Developing Skills for Deeper Relationships (Part 2)

"Developing Deeper Relationships: Developing Ten Skills, Including Humility, Patience, And Respect."

In this episode of Faith with Friends podcast, host Lisa Lorenzo is joined by Christian counselor and mental health therapist Dr. Lidia Martinez to discuss the ten skills to develop healthier and deeper relationships with the people we love. The first five are: active listening, expressing oneself clearly and respectfully, emotional intelligence, forgiveness, and empathy. The sixth skill is humility, which is defined as having a humble and modest attitude towards others. Humility is important in relationships as it helps us to put ourselves in the shoes of others and understand their feelings, which can lead to better communication and deeper relationships.

The conversation starts with a discussion of humility and its importance. The speaker explains that true humility is not low self-esteem, but rather submitting to the authority of others and an absence of pride. The speaker then references Bible verses from Peter 5:5-6, which emphasize being submissive to one another and clothing oneself in humility. The speaker then brings up the example of Jesus in John 13:1-7, who embodied humility by washing the disciples' feet and submitting to the Father's will. In order to be humble, the speaker suggests emptying one's cup of pride and filling it with God and His thoughts. Finally, the speaker emphasizes the importance of listening to others, being compassionate, and having humility in communication.

Humility is an essential attribute for having patience. Jesus demonstrated patience in his ministry, often when his disciples were slow to understand and when faced with opposition from religious leaders. Jesus showed patience when he delayed in healing Lazarus, allowing the process to happen so he could produce faith in their spirit. Humility and patience go hand in hand, as humility enables us to put our needs and wants aside for a moment and consider those of others. Humility requires an active, conscious decision to slow down and listen to other people’s stories and reactions, rather than jumping to conclusions. Patience requires the ability to endure difficult situations without becoming frustrated or angry.

In this conversation, the speaker discusses the importance of patience and trustworthiness in communication. They mention that patience is one of the hardest fruits of the spirit, and is demonstrated by Jesus in the Bible. They also emphasize that patience must be combined with humility when waiting on God's answer. They then translate this into communication, explaining that we must have patience with someone even when we don't agree with them. They go on to explain that trustworthiness is built over time, as patterns of honesty, reliability, and dependability are established. As an example, Jesus is the most trustworthy person who ever walked the earth, as He never lied and kept every promise He made. Finally, Proverbs 11:3 is quoted, which states that the integrity of the upright will guide them, but the unfaithful will be destroyed.

Timestamps

0:00:00

Therapy Thursday: Ten Skills to Develop Healthier and Deeper Relationships with the People We Love (Part 2)

0:02:53

Conversation on Humility: Understanding the Biblical Definition and Practicing it in Communication

0:07:42

Conversation on Humility, Patience, and Faith

0:09:35

Conversation on Patience, Communication, and Trustworthiness

0:13:23

"Building Trust and Respect in Relationships"

0:15:16

Topic: Respect in Marriage: A Discussion on Ephesians 5:33

0:18:26

"Respecting Your Spouse in Front of Your Children: A Conversation on Building a Foundation of Respect"

0:20:23

Topic: The Power of Gratitude in Communication

0:22:35

Conversation on Effective Communication and Relationships

0:28:08

"Developing Habits of Active Listening in Relationships: Strategies for Effective Communication, Emotional Intelligence, Forgiveness, Empathy, Humility, and Patience"

0:29:55

Conversation on Cultivating a Reputation of Honesty, Respect, Gratitude, and Love

0:32:20

Faith with Friends Podcast: Cultivating Healthy Relationships with Dr. Lydia Martinez

Highlights

Blessings today and our bonus word love? Okay, so how can you intentionally invest in a relationship this week showing love and kindness to another person? And how can you extend love and kindness to people that you naturally don't get along with? How can you emulate Jesus love in your relationships, specifically through serving others and showing sacrificial love and thinking about relationships that might be needing a touch of extra TLC this week?. What is a practical way that you can express your love to others? Well, I'm glad that we came together today, because I know I needed the refresher. How about you, Dr. Lydia?

But I think that we have, between both sessions, if you were to learn to communicate effectively, easy for me to say, right? I think it's important that you just continue to wash, rinse, repeat, try all these learn do better, try all of these learn do better. And number one, let's review all of them from the beginning. In the first episode was active listening, effective communication, emotional intelligence, forgiveness, and empathy.. And then in this one, we talked more about humility, patience, trustworthiness, respect, and gratitude. And it's interesting that we ended with gratitude. You'd think that we would have started with gratitude, but I'm telling you, you express a little bit of appreciation and it will open up conversations for you. And then we ended up with love, which I think really summarizes all of these, don't you, Lisa?

First of all, he laid down his life for his friends. He put others first. That's the kind of love that God has for us. How do we develop that love? We look to Jesus example, and this is what Jesus says. He says, you love because I loved you first, so I love those who love me. But that's not what Jesus did. Jesus loved us first and allowed us to respond. So it's easy to love when you're in a loving relationship, when you're with people who are safe, trustworthy, patient, kind, humble, they listen actively, they communicate well, that's easy.

Well, that's my question. We've talked about the five love languages. There are more than five, but there are five main categories. But this is our question. Biblical love is the foundation of our relationship with God, and God gives us the command in John 15, verses twelve and 13, to love one another as he has loved us. So he doesn't say, figure it out. He says, I'm going to love you and I want you to love others that way. Well, how does love God?

Again, you would use positive, encouraging, uplifting words. There's no room for name calling. There's no room for verbal abuse. And if you feel like you're getting into that type of communication, you might need to seek some help. You might need to seek some professional help if you don't have someone that's a friend that you can go to and talk to. I have a group of counselors who are highly trained, both with psychological, empirical methodologies as well as with biblical references, who are willing to pray and help you through your marriages, help you through whatever your needs are. So if you need someone to reach out to and you live in Florida, anywhere in Florida, we could definitely help you. We'll get that information at the end.