Manage Relationships to Reduce Stress

© Michelle Howard Smith - All Rights Reserved

Before you can manage your relationships, you have to be able to effectively "file" the people that are in your life in the right categories.  There are many different types of relationships.  There are intimate relationships between men and women; husbands and wives.  There are relationships between parents and children, between siblings and other family members.  There are close friendships and there relationships such as between members in a house of worship.  These are all intimate forms of relationships with varying levels of intimacy.  Less personal relationships are those of acquaintances such as co-workers, customers of businesses and even neighbors (unless of course, your neighbor is a friend of yours).  The point is that there are so many forms of relationships that there is bound to be times of conflict, discord or disagreement.

Your knowledge of an individual's character and experiences with the individual should determine how personal and involved you get in a relationship.  It is important to recognize the type of relationship you are to have with someone before you can manage relationships effectively.  For illustrative purposes, let's examine the layout of the Tabernacle, the Hebrew place of worship. There is an outer court, an inner court and the Most Holy Place.   You would not take items that belong in the outer court and place them in the Most Holy Place.  Respectively, you would not treat an outer court relationship (acquaintances) the same as you would a& Holy of Holies relationship (a marriage).  It would not be wise to share intimate details about your personal life with a co-worker like you would share with someone like your mate or best friend.  To do so would cause a great deal of relationship stress.  For example, the female that discusses her intimate sexual relations with a co-worker of three months, should not be surprised if one day her co-worker is making a play for her man.  Relationships must be clearly outlined and they must have boundaries.

Stress and tension can emerge in almost any type of relationship.  The key is to develop adequate emotional intelligence skills.  A simple definition of Emotional Intelligence is that it is a learned skill that reflects one's ability to assess and monitor the feelings and emotions of one's self as well as the feelings and emotions of another person or group in addition to managing one's own emotions.  Developing this skill will enable you to confidently and effectively communicate while remaining calm.  One way to accomplish this is when encountering stress in a relationship (any relationship) is to mentally take on the viewpoint of the other person.  Sometimes placing yourself in another person's "shoes" helps you to focus and become more flexible.  In a relationship, one or both parties is either being irrational, selfish or completely unaware of the other person's feelings.  This is why it is beneficial to be the one with a high level of emotional intelligence.  You are then able to confront and adequately diffuse a stressful situation that has the potential to multiply by great proportions.  When you have developed your emotional intelligence skills, you are able to respond better and manage stress in a relationship.

Sometimes stress in a relationship is not the result of a direct encounter with a person but rather the result of a culmination of behaviors or attitudes.  Let's examine a couple of scenarios (based on personal experiences):

Scenario 1

An upstairs neighbor rises at 6am every morning and plays loud music.  You only have 30 minutes remaining before you have to wake up.  Every morning sleep is cut short  and you never go upstairs to speak with the neighbor about the disturbance.  Meanwhile, your neighbor is ignorantly and/or inconsiderately causing you daily stress.  You  have not had a personal conversation with this person and as far as your neighbor is concerned, all is well.   However you are being stressed by a situation without direct contact with your stressor.

After the second day of disturbance, an emotionally intelligent person will go upstairs to the neighbor's apartment after first putting herself in her neighbor's frame of mind (such neighbor will be referred to as Mr. X from here on).  "Perhaps Mr. X needs a little help getting ready for work in the morning and music is his way of speeding along the process." Even though the bastard is inconveniencing me with his poor taste in music (Ok OMIT that entire last sentence.  It was only made to make you smile :-)  Back on track -  When speaking with Mr. X, she's non-confrontational yet direct and explains to him that every morning  she notices that Mr. X  enjoys playing his music a little loudly.  "While I enjoy music as well, I'd greatly appreciate it if you would play your music so loudly because it's disturbing my sleep. " Chances are Mr. X  will apologize for the disturbance and be more considerate in the future.  However, there is the possibility that Mr. X won't be receptive.  In any event, a person who has developed emotional intelligence will be able to handle the situation by clearly stating his or her position calmly.  If the situation isn't resolved, the person could always take it to the next level.  In the case of Mr. X, placing a  complaint to the landlard about the disturbance would then be in order.  By  no means should any person allow another individual to make them feel intimidated, fearful and/or eventually stressed.

Scenario 2

A woman starts working in a new department.  One of her new co-workers appears to be intimidated by her presence and proceeds to spread rumors about the woman to the other co-workers.  The correct and emotionally intelligent way to handle the situation would be to first speak to the woman directly and ask her if there is anything that was done to offend her and if not then why is she spreading rumors in the office.  Now, realistically you know that there is nothing that warrants the spreading of rumors in the work place.  However, this statement is used to open the line of communication.  If the situation can not be resolved, the next step would be to keep notes (dates and incidents) about the dissension that the woman spreading rumors is doing so that if necessary, the woman can ask her manager to intervene.  If still no resolution, a trip to HR may be in order. In any event, a course of action has begun to resolve the tense situation.  The woman did not allow discord stirred up by the other person to take root and cause constant stress.  The woman continued to perform her job responsibilities, would not participate in office gossip and more importantly, stood her ground with the co-worker by remaining professional at all times.  In the end, 

While not every situation can be resolved amicably, based on the charactersof the individuals involved, certainly if a clear line of communication is open, times of stress can either be resolved more quickly or avoided altogether.  Never allow what another person is saying or doing get you to the point that you are experience any symptoms of stress such as feeling nervous and losing sleep.

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