“Relationshift: Steps in Repairing Damaged Relationships

Rich Paulo S. Lim

How do you know if a relationship is a toxic relationship?

These questions may sound familiar to you or maybe you’ve been asking the same questions to yourself. How can we gauge if our relationship with people will bring us joy and not hurt?

Workplaces are communities that build a person to be who he is. Schools, in our case, were built around relationships—relationships with peers, friends, students, and school leaders. If these relationships are anchored and founded strongly, they can be a source of joy, hope, and strength. But when it is mixed with gossips, slander, and backbiting, it will result to frustrations and harm to people as well as the school. A small conflict can grow as fast as a virus which is out of control. This is why teachers need to reassess themselves as to which relationship is vital and which one is toxic.

In schools, conflict is already unsurprising. The mixture of talents, opinions, and views may not always be congruent. Most of the time, it arouses misunderstanding. Poles of personalities and attitudes may bring forth imbalance to the equation. Arguments anchored to personal issues may develop mundane conversations. People may resort to avoiding those situations; some might be mute without realizing that silence will not always be the answer. To prevent the severity of professional relationships, they resort to direct critiquing, bursting out emotions using profound words, letting the mouth do the talking without letting the mind do the thinking. These things are just merely a band-aid solution. It won’t solve anything.

Communication is vital in a healthy relationship. It is already a cliché that people have two ears and one mouth. Decisions made in any aspect must be crafted through good communication.

The following might help your relationships be more resilient in the face of conflict:

Raise your concern

Raising your concern is the first aid in resolving conflict. Immediately acknowledging the concern provides the involved to mitigate the problem. Silence and letting time pass by will not always be the solution. Express your thoughts, emotions, ideas, and don’t mind what people may think. Showing people what’s in your mind and heart is all that matters.

Acknowledge your fault

Why is it easy for us to see the fault of others and hard for us to acknowledge our own mistakes? We tend to point the wrong of others and yet we usually forget to point what we did wrong. Acknowledging your fault is tough, it is a pill that is hard to swallow. You won’t grow as a person if you do not assess yourself. Remember, you are not always RIGHT, learn to say SORRY. Take a step back, ask yourself, and assess. Rather than blaming others, focus on your relationship and find the root cause of the conflict

Be a Back armor

If you truly value your relationship, you will be a back armor of the people that you love. Hebrew’s breastplates do not usually have a back covering. In times of war, your comrade will be your back armor, protecting you from harm. Relationships, if treasured, must be founded with this attitude. Do not exchange your relationship for earthly things, do not compromise, and do not allow anything that might cause harm to your loved ones.

These three will repair most damaged relationships but remember, there’s a relationship that is not worth fighting for. There are times that the best way to resolve the conflict is to cut off your relationship especially if it consistently brings stress and damages to your mental health. In the same way, if you have a petty issue, repair it right away. Relationships, if protected, valued, and supported, will receive the highest development needs of Abraham Maslow— self-actualization.

The author is worth fighting for? At what point is a relationship not worth the fight? What

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is HT-Designate in Science at Atlu-Bola High School