We always talk about creating “quality” relationships with other people: in the family, at work, in sport, in the groups we frequent, wherever we feel the need to live authentic relationships with the people we deal with.
Often, however, we are content to have “good” relationships that are pleasant, without arguments, collaborative and respectful. “Respectful”, in many cases, means simply “non-binding”, careful not to invade the space of others and to let everyone behave as he sees fit. But these are not really examples of relationships but simply examples of peaceful sharing of time and space: there is a difference between “dining together” and “eating at the same restaurant”.
We are talking about relationships based more on not invading the other person’s field, not creating problems rather than on the real exchange of experience, on comparison and on mutual support.
Give a part of yourself
A relationship of quality, a true relationship, is one in which people make their feelings, their energy and their experience available to each other to allow the growth of both parties. A quality relationship is pleasant, makes you feel at ease, makes life more beautiful but is not simply based on avoiding any possible communication problem. On the contrary, it is sincere and provides both the willingness to say “what should be said”, even when you do not feel like it, or to welcome what is told to us by others, even if sometimes it can make us uncomfortable.
It is the Damanhurian concept of “community”, which is deeper than the concept of “living together”. The second refers to creating common services, shared resources, management of spaces and timetables that are functional to everyone’s needs. The first indicates instead the thinking, by a group, as a single creature, that can grow, have fun and carry out projects together, because the people who are open to a real exchange, give a small part of themselves to others. What does it mean to “give up a small part of oneself”? It means trusting, being willing to change one’s point of view, questioning one’s beliefs and not feeling belittled if we realize that we can learn something from our friends.
Create friends
Having quality relationships is a choice, it does not happen by chance because magically we meet people who are easy to get along wth. Falco Tarassaco says that “friends are created, rather than chosen”. It means that behind the creation of a true friendship, there is a commitment of sincerity, of closeness, of acceptance that becomes a gift. All things that, of course, also come from mutual sympathy, affinities, common passions but also require the precise choice to get closer to others.
A quality relationship includes, unlike a superficial relationship, a wide range of emotions that can be born within us; vast, precisely because it includes warm, pleasant, comforting emotions, and even more challenging emotions, which arise when in an authentic confrontation we are called to talk to others about the things that make them uncomfortable or about their limits, or when others talk to us about ours. In any case, it is always about highly enriching emotions, because they are real.
Do you have quality relationships?
Sometimes, we used to say that others, in a quality relationship, act as a mirror. It is by looking at others that we can actually observe ourselves. This is true, but with a pact: that by observing the others we can, by difference, see ourselves and our characteristics highlighted by the similarities and differences with those whom we have before us. But above all, that we can observe ourselves with the eyes of others, that is, welcoming within ourselves the points of view and the observations that come from the people we trust.
And you, what are the characteristics of people that make you feel trust for them?
Do you have friends from whom you are willing to accept observations, even if you do not like what they have to say?
Share with us in the comments below.
