The Marriage Transformation Podcast
The Marriage Transformation Podcast
Change Your Mindset Change Your Marriage
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What if you could transform your relationships and personal experiences simply by changing the way you perceive events? Join us as we dissect the intricate dynamics of storytelling and perception in personal interactions, revealing how our underlying beliefs can shape our narratives and perpetuate negative cycles. You'll discover how interpreting situations through a lens of victimhood can keep you trapped and how shifting your perspective can lead to more constructive and compassionate outcomes.
In this episode, we tackle real-life scenarios, such as a spouse clearing out a bank account, to illustrate how our beliefs influence our feelings of victimization. We challenge you to question whether your perceptions are serving you and offer practical strategies for reframing these stories to foster a more empowering mindset. Through thoughtful analysis and actionable advice, we aim to guide you toward transforming your relationships and personal experiences by changing the way you view and react to them. Tune in for insights that could not only change your perspective but also enrich your life.
What I'm listening to. I'll give you some secrets here. What I'm listening to when I do a one-to-one or when you guys are sharing your story, I am listening to the story. I'm not being rude. It is important or it's not unimportant because it's your experience. But what I'm listening for is the behavior that would have to be believed for that story to be true. So, for example, it's like you know, my wife did this, my wife did that, my wife's done that and she's made me unhappy because it's like okay, well, what's the underlying behavior? It's victimhood. The story is not so important as the fact that it's being perceived through a lens of victimhood. And as long as you're in a place of victimhood, nothing is going to get better. So it's like we can address the story and go okay, we'll say this to your wife and do that, and blah, blah, blah and we can resolve that situation. But the reality is it was a victim mind that created that situation and that victim mind is going to create another situation. So ideally it's like a lot of times it's.
Speaker 1:It's not like when we do one-to-ones and stuff like that. It's not necessarily a case of like someone will bring a story and I won't necessarily say do this and this and this and this in inside of that story to fix the situation. It's a case of could you change your perception of what's happened? Is it possible to change how you've seen the situation to where the situation is still the same but you're perceiving it in a different way? Because, again, it's like when you change, your situation changes. If we address the story, it's never ending, man, it's just like well, that's going to turn into another story, another story, another story, another story, because you know it, because you know. It's like dogs bark or they do like you stop a dog barking for a second, it's like two seconds later it's going to bark again, right, what we really need to do is like, when you're perceiving a story or you're coming up with a story in your mind, the question is what would I have to believe for this story to be true? To be true, my wife cleared the bank account out, right, that's the story. My wife cleared the bank account out. She went and she cleared the bank account out and you go. Well, that's a fact, that's true. That's not a story, that's true.
Speaker 1:It's like okay, well, what would you have to believe for you to be upset by that. It's like you'd have to believe that you've been victimized, that she's done something wrong. Is it possible that this wasn't about you at all? This had nothing to do with you. This was simply about her need to feel safety and security. That's where it can go wrong. Right, because we look at our wife and go she's behaved this way because of these motivations and then we interpret motivation, but we're interpreting that motivation through our own lens, because what we do is we go. If I'd have cleared the bank account out, this would have been my motivation, therefore's her motivation. But that's not necessarily true. So again, like I would at that point, I would go okay.
Speaker 1:Well, what would I have to believe to be upset by this? Well, I'd have to believe that I've been wronged or I've been been victimized in some way. Well, okay, is that? Is that a healthy position to have? Is that a healthy position to hold or can we? Can we move that into something that's more healthy and go? Well, I'm not going to play the victim in this role. I'm going to go. She was just trying to get her needs met and she did it in a way that maybe she could have done it better, or she did it in a way that maybe wasn't wouldn't be how I would do it, or I didn't particularly like how she did it, but you know it's not about me. Actually did it, but you know it's not about me. So that that's the. That's.
Speaker 1:The danger with stories is we can only see them through our own perception, and then the problem the second problem is we then determine that they're true and then we act on that. And they're almost certainly not true. We're almost certainly in error. Yeah, that's why we always want to go. Okay, what is this situation telling me about me? Whether your wife has come at you, or someone I've come at you, or someone's come at you, or situation has occurred, situation is almost irrelevant. It's like what we're talking about very early on in the call, like arriving at that place of unconditional happiness. It's like if your happiness has been disturbed, then I then then that it's always a valid question.
Speaker 1:What is this situation teaching me about me? It you know, if I go out and someone's very rude to me, if I go, you know, out into the hallway, out here in the office building, I mean, if someone's really really rude to me, I can go, I can take offense at that and then go well, that person's wrong. Or I can go. Well, you know, right now I'm feeling. I'm feeling offended. What is that telling me about me? What am I learning about myself?
Speaker 1:The thing that I would be learning about myself, or one possible solution, is like I'm pretty easily thrown, I'm pretty easily taken out of the game. All it takes is somebody being saying something to me I don't like and I'm in a foul mood. And what that is teaching me is that I need to work on my temperance and self-control. And now, all of a sudden, it's about me and I'm back in a place of empowerment, to where I can go to work on myself, to where you know the same thing will happen next week, but it won't bother me next week, I'll just go by, it won't bother me. Or I can go out there and I can create a grievance with that person and say, hey, that was wrong, you shouldn't talk to me like that. Are they going to change? No. Are they going to do it again next week? Yes. Am I going to be offended again next week? Yes, no, no benefit whatsoever. The only valid question really is what is this teaching me about me and how can I use this to my advantage?