To be spiritually healthy, one has to be connected in five ways (connecting with God, connecting with other people, connecting with nature, connecting with the physical world, and connecting with oneself.) This post will consider the second of these five ways. The remaining three ways will be considered in posts that are to follow.
Connection with other people is one of the five aspects of spiritual health. However, connection with other people has issues that are different from connection with God. While God, as God, is good and desirable, other people come in all varieties of good and bad. Some connections are health-giving, others are life-destroying.
We need to be in healthy relationships with people to be spiritually healthy. A healthy relationship is one of mutual respect and mutual support. Someone who is an unhealthy relationship choice will always be trying to show how much healthier they are than you. They’ll always be demanding more of you.
It takes time to develop healthy connections. There needs to be a sharing of your life, your hopes, your dreams, your defeats and your faults. It will require a two-way sharing: you sharing with the other person and the other person sharing with you. In addition, both parties have to really hear what is said, not just the words but the essence of what the other person is sharing. This isn’t something done in a short time.
To further complicate the picture, we all age, and as we age, we change. What may have been a healthy connection when you were younger, may become unhealthy as you get older and different connections need to be established. Some unhealthy relationships can be rejuvenated, but it is a lot of hard work. Also, previous unhealthy relationships may make it difficult to establish new, healthier relationships with other people. It may—no—probably will require careful, and perhaps painful, personal soul searching, but if you want to be spiritually healthy, that is what must be done.
Ross T Lucas 