Let me ask you a question: What do you think is the most important skill you need to thrive in the world? Or even to just survive?

Is it your IQ level? Is it your ability to discipline yourself?

How do the most healthy and wealthy people in the world find their way to that state? Do they have some secret knowledge?  

Or is there another dimension at play?

What is your greatest source of pain? Are you carrying wounds from your past? What are those wounds? 

Think about the person you are right now. Think about your position in life right now. What made you the person you are currently?

What caused you to have the worldview you have currently?

Are you struggling to integrate with society in the way that you wish? Do you have dreams and prayers that don’t ever become reality? 

Do you lack a voice? Do you find yourself unable to be real and genuine? Is fear dictating every move you make?

These are a lot of questions…

And as a trauma and deliverance coach, I’m used to helping my clients face these questions. Most people fight these issues on their own without any direction or understanding of the fundamental dynamics of being human. 

Relationships play a big part in our health and stability, and it’s something that many people struggle with. They know something is wrong but there are few who know how truly important it is to focus on growing healthy relationships. And how much we are affected by broken relationships.

In this blog, I’m going over some of the many ways that relationships affect us. 

Relationships That Break Us

First of all, what are the consequences of trauma and abuse in relationships?

There’s an extreme example in Carl Panzram, one of the worst serial killers in history. Right before his execution, he wrote a book. Here are some of the words he wrote:

“I started out in life enjoying it and hating no one. I am winding it up now by hating the whole human race including myself and having no desire to live any longer. For all the misery and tortures that I have went through, I have made other men go through many times over, only worse”. 

I used to be pretty ignorant and not able to read very well so I always had a hard job learning my Sunday School lessons. For failure to learn these lessons I was given a whipping. During the first year I was there I used to get a beating every Saturday night and sometimes three or four more during the week for doing something I wasn’t supposed to do or for not doing something that I was supposed to do. Oh yes, I had plenty  of abuse.”1

Carl’s parents and those in authority over him never showed him anything but shame and abuse. And the resulting individual became one of the most broken people in history. People even hesitate to consider him a human being.

Yet, he was just as human as you are. You’re wired in much the same way as him. Your human development works the same as his. If the people in Carl’s childhood had been aware of how the human psyche works, these horrors might very well have been prevented. And innocent lives would have been spared.

I’m not justifying Carl Panzram in committing the atrocities he did. I’m saying humans have patterns wired into them that we’re able to recognize across cultures and time periods.

There’s a verse in Deuteronomy that states: 

“For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” (Deut. 5:9)

This verse could be translated as a psychological truth. Maybe this verse is pointing out that there’s a pattern. Your developmental relationships form everything about you – and even your descendants as the cycle continues. This is bad news if you have bad relationships, but it’s good news if you have good relationships.

Here are some interesting statistics:

• An article published by the American Psychological Association shows anxiety levels in children went up significantly from the 1950’s to the year 2000 (when this article was published).2 Some of the factors named were “low social connectedness” and “higher divorce rates, more people living alone and a decline in trust in other people”. And a direct quote from the doctor performing the study, “Until people feel both safe and connected to others, anxiety is likely to remain high.”

• According to a Pew Research article, “In the 1970’s, 67% of Americans ages 25 to 49 were living with their spouse and one or more children younger than 18. By 2021, that percentage dropped to 37%.”3 

There’s a trend, and it coincides with the declining mental health of the same demographics.

Did you have good relationships with your parents and peers?

Or did you have unhealthy relationships with your parents and peers? You may even now be fighting unhealthy patterns as a result of these relationships.

“Relationships are life.”

This is a phrase a friend spoke to me. He didn’t even realize how right he was. It’s also true that relationships can be death. Maybe there’s a relationship in your life that’s slowly draining you of life.

Everything we are has to do with how we relate to other humans. There’s no getting away from this. 

But now I want to explain how healthy relationships are one of the most valuable things you can seek.   

 

Relationships That Make Us

I had a client who didn’t see a positive change in his life until he started learning how to connect to others and build strong friendships. He was fighting addictions, depression, and frequent mental breakdowns. But once he learned how to open up and trust others, he changed into a completely different person.

He changed as a person.

It turns out we humans need each other. We can’t function alone – we’re social beings. It’s a survival mechanism. If we’re isolated, we become anxious and depressed because it’s our body’s way of telling us that something’s wrong. Without this mechanism, we wouldn’t have the advanced societies we have today. We wouldn’t have any growth or advancement at all.

If you decide to “just survive on your own”, you’re literally trying to fight against one of the fundamental aspects of being human. And it’s a losing battle. There’s no limit your brokenness can reach if you willingly choose to close yourself to healthy engagement with others. 

One of the most important things you can focus on is trusting others. It’s impossible to have relationships without trust. This may be the wall that’s keeping you from experiencing abundance in your life. 

Once you start seeing your fellow humans as potential friends, you’ll start acting that worldview out in real life. You’ll have unlimited opportunities for expanding in the world. You’ll experience the kind of mental health (and as a result, physical health) that comes only through being firmly secure with other humans. 

You’ll experience new connections and strengths that affect every part of your life, including potential spouses, career opportunities, and new perspectives that improve your own perspective. 

And that may be just the change you need. Maybe the door that opens up your future prosperity is changing how you interact with others.

Start Your Healing Journey Today

There’s much more to be said about the dynamics of relationships and how they affect us. If you wish to discover more about your own relationships, I encourage you to talk to me. I have many years of experience helping struggling individuals overcome the broken patterns that kept them bound.

If you wish to schedule a one-on-one session, click here to schedule. To learn more about me and my services, here is my website. 

I look forward to seeing you reach your healthiest potential and unlock your future!

1. Panzram, Carl. Panzram : Butchering Humanity: Carl Panzram - The Autobiography 
2. https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2000/12/anxiety
3. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/09/14/the-modern-american-family/