you become a wonderful houseguest.
But I want more. And I want more for you.
I want us to learn how to move far away from toxic relationships and pull in healthy ones. I want us to have friends who share in our heartaches and celebrate our successes. I want us to have friends who know us inside and out. And in order to have relationships like that —even just one relationship like that—we are going to need to know a lot more about relationships than how to be polite.
My gift of curiosity is a beautiful thing. However, I want that curiosity to be a two way street moving forward in my life.
And I’m not willing to settle for less. What have you my reader, been settling for in your relationships?
As you learn to value yourself, you will realize that your trust must be earned. You won’t be tempted to turn yourself inside out in order to please someone else. And, you’ll stop settling for less than what you want in your life. Instead, you will start to enjoy the benefits of healthy two-way friendships.
So while some folks may find my curiosity odd, I can easily now say that those people simply aren’t my people. It doesn’t make them wrong-it just makes me, me. I know what I want and need in my relationships and I’m not willing to settle.
When you decide that you are no longer willing to settle, great relationships have a chance to show up in your life. Trust the gifts you have within yourself and just waiting to be explored by another human. Know what you require in your relationships, and understand that you deserve healthy relationships in your life who cherish and adore you just for who you are.
You Matter,
Krista
If you need help getting started on acknowledging what you need in your relationships, you can grab my latest workbook The Secret to Empowered Boundaries right here-I made it just for YOU!