How do you define "healthy?"

Madelyn recently asked Patrick and me how we define healthy.  What a great question!  It's easy to say that healthy is defined as eating the right foods, exercising, getting proper sleep, and avoiding drugs and alcohol.  However, I think that, while all that is good, a person's emotional health really shapes their overall health.

So, what does that mean for me?  Well, it's really quite simple.  My emotional health is good when I feel good about myself and the relationships in my life.  Relationships can make or break you, I think.  There are the close relationships you have in life - spouse, child, parents, siblings - and then there are the friendships in your life.  We spend so much of our lives creating, maintaining, and/or abandoning friendships which is why they are an important piece to our overall health.  Most of us have those handful of friends that we have carried with us since childhood, but it would seem that the vast majority of our friendships are those created in adulthood.  It is these friendships that can wreak havoc on your emotional health and remind you of your high school days.  Your "old" friends are clearly lifelong friends because they know you inside and out and have endured the ups and downs of youth.  Your "new" friends are often made out of convenience.  What do I mean by that?  Well, you become friends because your kids play on a sports team together, you go to the same fitness class, or you work together. Take out that common element and the friendships rarely withstand that change.  But in the moment, we think those friendships are solid.  We invest in them and get our feelings hurt.  Why?  Wouldn't you think we would learn our lesson after seeing how disposable they really are?  Apparently not.  Those relationships make us feel good until they start making us feel bad.  You start seeing cracks in the foundation.  You start seeing that your position on the totem poll of friendship changes depending on circumstance and availability.

See, here's the thing - life is going to disappoint you and that really stinks, but should the people you choose to have in your life disappoint you, too?  I think not.  So when you develop friendships, develop them with honestly and integrity and then when you maintain friendships, maintain them with the same.  It goes a long way.  And if your friendships, old or new, start wreaking havoc on your emotional health then perhaps it is time make a change.