By Jody Johnston Pawel, LSW, CFLE, CTSS, CFLE-Expert, CWCSC,
Winner of the Margaret E. Arcus Award as the Outstanding Family Life Educator of 2024-25
by the National Council on Family Relations.

As you look forward to this New Year, what are your intentions and resolutions? If you are like most people, you want to improve your health, receive greater abundance into your life, make new friends and keep the old, and have positive fulfilling relationships at work and home.

If you look way into your future, to the end of life, which of those things will bring you the most fulfillment? Certainly improved health extends your life, but sooner or later we all die. Wealth and other forms of prosperity certainly make life more enjoyable, but “you can’t take it with you.”

What you do take with you are your relationships. While you can’t physically take people with you, your soul has a relationship with each person in your life. The purpose of that relationship could be to teach lessons, balance karma, heal past issues, gain experience, or other possible reasons.

Some people believe in soul families that reincarnate together and whatever you don’t resolve here will follow you to another life to resolve. Whatever the reason or your beliefs, one thing’s for sure: every single person in your life is part of your life’s flow, give and take.

Obviously, no one wants drama, dissension or to have broken relationships, yet it seems to happen to almost everyone. You can resolve to improve or heal relationships, but just how can you do that? Most people use trial and error, trying to figure out the way, maybe never getting healed.

Fortunately, here is a plan to follow. This blueprint is taught in the “Relationships Come F.I.R.S.T. (Formula for Improving Relationship Success Tools)” course.

A plan for improving your relationships can start by deciding to dump the drama and choose the path of enlightenment, new discoveries, and abundance. It involves letting go of blame and embracing unconditional love, for yourself and others.

Then follow this six-step plan for improving your relationships:

• Adopt a Conscious Relationship Mindset. Most relationships are influenced by old belief systems and petty drama patterns that were programmed in childhood, which determine perceptions and emotions. Instead, intentionally create a belief system of your choosing.

• Reframe your trigger buttons, which cause you to react (or over-react) to situations and people today that remind you of past experiences and people. Instead of giving away your power by blaming others for “pushing your buttons,” realize that triggers are your body’s way of showing you where you need to heal. So, take back your power and be responsible for your own healing.

• Learn and use effective listening, communication, and problem-solving skills. Too often, we and others use psychological games that are emotionally dishonest, like “I’m the victim here,” “I’m a martyr, and “See what you made me do!” These defense tactics protect the ego but create a wall that prevents intimacy and healthy relationships from forming and growing. Unfortunately, many people don’t learn these healthy skills in their family of origin but, fortunately, you can learn or improve them now.

• Understand the mind-body connection. When you have a thought, it creates a bio-chemical reaction you experience as “feeling” an emotion. Other people and things are not responsible for making you feel emotions, your thoughts are, and you can control and choose your thoughts. This is what mindfulness is all about. By being more mindful about choosing your thoughts, you can experience greater inner peace and not get hooked by people and situations.

• De-program trigger buttons and emotional addictions. When the body chronically experiences toxic emotions, it can eventually cause health issues, like dis-ease. A body that has been consistently fed toxic emotions can become addicted to or dependent on these bio-chemicals. Then the subconscious mind will create situations that cause drama, to feed this addiction. By understanding this process is unintentional and subconscious, you can consciously and intentionally break these addictions and heal the cellular memory of trauma and other toxic emotions. Techniques like Emotional Freedom Technique can help.

• Embrace the fact that your thoughts, words and actions are what create your reality. Instead of resisting what is, either accept it or change it by changing one or more of these three areas. When they are aligned, they will create whatever they are aligned to, positive or negative. By intentionally aligning them for what you want, and getting excited that it is already becoming that, it increases your electromagnetic vibrations, attracting those positive people and experiences into your life.

By taking these steps, you can literally change every aspect of your life, including improving your health, receiving greater abundance into your life, making new friends and keeping the old, and having positive fulfilling relationships at work and home. They are universal principles, so they work whether or not you are conscious of them.

Once you take responsibility for addressing everything in your life, instead of making excuses or blaming others, you become empowered to become a victor over, not a victim of, circumstance. That empowerment and good intentions will take you far. Add in more knowledge and skill training and you can re-create your reality! 

May each of you have a year full of love, inner peace, good health, and abundance!

For More Information: See the Relationships Come F.I.R.S.T. Course here.

Source: Jody originally wrote this article for Infinity Magazine, Winter, 2019 (page 22) and updated it for this blog.

About the Autor: Jody Johnston Pawel is a Licensed Social Worker, Certified Family Life Educator, Certified Trauma Support Specialist, Certified World Class Speaker Coach, is one of the first Certified Family Life Coaches to qualify at the Expert Level, and received the 2024-25 Margaret E. Arcus Award for Outstanding Family Life Educator by the National Council on Family Relations. She is also the author of the award-winning book The Parent’s Toolshop® and over 100 research-based parenting curricula, programs, and resources. She’s a top-rated speaker who has trained over 100,000 parents and professionals and has certified over 100 Parent’s Toolshop® trainers and coaches worldwide. She serves as a parenting expert to the media, with 300+ media appearances, and was the Assistant Producer and On-air Parenting Expert of the Emmy-nominated Ident-a-Kid television series. Connect with her online on social media or use the “contact” pages at any of her websites or her e-library. A good place to start is https://RelationshipToolshop.com 

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