How Positive Relationships Can Boost Your Mental Health

Relationships, whether with yourself or others, can have a huge impact on your overall wellbeing. By indulging in negative self-talk, we may feel much worse than we already do, but if we take time to cultivate reframing situations and building resilience, we can improve our wellbeing in the long run. How can we build a healthy and positive relationship with ourselves and others, handle conflict, leave unhealthy relationships, LGBTQIA+ relationships and embracing authenticity relationships?

What is a healthy relationship?

Healthy relationships with others are relationships where we feel safe to be ourselves and express ourselves freely without judgement. However, a big part of a healthy relationship is having a healthy relationship with yourself to begin with. A healthy relationship with yourself involves actively engaging with self-compassion, challenging your own biases and judgements towards yourself and others, and engaging with regular self-care.

LGBTQIA+ relationships

Statistically, people within the LGBTQIA+ community are more likely to have faced abuse through the workplace (Di Marco et al, 2021; Sears et al, 2021; Maji et al, 2024). This abuse causes people to recluse and withdraw their authentic self, leading to inauthentic relationships, isolation and poor mental health. If you have been through relationships where you have felt sexualised, stereotyped or discriminated against, joining communities with likeminded people who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community can help you feel more confident to enter relationships in an authentic way.

Ways to build a healthy relationship with yourself

Challenge your biases

When you make a negative assumption or judgement towards yourself, ask yourself, what would I say to someone else in the same situation as me? How can I challenge this assumption by showing kindness to myself?

Meet your basic needs

If you are struggling with your emotions or feeling low, taking time to meet your basic needs, such as a good night’s sleep, eating healthy, moving your body, keeping hydrated, and engaging with mindfulness to bring you attention to the here and now all help to regulate your nervous system and feel calmer.

Explore your values

When you feel strongly about a particular situation or topic, this could stem from emotions like anger, sadness, envy or feeling like there is misjustice. These emotions can help you understand what your values are and what is important to you. Our values are a fundamental part of who we are, and our values are often the driving force for our emotions, so exploring this can help you understand your emotional triggers and how you can support yourself in situations where you experience uncomfortable emotions.

Focus on what you can control

We cannot always change others, but what you can do is focus on what is in your control through reflecting on how you spend your time, setting healthy boundaries and implementing self-care.

Ways to build healthy relationships with others

Building healthy relationships with others requires a good understanding of yourself, and the other person. Being curious about one another is a big factor in building healthy relationships.

The below tips can help build a healthy relationship with others:

Get to really know the other person

Be curious to understand them, their values and what is important to them. This understanding helps them feel seen and understood which helps facilitate meaningful relationships.

Be open

Let them understand you by being open about who you are. Being vulnerable requires you to feel safe by this person, and the more open and authentic you are, the more likely you are to understand how safe you feel with this person and whether the connection is right for you. Being yourself helps others understand you and this helps you understand each other’s values, common interests and this leads to more ways to build a stronger connection over time.

Assume positive intent

Assume Positive Intent. API is a principle in psychology that is assuming others have good intentions. It is common for people to worry if they have upset a friend or partner if the person is being ‘off’ or worry the other person has had intentions, especially if someone has been through relational trauma. For this reason, trusting they will tell you if they have any problems with you or your relationship and assuming they have good intentions helps build trust in your relationships. If a loved one chooses not to communicate how they feel, this is their responsibility. It is not a reflection of you or your worth in the relationship if they choose not to communicate, it is reflection on them and their communication style.

Connect through like-minded activities

Connecting through activities, such as games or sports can help you build trust and learn about each other, this can help strengthen the relationship in the long term.

Dealing with relationship conflicts

Learning to navigate conflict in a healthy way helps how you feel in yourself and strengthens your relationships. Below are methods to help you navigate conflict in a healthy way:

Don’t assume others know how you feel.

Assuming others should ‘know’ how you feel is not beneficial for relationships. Others can only know how you feel by you communicating with them.

Challenging your own assumptions

If you are assuming how they feel, this can make others feel misunderstood and close off from trying to emotionally connect with you.

Be curious

Showing curiosity helps others feel validated and understand your needs. For example, if someone doesn’t respond to a text for weeks at a time, telling them this makes you confused about your relationship and asking them more about their relationship with technology and sharing your communication preferences with them helps you find a common ground, to move forward in a healthy way.

Focus on the problem not the person

For example, if someone is not available on a special day, or they cannot afford it. Taking time to ask them when they are free or their budget and telling them you want to share this with them, helps you both feel valued, which strengthens relationships.

Express boundaries

If someone brings conflict to you at a time when you don’t have the capacity to manage this in a healthy way, explain to them you are busy but you want to address the issue in a healthy way and state what times you are free, can help prevent emotional outburst and hostility towards one another, and it can help the person feel you value them.

Leaving an unhealthy relationship

Ending an unhealthy relationship is not always easy and reaching out for support from others you feel close to, or domestic abuse charities can help you feel supported and protected if you feel you are struggling. An ending of an unhealthy relationship often brings up a lot of emotions so planning in self-care can help you bring your attention to your needs and making space for your own mental health.

Tips on managing stress and anxiety in relationships

During stressful periods, our relationship with ourselves is often neglected and this impacts our capacity to connect with others. Engaging with self-care is key for overcoming stress and the below tips can help you overcome stressful periods in your relationships:

Let others support you

If loved ones ask how they can support you, let them be there for you and care for you. If you are used to being in relationships where your needs are neglected or dismissed, it may feel unsettling to accept support. However, accepting support and care form others helps build trust and strengthens your relationship.

Share how stress impacts you

Through this understanding of you, they can support you during challenging times. For example, if you need more alone time, or prefer company without pressure to talk when stressed, they can support with this.

Be intentional with your time

Our energy levels and needs continuously change and this means saying no to others. If you are struggling with stress or burn out, communicating this and sharing your needs can help you, such as meeting for an hour instead of all evening to allow yourself to get a good night’s sleep, or re-scheduling plans for when you are feeling better, helps others understand you and also manage their expectations, and this helps strengthen your relationships.

How an Employee Assistance Programme can help you build positive relationships

Support from an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) can help provide in the moment support when you need it most. At HA | Wisdom Wellbeing, we offer in the moment support with a counsellor through live chat and video call on the Wisdom app or our 24/7 helpline. This allows you to talk things through with a counsellor and learn coping methods to help meet your needs a healthy way. We’re also available 365 days a year, meaning you can speak with a qualified counsellor whenever it suits you.

Conclusion

The takeaway message is to be authentic in your relationships. Being authentic has been thoroughly researched as a way to improve relationships and it is vital for mental health and sustaining healthy relationships in the long term. Understanding your barriers to be authentic in your relationships can help you find ways to authenticity and cultivate self-compassion.