Nov 27, 2018
How do you cope as a leader when
relationships are hard? How can you respond when you’ve been hurt,
or when you disagree with those in leadership? What do you do when
you are struggling in your marriage?
We’ve been going through a
series about Healthy Relationships, and the goal has been to help
support you in your leadership to be able to develop and nurture
healthy interactions with those around you.
But we also know this:
sometimes, relationships are just plain hard. There isn’t always an
easy answer, and sometimes you can be doing all the right things,
but nothing seems to change.
In this episode, we address 3 of
those situations and offer some encouragement for you if you are
dealing with a hard relationship. We’re going to discuss what to do
when you’ve been hurt, when marriage is hard, and when you disagree
with leadership over you.
When you’ve been
hurt:
- Determine whether you need to address the
person who hurt you. Refer to
Episode 16 with Carrie Sharpe. She gave us 6 tips on how to
deal with conflict.
- Give
yourself time to process & heal.
- Writing. I’ve found writing to be extremely
helpful during times when I’ve been hurt. Check out
Episode 21 where Gayla Grace shared about how she’s used
writing in her life.
- Self-Awareness. We learned a lot about
self-awareness in
Episode 17 with Beth McCord. One of the ways self-awareness can
be helpful when you are in a situation where you’ve been hurt is to
reflect on how you react to that hurt.
- Turn
to God through prayer and scripture.
When marriage is
hard:
We talked about marriage with
our husbands in
Episode 18, and we shared some of our stories and experiences
as couples who lead together. But we didn’t share a lot about what
to do when marriage is hard. Here’s a few brief ideas for you when
marriage is hard.
- Take
care of yourself.
-
- Physical wellness - Keep your body healthy,
especially when you are under stress. This might include
exercising, eating healthy, and morning and nightly
routines.
- Spiritual health - Stay connected to God
through your spiritual disciplines and stay involved in a church
community and small group, if possible.
- Mental & emotional health - Find things that
you enjoy and fill you up. Also, seek additional professional
support such as therapy if needed.
- Relational wellness - Maintain relationships
outside of your marriage such as friendships and extended family.
Find other people who will encourage you and support your marriage.
It’s important to know who is safe and have appropriate boundaries
when it comes to sharing about your marriage challenges. This could
be a friend, accountability partner, or mentor.
- Control your attitude and your mindset. This is
super hard, but it can be done with God’s help.
-
- Look
for little ways to appreciate your spouse.
- Our
thoughts precede our emotions and our actions, so can you reframe
your thoughts to find something positive to think about your
husband?
- If
you can’t find something positive currently, think back to a time
when your relationship was healthy and remember something positive
from that experience.
When you disagree with the
leadership over you:
- Understand that you may not have the whole
picture. This means that your leaders may have information that you
do not have. Trust them
enough to handle the information and make decisions based off of
that.
- Speak
love over your leaders. Make sure that you don’t tear down your
team members or your leaders.
Key Quotes from
episode:
- “There is no human relationship that can fully fulfill
you.”
- “It’s important that we hold
other leaders up and encourage them, even when we disagree with
them.”
For the full show notes for this
episode, visit
estherlittlefield.com/episode22.
Connect with Esther and the
Christian Woman Leadership Podcast:
Episode Sponsor: Morningstar Media Services
This episode was originally
published on
estherlittlefield.com/episode22. To join the Purposeful
Leadership Facebook Group, go to estherlittlefield.com/group.