Ep #158: Improving Relationships

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Hey there, and welcome back to another episode of the More Than Mindset show. I am going to talk about relationships today, and specifically three tips that you can implement in order to improve relationships in your life. Because the most important thing for us is how we relate.

How we relate to ourself, how we relate to our money, to our family, to our peers, to our our partners. How we relate in general in the world, to society. What are our thoughts about ourself? What are our thoughts about others? Where do you see yourself in society? Like what type of person, how do you consider the relationship with yourself to be?

So I’m going to give you three tips on how to improve any relationship. So you can try this starting with just one, the most significant one in your life, you can just pick that. I labeled this three tips to improve relationships that matter the most. So you get to choose what important relationships those are.

These are things that I began practicing in my own life. You’ve heard my story, I tried for many years to improve my relationship, my marriage in general. But it wasn’t just with my husband. It was relationships with clients, with friends, with my kids. I knew what I wanted. I wanted deep, meaningful relationships. But I honestly didn’t know how to get it because it had never been shown to me.

I had never seen what I wanted. Isn’t that crazy? I knew I desired something that was deep and meaningful. I don’t like chitchat, I don’t like BS, I don’t like just boring talk. I like deep dives into the soul kind of talk. So I prefer deep, rich conversations. And I wanted more of those relationships in my life.

And it wasn’t easy. People thought I was weird. I ask crazy questions. They don’t really understand what I’m talking about. I tend to come more from the emotional aspect. I want to know how that feels, what does that make you do when you feel that way, right? And I love mindset, guys, like I really do. But I really jam out on communication and being able to speak in a way that opens conversations onto deeper levels.

And this, let me just tell you, when I was, let’s see, probably 24, I always got in trouble at school, first of all. Always talking out of turn, or saying set my shouldn’t have said, or having an attitude, I was pretty negative. And when I was in cosmetology school, I was called into the office because I had a hissy fit. I threw some stuff on the floor.

I was mad because there was a special class going on and every time there was a special class going on, I got called to go work on the floor. And I was annoyed by that because I had regular clients, but I wanted to take the special classes. The teacher called me into the office, like a big adult getting in trouble, and told me I really needed to learn how to communicate. I’m like, whatever, rolled my eyes. She actually gave me a book to read on how to communicate.

And I knew she was right. I had an attitude, I was angry, I was somewhat entitled. I felt like I am paying cash here and I should get special treatment, I should get to go to the special classes because a lot of the people here are not and they don’t even show up for school, and they don’t have clients because they’re not serious about what they’re doing. And I’m serious, and I don’t miss, and I show up for everything, and this is just not fair, right? Such a little victim.

Anyway, that was a big turnaround for me. So you can imagine I’m now 53, so that was a lot of years ago and I never stopped educating myself on how to communicate. And I’m still trying to do that today on how I communicate in my writing because I realize I take shortcuts.

I don’t like to explain myself and I miss a lot of important information when I’m In a conversation with someone else. They’ll say, it’s like you’re telling us the end game, but you’re not giving us any context. So I don’t really understand what you’re talking about. So anyway, all of that history has led to these three tips that I found to be the most effective in improving your relationships.

And the first one is to be in integrity. So what is integrity? What does that mean? What does that look like to be in integrity? It’s about being honest, and transparent, and vulnerable. Being willing to bear your soul, to express the depths within you, to be willing to risk showing yourself. And integrity is just being honest and up front. And it’s not that easy to find people who want to have those sorts of conversations.

I don’t know what it is, maybe we just have walls up. And it’s hard for us because we’ve been screwed over, you can say. We’ve been disappointed. We’ve had to protect ourselves. And so it’s a pretty big ask to be naked and afraid, right? Just to be wide open and say I really love you and I want to be with you. And I want this to be a better relationship. And I want to be open and honest. But I’m afraid you hurt me. I’m really disappointed. And I’m afraid to tell you that because you’re going to get mad. And then that makes me feel uncomfortable.

So instead of being honest, and transparent, and in integrity, I pretend like it doesn’t matter. I lie. I pretend to be someone else who doesn’t care. Can you see how important that is? Being in integrity is standing up for what is right and true to you. What is important to you. And it takes a lot of courage to do that.

And so that’s tip number one, be in integrity. Be honest, and transparent, and vulnerable. Say what you mean, and allow them to have their own reaction. So that’s the hard part, right? Because if we tell someone what we really feel or what we really desire, then they can get defensive. They can take it the wrong way. And that shuts us down because then we begin this battle.

And so I’m going to share with you what I’ve learned, and that is to be your softest self. So you’re not coming at it from a way of blame, or shaming someone, or telling them what they should or shouldn’t do. You’re speaking to someone from what is important to you. This is about you, your expression, your feelings, your desires.

You have to first give yourself permission to even allow that to be important, and that’s where the integrity comes from. And I think if you try this once, you’ll realize it really does work. Just be careful how you say it, don’t point fingers, don’t blame anyone else.

You have to take full responsibility for you meeting your own needs. And this is meeting your need, expressing what you desire. Okay, so that’s tip number one. Well, it’s tip number one with an extra tip in it. The don’t take it personally is really a big deal, it’s probably as big of a tip as the being in integrity.

And tip number two is don’t make assumptions. Just ask. We tend to think that we know what the other person is thinking, and what they’re going to say, and how they’re going to respond. And we use that against us, instead of just asking for clarity. Like what do you mean when you say that? Why would you say that? What are you trying to tell me?

Because we’re so indirect, again, because we’re afraid of what the other person says or does. And what’s so crazy is we don’t realize that we’re in a relationship as a team. Like we’re on the same side, but our ego gets in the way. Our pride gets in the way, our fear, our fear of rejection, abandonment gets in the way and it stops us from asking, because again, this takes courage and vulnerability.

I don’t want to assume that you meant whatever you think it is. Like I don’t want to assume that you meant, could you just tell me? Are you to ask that of the other person? We say shicks, right? We speak sideways, we are very indirect because they’re supposed to know what we’re thinking, they’re supposed to know what we mean by that.

But I’m going to ask you to cut that out. Just try this, try this for a week. Instead of being indirect, be very clear, and very direct, and ask. Because the assumptions come from the indirectness. So that’s tip number two.

And tip number three is focus on what you want that you already have in the relationship. I know, you’re rolling your eyes. Your mind is always going to try to find a problem to solve. So you have to train it to look for the good, to look for what you do have, to look for gratitude. This is a practice, you have to train the mind to look at what you do have that you do want.

And I promise you this works. When you’re focused on the benefits that you receive, when you’re focused on what you already have. When you make yourself look at it, the other stuff takes the back burner. The mind can only focus on one thing at a time.

And so you have conflicting beliefs of he does this, but he doesn’t do that. Guess what’s going to win. Your brain is going to go into defense, it’s going to try to protect you. And it’s going to hyper focus on the thing that you don’t want. Because your brain is here to solve problems, literally. But you have to dial into the keyboard and tell it what to solve.

So in this case the problem to solve is how can I find gratitude? How can I bring attention and focus to what I already have that I want? And so it could be, I am supported by his… Right? It could be as simple as he cuts the grass, right, he mows the lawn. He goes to the store. He checks the tires on my car.

Think of five things that this person offers that you already have. And watch the switch, you can feel it in your body. And this may be your boss, it may be your mother, it may be your sibling, it doesn’t matter. It works in all relationships.

When you focus on what they do offer, the very presence of their life, them just being in your world offers something to you. Could you find it? Could you focus on one to five things that you already have that you do want? Stay for a few moments, and then begin to elaborate on that.

And you’ll notice, before you know it your list will get longer and bigger. And like I said, it’s a practice. It was not something that came easy because we’re battling the beast, you know, that thing that’s always trying to defend us. I mean, we have to love it.

We have the mind going at it, collecting data, collecting evidence, trying to put a puzzle together to make sure that we know. It needs to know everything, it needs to be certain about everything, which is such BS. We know so little. We only know what we’ve already experienced, period. We know very little.

So if you could just let that go and let the mind wonder. Don’t take it so serious, don’t believe your thoughts. Don’t believe the assumptions. Ask for clarity instead.

So I hope these tips are helpful for you. I’m going to repeat them. Number one is be in integrity. That’s just being honest, and truthful, and transparent, and vulnerable. And don’t take their reaction personally. Make sure that you’re talking about yourself. Your experience, your desires, what you want most, what you would love to experience with them. And also recognizing you’re on the same team, you’re on the same side. All the humans are on one team, we just don’t know it.

Number two, don’t make assumptions. Ask when you’re not sure. Matter of fact, ask even when you are sure. I know that’s crazy, but my husband makes these remarks that I’m supposed to just know what he means. And I started asking him, what do you mean? So that way he gets to say it and then it’s really clear. And he also gets to hear himself say it so he can decide if it’s really what he means.

And number three, focus on what you want that you already have. Give it a try. List five things about this person, or these people if you’re making a list, five things that you appreciate, that you would miss if they were no longer here. That you respect, that you honor, that you could appreciate in some way. How does it benefit you having them in your life? Something super simple like that.

So I’m going to keep this one short, that’s all I have for you. I hope you had an amazing week. And I would love to hear how you implement these three tips moving forward. It’s a challenge. I’m going to give you a challenge this week and see how it works for you. I want to guarantee you, if you have the right attitude, if you’re coming from the right perspective, if you’re hearing it the way that I’m explaining it, I hope I’m clear about that.

It’s not about the other person, this is all about the relationship with yourself. And when you can honor and trust who you truly are and you can be in integrity with yourself, then you can be in integrity with someone else. But until you have that with yourself, asking for what you want, asking for clarity, to make sure you understand correctly. And focusing on how you benefit, it is not selfish to think about you. It is responsible to think about you.

Because if you are not whole, and you are not healthy, and you are not responsible for yourself, your needs, your desires, your wants, if you don’t take full responsibility, then you’re not going to be able to be in full relationship with someone else. Because you’re going to expect that person to fix your brokenness, to fix your lack instead of taking personal responsibility, becoming personally empowered to do that for you first.

Then you can be in a space of clarity. You can have empathy and compassion without it being messy. And more than anything else, truly being in integrity with yourself, being honest with yourself. Don’t pretend to be someone else. Stop hiding who you are and what you really want. Allow that part of you to come out and to be seen and to be heard by the way that you communicate. Allow yourself to be heard.

Take a risk. Wouldn’t you rather risk being yourself than fake being someone else? Because you’re not even in relationship with this other person if you’re not being yourself. You’re lying. You’re faking, you’re pretending. And so it takes a lot of courage to come clean and truly be that person, I get it.

I don’t know why the longer we’re in relationships, the more we pretend. It’s the craziest thing. We grow, we change. Are we willing to be courageous enough to allow that to be seen so that we can be accepted and we can accept ourselves?

All right, enough of that. Have a wonderful week.

Thanks for listening to this episode of More Than Mindset.