Deepen Your Love Connection By Taking Ownership

Separating Facts From Feeling

Healthy Relationships are built on communication. To be able to openly communicate and express your feeling and thoughts, share your deepest feelings, and bare your Soul allows for a deeper level of connection and intimacy. Furthermore, effective and thoughtful communication can help to resolve conflict and prevent misunderstandings and hurting one another’s feelings. Communicate Effectively in a Relationship

While developing communication skills is central to a functional relationship, there is another skill that is just as critical and ultimately lays the foundation for a happy and successful relationship. The single most important relational skill is Taking Ownership. Communicate Effectively in a Relationship

We all have our own truths, feelings, and beliefs that we hold onto tightly. They create the world around us and it is difficult to divorce them from our experiences. The way we see and experience the world is shaped by our emotions as well as other factors like culture, family, education, and religion.

Our emotions are deeply rooted in our natural instinct for self-preservation. All emotions, whether positive or negative, are in essence impulses to act. They are instant plans for handling life that evolution has instilled in us. These plans are designed to help us survive and thrive as a species by providing us with the information we need to make decisions about our environment and expand and improve our navigational skills. Communicate Effectively in a Relationship

Another part of the human makeup that helped us to evolve was the capacity to create and believe in stories. As far back in our ancestral origins as hunter-gatherers, we developed the ability to construct counterfactual realities that make us the great storytellers we are today.

But often in our interaction with each other, we attach our emotions to occurrences and events and make our own meaning of the experience that can color what we see. We make interpretations and judgments that make it difficult, if not impossible at times to separate facts from feelings. As a result our response often comes in an emotional rather than factual tone because it feels true for us in the moment.

In a mature relationship, taking ownership allows both parties to differentiate and successfully navigate the triad of Facts, Judgments, and Feelings within the context of an Experience. They exercise a conscious choice of how to react to a particular stimulus and it lays the foundation for how they interact, resolve conflict, and ultimately thrive as a couple.

In a relationship, we all have the choice to react consciously or unconsciously. Taking ownership is essential for creating an honest and healthy bond and can deepen understanding and build meaningful connections between partners. It supports both couples to grow individually in self-awareness as well as grow together to strengthen the relationship dynamic.

Breaking it Down

Let’s break down the elements we’ve looked at so far

• Experience
• Interpretation
• Facts
• Judgments
• Feelings
• Choice

Experience

Your experience happens inside your body and mind in response to an event or stimulus. It is composed of your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations.

Your partner gets home from work full of beans chatting about his day. You feel yourself zoning out and not listening. The physical sensation might be that you’re feeling tired and overwhelmed. Your emotional sensation might be that you’re feeling impatient and annoyed. And your thoughts might be that you’re not interested in what he’s saying and ‘can’t he see that you’re really tired!’

The experience you are having in response to this event is happening inside of you. It is involuntary and is neither good nor bad nor right or wrong. An important aspect of your experience is that it is always OK and valid. However, it is not someone else’s fault that you are thinking or feeling something good, bad, or indifferent. It is coming completely from inside you.

Your husband is not responsible for your irritation and the thoughts generated by it.

Thoughts

Thoughts are the mind’s continuous streaming of indiscriminate, random chatter. They pop into consciousness automatically, and you direct energy and resources to your thoughts oftentimes with great intentionality such as to solve a problem, express yourself, and make decisions.

Thoughts thus are an important part of the equation as they pertain to the existence and evolution of the human species. But let’s face it, we spend a lot of time in our heads listening to our thoughts. Some of these thoughts are judgments.

Judgments

Judgments are an act of assigning meaning or interpretation to an event. It is a way of describing something in terms of whether it is good or bad, right or wrong, a theory, explanation, reasoning, logic, etc, and making assumptions about what one thinks should happen. Judgments are formed based on our beliefs, values, and experiences.

• The red flowers are pretty
• He is so boring
• I hate Monday mornings
• The fish is too salty

We often impose our own experiences and judgments on our partners expecting that they should think and feel the way we do. Judgments can get in the way of accepting each other’s differences and embracing the individual qualities that each party brings to the relationship.

Facts

Even in a world of so-called fake or alternative facts, there is no room for maneuver when it comes to the true definition of what facts truly are.

Facts are statements that can be proven to be true. They are measurable and based on evidence and can be verified by whatever measure of reason and logic are applied. Facts are distinguishable from opinions, as they do not rely on subjective interpretation or biases.

While our experience is overwhelmingly strong and real for us in the moment, particularly when we’re upset or excited, we tend to make judgments about something and try to make that be the fact. But, feelings, opinions, or beliefs are not facts, they may be your personal truth at the time, but they are not facts, no matter how strongly you believe them to be true.

• “You make me so irritated.”
• “You’re a jerk.”
• “I hate you”
• “Coffee is good.”

These are true for you but they are not facts.

Feelings

Feelings are your emotions and sensations (warm, cold, happy, sad, etc). They are usually stimulated as a result of judgments you hold inside and the meanings you’ve created from your experience of the facts or events.

After your early morning walk, your body ‘feels good.’ You ‘feel ‘irritated’ by your co-worker’s deliberate attacks.’ You ‘feel angry’ that your husband is out late. Your experience of the day is ‘positive.’ You interpret the blue sky as “beautiful,” and the temperature as “perfect.”

These are meanings you’ve created from your experience of the facts or events and feelings are stimulated as a result.

Choice

And finally, there is CHOICE.
While our experience is largely involuntary, we have complete choice over the meanings we create and the actions we take. While thoughts, feelings, interpretation, and judgment all shape our reactions to events; it is ultimately up to us to make a conscious or unconscious choice about how to react to events around us and respond to those we interact with.

So to recap…

1. In healthy communication, there is a triad of Facts, Judgments, and Feelings at play when it comes to Taking Ownership of your experience.
2. Facts are measurable and based on evidence and can be verified by whatever measure of reason and logic are applied
3. Your experience is happening inside your body and mind in response to an event or stimulus.
4. You make a conscious or unconscious choice about how to react to events.

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Remember our reactions are based on our own individual truths, feelings, and beliefs. We attach our emotions to events and make our own meaning of them, which can often cloud our perception of what is happening. In a healthy relationship, taking ownership allows us to navigate the triad of Facts, Judgments, and Feelings and react consciously instead of unconsciously. This allows us to build a deeper connection with our partner.

The Importance Of Taking Ownership

Although our experience is involuntary (physical sensations, judgments, etc.) we do have complete choice over the meanings we create and the actions we take. Even when your partner seemingly provides the trigger for how you feel and react, in the moment of anger, annoyance, or rage, you are in charge and can choose a conscious or unconscious response.

If we don’t take complete ownership of our thoughts, feelings, and judgments, undoubtedly they will take ownership of us. Our actions become subject to the whim and fancies of an unhinged mind rather than from a place of intentionality. Our mindset and patterns of behavior are reactionary rather than thoughtful and deliberate. And because behavior follows patterns we tend to form patterns of blaming others, playing victim, and ending up misunderstanding, misunderstood, and hurting the relationship.

How To Take Ownership – A Four-Step Paradigm

The easiest way to take ownership of our experience in a relationship is to keep the triad of Facts, Judgments, and Feelings in mind.

Facts – usually a measurable event (“the sky is blue”)

Judgments – the meaning we make of the event (“the blue sky is pretty”)

Feelings – our emotions and sensations (warm, cold, happy, sad, etc)

As human beings, we have a tendency to make judgments about something and try to twist and turn it into a fact, particularly if it’s something we’re passionate or excited about, or when we’re upset or someone is getting under our skin.

Judgments feel so real to us and we believe them to be true that we fiercely hold onto these personal truths whatever the cost. But regardless of how strongly we hold onto our personal truth and how real for us it feels, they are not facts, no matter how attached we are to them. Getting caught up in our own subjective interpretations hinders our ability to differentiate between the facts and our own judgments but it’s important to recognize the difference between the two.

How It All Unfolds

• Event or stimulus

It all starts with an EVENT or STIMULUS Usually. Something happens that gives us a certain experience.

You’re sitting watching your favorite show when you jump and realize it’s 11.00 pm and your partner is still out partying with his co-workers.

• Reaction Making Meaning and Judgment

We react to our experience by making meaning of it and forming judgments.
‘He promised he would be back by 10.00.’ ‘clearly, he doesn’t give a damn about me.’ ‘He is uncaring and so selfish. We react to our experience by making meaning of it and forming judgments.

• Feelings

Here’s where storytelling makes its debut in the very crevices of our mind overspilling with judgments, colorful scenarios, devious plots, and the counterfactual realities we construct. Our judgments stimulate a wide ranch of emotions- mad, sad, glad, fear, shame.

The unraveling of events happens so quickly, more often than not, there is very little awareness and our reaction is invariably automatic. This is unconscious mode and we act out our feelings and judgments, whatever they are.

If we react consciously we will separate the facts from our feelings and judgments and then decide what meanings to make and actions to take. This begins by reviewing the facts in our heads and making sure we’re not mixing in judgments.

Examining our thoughts, feelings, judgments, and interpretations objectively, ensures that we can make conscious choices about our reactions and responses. It also serves the greater good of keeping our assumptions and biases in check.

STEP ONE: REVIEW THE FACTS

Remember facts are typically measurable events and are verifiable and indisputable whatever measure of reason and logic are applied. Review the facts in your head and make sure you are not mixing in judgments.

• ‘It’s 11.00 p.m. and Alberto has not returned home.’

STEP TWO: REVIEW YOUR JUDGMENTS

• ‘Clearly, he doesn’t give a damn about me.’
• ‘He is uncaring and selfish.’
• Judgments can be reviewed by honestly answering a few simple questions: Is this judgment fair? Do I have all the facts? Does it reflect reality?
• Can I see it from his/her point of view or perspective? Can I create room for grace?

Make an honest determination about your judgments and inclination to jump to conclusions.

STEP THREE: IDENTIFY YOUR FEELINGS

• I am furious
• I am disappointed
• I am angry

Own your feelings, opinions, and beliefs, and recognize they are not facts.

STEP FOUR: MAKE A CONSCIOUS CHOICE

Power in The Pause

A simple pause can prevent unconscious reactions to your feelings, interpretation, and judgments. It activates conscious choice allowing you to separate the facts from your judgments and feelings. In this mode, you are in a much better position to decide what to think, feel, and how to react.

Our thoughts, judgments, and feelings can be a tangled web of confusion; from the vast array of those that fill our mental landscape to the way we often confuse what is based in fact with opinions rooted in emotion. It’s not unusual for us to have seemingly conflicting reactions at once – like both loving someone and feeling anger towards them simultaneously! Even though these cognitive responses can be strong and feel real, as conscious beings we always retain a degree of choice over how to interpret or act on what occurs within our internal world.

Amongst the mix of judgments and feelings, it’s important to remember that although our reactions may seem involuntary due to their strength and intensity, we can always choose how much value they hold; what truths we assign them; and what actions we take. As conscious beings, we can choose amongst the mix of judgments and feelings that we will embrace and act upon, and which we will discard or leave alone.

Captain of the Ship

Taking ownership lays the foundation for thoughtful and honest communication which is key for deeper-level connection. As conscious adults, we have the freedom to interpret what happens around us and the power over our choices and destiny. By taking ownership of the experiences inside our body and mind, we are responsible for what we feel, think, say, and do. There are no victims in the conscious adult world. We are the captain of our own ship with the ability to shape our lives and solidify our relationships in ways that leads us toward greater happiness and success!

Invest in Your Relationship

Do you feel like you are not being heard in your relationship? Your partner speaks a completely different language and you both feel misunderstood. Does conflict happen more often than you would like? If you are ready to get on the same page when it comes to communication make an investment in your relationship TODAY and sign up for The Communication Map. A simple and effective 6-week Coaching Program that offers a structured framework for addressing issues, navigating challenges, and finding common ground. Click HERE for full details.

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