You gotta know when to hold 'em

RELATIONSHIPS: you have to be in them to learn from them.

I love my work in mental health. It can be rewarding and challenging, exhausting and energising all throughout the course of just one day.
There is never ever a dull moment and I couldn't possibly imagine doing anything else now.
The organisation I work for in the community has certain principles that we base our "work" on and this simply gives us a framework for clearer understanding.
If I had to define what my job is in my language, I would have to say it's about establishing and encouraging relationships. What it is NOT about is "fixing" people.
To fix suggests that there is something wrong with us, when it's probably more truthful to say that "things" happen to us that can significantly affect our responses and the choices we make.
When I first started my job, we went through training.
We were exposed to a practice model called Intentional Peer Support and we were to use and practise these principles throughout our work.
It became evident very quickly that this was no normal job where, sure, training had its place, but rather that this framework was about something far richer and bigger, something so integral to everybody that this was going to be a job like no other.
Relationships aren't jobs and we can't learn them from books, no matter how good the research; we have to be in them to learn from them.
Relationships are fostered, nurtured, and developed and they are only as good as the connection, and the connection is only as strong as we want or need it to be.
This means we have different connections with different people and these connections shift, change and move as we grow individually or with another.
There are no absolutes when it comes to relationships.
They can be challenging and leave us vulnerable, confused and raw at times, yet they can leave us feeling fulfilled, loved and ten foot tall and bullet proof at other times.
This means that relationships significantly affect our health, not only on the inside but physically, as well. They are something we all seek in one way or another and every time we realise that we take a risk. We understand, consciously or subconsciously, that we need to be a part of someone's or others' lives.
Intimate relationships are usually massively challenging as those are the ones we have the most investment in. If we didn't have anything that we thought we were going to lose, we wouldn't care so much!
Understanding what might make a successful relationship comes down to one word for me - "mutuality". In other words it needs to be working for both parties.
Something is gonna give when it's not mutual. If one side feels that they are always losing something of themselves to another, then the relationship may well have a short life span.
What can help the relationship is often simply when we have the courage to be open enough to engage in honest communication and to seek to learn from each other rather than to change each other. Sounds simple in theory but at times can be the most difficult thing to apply. What to say, how to say it and whether it should even be said, often run through my mind.
Sometimes I speak when I should not and at other times I shut down when I need to be speaking. Sometimes relationships get to the point where mutuality is impossible no matter how much communication goes down.
When there has been a lot of hurt sometimes we simply have to move away from some relationships when it becomes evident there is no way back to compromise.
When we start to lose a shared goal or vision that's when we start to separate.
So if we are fortunate enough to find opportunities where we can share a vision with another or others, it's worth taking the time and the steps to move towards that together - and that's how we can not only grow individually, but more importantly - collectively.
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