Relationships

A colleague invited me to present to his collaborative partners yesterday at one of their monthly meetings because he wanted to take their work "to the next level." So I was inspired to talk about relationships and their power to heal, get things done and make a difference. Everything we do happens in the context of relationships - dating, marriage, work, therapy, parenting, teaching, advocacy, and so on.

So what do we know about relationships? The research literature has gobs of information about this and I wanted to glean some good stuff from there to trigger storytelling and discussion. In preparing for this talk, I read a lot of interesting journal articles and posted some of those excerpts and abstracts here on the blog.

I gave everyone at the meeting a copy of the article excerpts and a few minutes to read. One of the service providers in the group said that the following statement really stood out to her, " Several recent research reviews have concurred that 'bad is stronger than good.' " This statement resonated with her experience of tending to remember the bad over the good.

I remember reading that bad experiences tend to get encoded in our memory more strongly because of the strong feelings associated. It's good to know how we are built. Like an instruction manual for our mind.

That article goes on to say, "The implication is that to overcome the toxicity of negative affect and to promote flourishing, experiences of positivity may need to outnumber experiences of negativity, optimal mental health is associated with high ratios of positive to negative affect."

Makes sense! One bad experience is so strong that it takes 3 to 5 good experiences to counteract it! When I think about what Social Workers and other mental health professionals sign up for (dealing with challenges all day long!), I think about the exponential amount of good experiences that we need to build into our work and lives in order to flourish personally and professionally.

Sometimes at self-care presentations or discussions, we ask each other: "what one thing will you do for yourself tonight or this week for self-care?" When the mathematically adequate question would be: "Considering you handled 4 crises situations today, what 20 positive experiences will you engage in today?"

This is an important math problem for all - parents, partners, family members, friends - especially in these stressful times. Even if you still have a job, you may have someone near and dear who has lost or is losing theirs. This makes us all feel vulnerable. When we spend time with stressed out loved ones, our own mirror neurons are affected. That is, we feel what they feel even if it is not happening directly to us. It is how we are built.

No matter what life throws at us, let's bring on the positive experiences, emotions, interactions, baby! Thanks to friends, family and boundaries, I am not running on empty or overdrawn now. I am so grateful for a flourishing ratio.