Are Your Relationships Healing-Relationships?
“Healing relationships are necessary for our emotional, social, and spiritual growth.”
By Philip K. Hardin, MA, MDiv, LMFT, LPC
By Philip K. Hardin, MA, MDiv, LMFT, LPC
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could heal our relationship hurts on our own? After all, relationship repair can be tough and painful!
In all my years as a therapist, one thing I know is that time does not heal all wounds and neither does isolation. It doesn’t work for our physical wounds —deep gashes or broken bones, and it doesn’t work for our hearts.
One of the most life-altering truths I learned while in school:
What is broken in relationship can only be healed in relationship.
“We not capable of healing in isolation. We need other people. We are hurt in relationship and we heal in relationship. Our brain and nervous system are not isolated, but interconnected and social. At our core, we are social beings who regulate through connection with others. Being comfortable in your own skin and having tools that help you relax is a really big deal, but learning how to feel safe with others is revolutionary.”
-Dr Diane Poole Heller
We need strong relationships with each other to heal, mend, repair, and restore. We also need relationship with God.
I recently sat in church listening to a sermon from Luke 24.
The passage is about a group of women who encountered the risen Jesus in the village of Emmaus. When Jesus appeared to the women, they did not recognize him. They were distraught over the death of Jesus and were deeply grieved. Jesus began to address them in their sadness, explaining the Scriptures “beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scripture.”
Jesus ended up at their dinner table … just “hanging out” … being with them.
Their eyes were opened! They said to one another: “Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking … “After Jesus left them, we read from verse 35: “They began to relate their experiences on the road, and how He was recognized by them at the breaking of the bread.”
This account of Jesus is such a powerful example of what healing relationship and even salvation really means –the experience of a burning heart and a story to tell.
These women had an experience of attachment with Jesus that resulted in their trust being attached to Him!
Brain research tells us that the basis for learning to be in a relationship with someone and learning to be like someone is a loving attachment. Our relational brain contains all the functions needed to think with God, not simply about God.
Neuroscience tells us that we do not become human by thinking about people or God. Our brain becomes human by thinking with those we love in an attached or connected way. That is the key to healing relationship—to feel with the other—so that trust is anchored in our hearts.
God works through our attachment love to connect to our heart. God’s attachment love to us is kind, enduring, gracious, and delights over us. This attachment love invites reciprocal love so that we love God as He has loved us. By thinking with God rather than about God, we do what God would have us do: the works God prepared for us ahead of time.
Three-step Exercise of Attachment
I want to invite you to consider engaging in an exercise to experience connection to God. Take a deep breath and let it out slowly.
STEP 1: Bring to mind a time you were aware God was with you. If one does not come to mind, ask God to help you remember. Pick a word or phrase to describe God’s presence.
STEP 2: Ask God to help you remember a time when God was with you, but you were not aware of it at the time.
STEP 3: Notice what changes as you become aware of God’s presence. Pick a word or phrase to describe what changed as you become aware. (Finding a word can be surprisingly hard to do.)
This exercise is designed to help you be aware that God often meets us through others.
In Step 1, you may have thought of a time when someone showed care for you.
In Step 2, you may recall a time when someone helped you walk through a challenging circumstance.
In Step 3, you may begin to experience your physical body as relaxed and peaceful. We believe in an “incarnational gospel” – the idea of God coming to us in the flesh through others. We often experience Jesus as we sit with another—we feel his love, we see his love through the eyes of another, we experience his touch through a hug or a comforting hand.
My Healing Relationship
Karla and I celebrated our 39th Wedding Anniversary this year. She has been an expression of God’s love to me for more than 39 years. I have seen Jesus through her. Her love for me has created the healing relationship I have needed to be restored, forgiven, and transformed from my failures, brokenness, and fears. Please hear me –Karla is not Jesus! She, too, is broken and she would be the first to acknowledge that. However, the power of her loving connection to me is an example of how Jesus brings healing to us.
3 Action Steps toward Healing Relationship
All healing is relational. Healing relationship is about strong attachment. We need to have people in our life that are safe and secure to hold our story and sit with us.
Healing relationships begin with people you can sit with and who can really feel your pain by offering empathy and compassion.
Empathy says, “I understand.” But compassion, says, “I am with you.”
Follow these guidelines to both give and receive the power of healing in relationships.
1. DESIRE
What do you want in your relationship?
Be clear in your desire. “I want to be restored, more than I want to be right.” Begin with empathy –seek to understand the other person. Stop codependent behavior by recognizing the other as a different person with different thoughts, feelings, and interests.
Be curious. Increase care and concern of the other’s world. Nurture connection and create safety through kindness, ownership of your part in the rupture, extending grace and forgiveness, and listen to the other’s hurt.
2. SEE
“I see you!” Communicate a message of respect. “I want you to have the freedom to be you.” You be YOU! Give the other permission to be who they are. Give them the space to be fully alive and themselves.
3. CONNECT
Communicate well by mirroring, validating, and empathy. Especially when issues are intense, and emotions are high. Go slow. Be deliberate. Listen well.
Finally,
remember the women in the village of Emmaus were changed by what they experienced with Jesus. Their hearts felt his presence. They were transformed by the connection to the One who loved them so well. They experienced His desire for them, He saw them, and He connected with them.
You too can experience healing relationship through Desire, Seeing, and Connecting in your relationship with God and others.
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Phil Hardin works as a Licensed Professional Counselor and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with Hardin Life Resources practicing in both Jackson, MS and Fairhope, AL.
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