In 35 years of living, I have encountered so many people that I couldn’t even make a list if I tried. I remember all the ones that had an impact on my journey rather it was good or bad. I’ve had friends that lasted for a couple of months and ones that have been in my life for 25+ years. I’ve had lovers that I thought I would be with forever and turns out it was just a summer fling. Lovers that probably should’ve only been friends, truthfully.

I have family members that I may have been close with growing up and now we hardly ever speak and then ones that after I lost my parents they stepped right in. I’m sure if you made your list you would run out of ink as well.

Most recently I was trying to make sense of my relationships. Trying to understand why I lost people that I thought would be around forever and also why some people even bothered showing up to waste my time. I came across this video on Youtube with Lisa Nichols. You may know her from the book “The secret”. If you don’t, look it up, it’s a great read! She talked about four types of relationships and it completely changed my perspective and I hope I can bring some light to you today with this post. 🙂

1. Lifetime relationships- Self-explanatory, they last a lifetime. A lot of people will be blessed to have this relationship family, longtime family friends, (some) spouses and anyone else you know no matter the situation they will ride with you until the end.
2. Life-Giving relationships- will last anywhere from one night to two years.  They come into your life to remind you of something, teach you something, or hold a space for a short while. They are usually filled with extreme passion and energy, lots of turbulence and chaos. However, because they are so intense they can’t last long. They were only designed to give you back life and wake you up to the fact that you are still in the game. The relationship was life-giving and was not meant to last forever.
3. Purposeful Relationships-Purposeful Relationships last about 2-20years. These relationships are formed for a clear purpose. These are also the relationships that have the most turbulence, hurt, breakdown and pain. This is because once the purpose is fulfilled the relationship forever takes a change. Unfortunately, because selfishly we always want people and things to stay the way that makes “us” comfortable we spend years trying to make these relationships “lifetime relationships”  Your purpose with this person could be: to have children together, grow each other up, start a business together,  or any other defining moment you would like to insert here. Once the purpose gets fulfilled the relationship will shift. That doesn’t mean that the relationship needs to end but you do need to stop trying to get the relationship back to where it was. You can turn purposeful relationships into lifetime relationships by simply accepting the new path that it is on. When a relationship is complete we must recognize that it is complete because it did what it was supposed to do.

Still with me? Great! In the video, Lisa suggests making a list of all of your relationships and put them into one of two columns, Life-giving or Purposeful. Once you determine the purpose of the relationship you will no longer look at it as a waste of time. Once you realize the purpose you’ll realize that there was something that you learned or something that you gained. For me, intimate relationships are the areas I struggle with the most. I always feel like I am connecting with people in the wrong season. I’m now realizing that it’s always the right season and I must focus on the purpose so that I can heal and move forward. Until we get complete and whole in these answers we will forever be trying to avoid them in the future. Any relationship you are no longer figure out either what life it gave you or what purpose is fulfilled.

Now let’s tap this back into the last few blog posts. (If you haven’t read them I suggest you do so now. They are pretty decent reads.) Loving yourself! Its so important and will ultimately be the key to almost everything in life. When we know that we are complete and whole and we feel it then our tanks are full and we can love others from that space. Allow your tank to be so full that it runs over. This way loving others will never take from you as you’ll be able to love them with your overflow.

Never allow anyone to convince you that love hurts. Love does NOT hurt! If it’s hurting it’s because you haven’t given you all that you need yet and you’re trying to give other people what you still need. It has taken me years to learn this. For years I’ve gone with the motto that “sometimes love hurts” when the truth is hurt people hurt people. Incomplete and unfulfilled people hurt people. We have to first start with loving ourselves. The only way that you can demonstrate to someone else “how to love you” is by showing them “how you love you.” Relationships with others are important and will most likely bring some of the most pivotal moments in our lives. But we must stay tapped into the relationship we have with ourselves. Don’t allow the relationships you have with others to allow your personal relationship with yourself to spiral out of control. Continue to check in with yourself. Continue to make that list and discover what was the purpose of those relationships that didn’t last.

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