Relational CORE Fitness is vital for our individual, relational, and collective happiness, health, and well-being.
Our sense of well-being is challenged immensely in a world of growing disconnect, unhappiness, and loneliness. The now-recognised loneliness epidemic, the emotional recession and the decline in empathy, as noted in the State of the Heart 2024 research report, are of growing concern.
When we look around we can witness growing affective polarization that undermines our individual and collective emotional health, our identity resilience, and social cohesion. The political landscape at global, regional, and local level is threatening peace in our personal and public spheres.
My life experiences and research over the years have taught me that for our overall wellbeing, we benefit not only from taking care of our physical fitness, the common focus in discussions around quality of life and longevity.
The rising relational disharmony, disconnect, and social isolation tell us that we have to invest in building our emotional ‘muscles’ and human skills.
The inherent challenges in the dynamics of life ask of us to be fit for the world of modern relationships.
We need to develop our capacity to be critically mindful, emotionally empowered, and enlightened about the overt and covert mechanisms of communication.
We need to develop our relational fitness in our aspiration for holistic wellbeing and peace.
Relational CORE Fitness provides insight, tools, and skills that elevate our human capacity to connect and proactively create, contribute, and maintain healthy and joyful relationships in our private and public spheres.
The uptake and practice of Relational CORE Fitness, with its foundational courses of relational wisdom, emotional empowerment, and conscious communication, is a process of personal transformation and regeneration of our human kindness, respect, and sense of mutuality.
Relational CORE Fitness is needed in a cultural climate of intensified individualism, inequity, and conflict.
We are living in an era where intense competitiveness, entitlement, and egocentrism have infiltrated our internal and external human landscapes. Finger-pointing, negative labelling, blaming and shaming in all relational domains appear to have become unquestioned norms for many, with individual and collective polarization on the rise.
We are experiencing and witnessing growing relational dysfunction. Relationship breakdown, divorce, family estrangement, isolation, discrimination, and associated deterioration of individual and societal mental health are evident globally.
Overt accusations and aggression are on the rise. Emotional polarization can be seen and felt everywhere, with collective unhealthy dynamics influencing individual attitudes and behaviour. Conflict avoidance, the unwillingness to engage in difficult conversations and to establish and re-establish connection, dominates our private and public engagements.
Social media has become the means to spread pop psychology that pathologizes people. What has now been termed ‘therapy speak’ accompanied by a trend of victimisation is disconnecting us in various ways from our shared humanity.
Independence rather than the value of interdependence is being hailed as the modern way to be. Negative interdependence, where people act to achieve their own goals at the expense of others, appears to be accepted without question by many.
What we need is positive interdependence, with collaboration and mutual support at its core, to foster healthy relationships and peaceful co-existence.
As a panacea for wellness and well-being, self-care activities are now promoted.
Searching the internet, we can find offers to immerse ourselves in another world with experiences that foster relaxation, greater self-awareness, resilience, self-esteem, and self-love.
Alongside this development, the idea of mindfulness, mostly drawing on Eastern religious and spiritual traditions, has taken the world by storm, including the global world of wellness. Unfortunately, with its commercialisation, the core teachings of self-transcendence are often forgotten or ignored.
It is worthwhile to pause and consider the question: How is mindfulness integrated into our daily lives and the love for others and the world around us? True self-awareness, resilience, and healthy self-esteem do not grow in isolation from the realities of relational challenges and conflicts in our daily lives.
Considering our mindless daily existence and the sense of loneliness that permeates our lives at home, at work, and in the world at large, we benefit from the Western scientific tradition along the Eastern perspective, asking ourselves:
What are we mindful of? What do we care about? Are we critically mindful?
While being willing and able to care for ourselves remains important, our lives in captivity due to the restrictions during the COVID-19 epidemic brought to our attention the importance of interdependence and mutual care.
It became clear that we all have a fundamental human need to feel a connection with others, to feel welcome in a world outside our four walls; to feel cared for and providing care for others.
We all yearn to feel heard, seen, and valued, to give and receive love, and experience the joy of human energies found in caring and nourishing social relationships.
The Harvard Study of Adult Development, a longitudinal study of 80 years, tells us that a decline in social relationships and an increase in stress levels have been identified as causes for the rise in mental health issues and decline in physical health.
The meaningful and supportive connections in our lives have been recognised as being at the core of our happiness and well-being.
As renowned Belgian-American psychologist Esther Perel emphasises,
“The quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives.”
In a world where overt and covert messages tell us to be self-reliant and self-sufficient, it helps to remember that we are part of many different relationships in the web of life, those with
-
- our significant others,
- our parents and siblings,
- our grandparents and extended family,
- our close and casual friends,
- our mates at sport and work colleagues,
- our immediate and distant communities,
- the world around us.
The common denominator in all these relationships is the one we have with ourselves. Often overlooked is the kind of intimate connection we have with who we are and want to be, both as individuals and as part of relationships with others.
Living in a world where the quality of relationships and our individual and collective well-being are deteriorating, we benefit from redirecting our attention to the dynamics of relationships in all spheres of our lives.
All relationships matter – starting with the relationship we have with ourselves.
This article is entirely composed by Dr. Birgit Trauer without AI input.
