The Annealing Power of Relationships

By Holly Austin Grimes

Anneal (verb): to heat metal or glass and allow it to cool slowly, in order to remove internal stresses and toughen it.

We are all involved in interpersonal relationships, whether they are romantic, familial, friendship, professional or casual acquaintance. And we all experience challenges from time to time within them. Some, more than others. For all too many of us, we often witnessed dysfunctional relationships while we were growing up, and not knowing any better some of us then went on to be participants in more or less flawed relationships of our own.

There is no such thing as a perfect relationship, in any case. Honestly, we often hardly manage functional relationships with ourselves. In fact, our relationships with ourselves are often the hardest! If we have been exposed in our formative years to interactions which were not always the best examples, we follow many of the same patterns and make many of the same mistakes.