The Balanced Life, Huntsville Alabama

Relationships can be warm, fulfilling, loving, and easy but they can also be cold, empty, hurtful and downright challenging and physically and emotionally draining! Thankfully, scientists of all types and backgrounds have been researching why positive relationships are so vital to our lives and how to go about creating and maintaining happy and healthy ones.

Despite the challenges we may personally face regarding relationships, healthy connections to other people are an important part of overall psychological health and happiness as evidenced by findings of positive psychologists who studied what they came to call the five pillars of ‘life satisfaction and contentment’ and nicknamed them PERMA. PERMA stands for: Positive emotions, Engagement, (positive) Relationships, Meaning, & Accomplishments/ Achievement.

So, relationships are important. Healthy, loving relationships are vital. Why?

A part of being human is dealing with feelings in general and even being intensely emotionally overwhelmed at times. When we become super emotional, our amygdala (like our brain’s personal security guard) puts everything in the brain on lock-down and we aren’t able to access our rational/logical brain or even our memories until the amygdala has determined that the there is no longer a threat. (Think about a moment that you were so emotional that there were simply no words...Yup! Like that!)

It’s during these times that we look to our closest relationships to help us regulate those emotions and calm down so that we can think clearly and begin to process and problem solve.

Of course, it’s incredibly useful when we’re able to soothe ourselves through deep breathing, meditation, yoga, running, singing, dancing, journaling, taking a long bath or a long walk but it is even more helpful (and often even more efficient) if we have a friend or a family member we can turn to for support and comfort. Sometimes it’s helpful to be able to talk and truly open up about our thoughts and feelings and sometimes all we really need is a hug and the warmth and comfort that positive physical contact can bring.

In fact, we’ve been turning toward others (form attachments) to help us calm down since our infancy when we relied solely on our caregivers to help us when we didn’t even know what we needed help with at the time! Harlow’s studies (1958) with rhesus monkeys demonstrates this beautifully as he explains that infants have an innate/biological need to touch or cling to something to achieve emotional comfort in his behavioral theory of attachment.

Many other researchers have studied attachment over the years and Dr. Andrew Huberman (a tenured Professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine) talks about some of that research in his podcast called The Huberman Lab during a series on “The Science of Love, Desire, and Attachment.” Not only does he talk about the four attachment styles (secure, avoidant, anxious, and disorganized) and how they develop in us as children based on our relationships with our primary caregivers but that they are mere templates that can still be fixed or adjusted and that we just need to be aware that they exist and remember that they are malleable since we can rewire the brain! Huberman also emphasizes that we are all hard-wired for attachment and that our neural systems (in the brain) for autonomic arousal (to help us be calm and feel safe) are tethered to other people! (For more information on this, check out Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find – And Keep – Love by Amir Levine & Rachel S.F. Heller)

To find out how to create successful and happy, long-term relationships, we can turn to Dr. John Gottman and his team of researchers (that includes his wife!) who have been studying that very thing for over three decades now in a lab in Washington. While he has articulated seven principles for a good relationship (enhancing friendship, nurturing fondness & admiration, turning toward each other instead of away, influencing each other, solving solvable problems together, overcoming gridlock, and creating a shared sense of meaning), there are two main points that it may be helpful to focus on at first if we need or want to simplify things a bit.

The first is the fact that successful relationships require nurturing and attention and positivity. In a YouTube video called “Making Marriage Work”, Dr. John Gottman explains the ‘magic’ ratio of 5:1 that helps us overcome the power of negativity in our lives (negativity bias), wherein five positive comments/actions are needed just to balance out ONE negative comment/action toward our partner or friend.  For example, telling our loved ones how much they mean to us (regularly!) or how much we appreciate them can help to create what Gottman calls a positive sentiment override which can help us not take some of the negative stuff so personally.

The second is the importance of relationship repair. Although it is best to handle conflicts and disagreements with a gentle and positive attitude, it’s not always possible (remember that our amygdala can cause our rational brain to shut down and make it impossible for us to think!?). When negative interactions (fights) do occur, it’s best to repair the relationships as quickly as you can by 1) taking at least some responsibility or accountability for what happened and 2) working together (calmly) to create a plan for how to avoid similar pitfalls in the future.

“Conflict is an opportunity to learn how to love each other better over time.” -Dr. John Gottman

Apparently, the ability for couples to do this necessary repair work in relationships is “directly related to the strength of their friendship” (Gottman) but what do we do when our friendship is damaged by betrayal and broken trust?

Frances Frei gave an extremely compelling TedTalk on YouTube called “How to Build (and Rebuild) Trust” and talked about the importance of being 1. authentic, 2. logical, and 3. empathic as cornerstones for doing just that! She also talks about how if any one of these three is wobbling, then trust suffers. The most common wobble is empathy, she says, and encourages us to notice where we might be distracted rather than focused on the other person so that we can understand how they’re feeling and why. Frei notes that we instead need to “look up, look at the people right in front of us, listen to them, and deeply immerse ourselves in their perspectives” and, of course, put away our cell phones.  As for problems with logic, she advises stating your point first in a “crisp half-sentence” and then support that with evidence (in case your logic wobbles or you get cut off!). Lastly, others trust us and we are indeed trust-worthy when we are being authentic and genuine, i.e. being ourselves (which means we do need to know who ‘we’ are because we can only be honest with others to the extent to which we are honest with ourselves).

“When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete,everyone will respect you.” ― Lao Tzu

Perhaps the things I’ve been talking about here are all things you’ve heard before and it’s a helpful reminder! Perhaps you’ve even learned something new and, if that’s the case, I truly encourage you to do some more digging on your own into whatever I mentioned that stood out the most to you!

Hopefully, you can even start some meaningful conversations with loved ones in your life about what you’ve learned and/or share your thoughts and feelings on what you’ve read and listened to with someone who has, as Brené Brown would say, “earned the right to hear your story.” Here at The Balanced life, we would be honored to hear your story. If we can help you in any way, please contact us at info@thebalancedlifellc.com or call 256.258.7777.