This week I encourage you to think about the people in your life and the caliber of relationships you have. Healthy relationships are vital to our mental and emotional well being. They give us a greater sense of purpose, help us establish healthier behaviors, reduce stress and can ultimately lead to a longer life. Yet many relationships remain at a surface level with pleasantries, niceties and overall politeness being exchanged and discussions rarely going beyond that. For relationships to move to truly healthy levels, we have to be willing to be vulnerable, to divulge the full scope of what is going on in our lives. Not just the perfect picture so many people try to present as reality on social media. And vulnerability is not simply unloading all of our baggage on someone else or complaining about our circumstances - it’s about having honest conversations about our feelings. Conversations about our fears, desires, struggles, triumphs, pain and joy. Things that we tend to hide for fear of judgement.

My dear friend and author, Tommy Spaulding, describes the “Five Floors of Relationships” in this video that I would like to share with you this week. After you watch, think about who is on each floor for you? How many “Penthouse” relationships do you have? And what do you need to do to move people to a different floor in your relationship tower?