It's probably pretty important to figure out what is that self-destructive
behavior that gets into our relationships. Let's take that on today.
What we do in a relationship matters. Some of our behaviors are productive and
helpful and others not so much. I remember attending a seminar by Dr. John
Gottman. He is one of the leading researchers in the nation on
relationships particularly marriage. But relationships in general. And as I
attended this seminar, it's kind of funny because I was up there for two days. I
had paid whatever the fees were to attend the seminar. This was early in my
career. I came home after two days. I was sharing with Vicki some of the things
that I had learned. She summed it up beautifully. In just a couple of words.
She says, "oh so do more of what works and less of what does it? Is that what you
learned in two days Paul?" Was like, "yeah that's kind of pretty much it." You do
more of what works and less of what doesn't. What doesn't work in a
relationship? Dr. Gottman nailed it. In his research he found that there was a
predictable four-part pattern that led to the destruction of a relationship. So
as we're talking about self-destructive behavior in relationships, we probably
ought to draw on some of that amazing research that's been done by people who
have reasons to know. The number one thing that he identified is criticism.
Now criticism doesn't have to be real or intended as long as it's
perceived. It works. Think about it. aren't there times when people feel criticized
by you, when you didn't intend any kind of criticism at all? Yeah. It has to do
with their perceptions and the way they're seeing things.
Criticism is one of those most destructive elements and Gottman pointed
out that it leads to the next steps in that four part negative cascade.
Criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling.
Which means turning away from each other instead of turning toward each other.
Criticism probably the number one thing that can destroy a relationship. The
second one that I came up with. And maybe this one should be number one, because
it's one of my favorite topics. Negativity. Negativity that's tied to the
criticism, right? Because criticism is usually focusing on something negative
and then feeling compelled to bring that to someone's attention, right? Something
that you don't like. Well that's a form of negativity but it's not just in the
criticism. Negativity creeps into relationships and and drives behaviors
within a relationship that are completely self destructive. I say
self-destructive because it hurts you to be negative but it's very destructive to
a relationship because of the effect that it has. Not only criticism but check
this out, what if I'm constantly negative about myself or my circumstances. "Oh my
life is so hard. Oh this stinks. I hate this." Between complaining and criticism,
I'm not much fun to be around at that point. It's a very destructive behavior
within a relationship to be negative. Okay how about another one, selfishness.
Oh yeah this is where it's all about me. It's all about me. I talk about me. I'm
concerned about how I feel. How I feel about you, how I feel about myself. I
might be concerned about how you feel about me see. It's all about me. This
selfishness tends to destroy relationships. You know what for all of
these, just check in with how you feel, if other people are doing these destructive
behavior. Yeah it's just repulsive. You just
want to stay away from that and avoid that relationship. It doesn't draw you in.
Selfishness is the third. The fourth one that I've identified here is - disrespect.
Okay disrespect comes in a lot of different forms. And I picked that word
because I think it summarizes a whole lot of different elements. I've talked in
other videos for example about the love choice. The love choice is that every
interaction we have in a relationship is going to fall on one side or the other.
Either the love side or the hate side. Either a little or a lot.
Disrespect is a hate choice. Let's be clear about that. I think any level of
disrespect is a hate choice. You know I had a an experience back in my training
years. I was running a group for juvenile delinquents
okay, these are teenagers who were referred by the court in to my group. As
I was interacting with these kids there was this one in particular sitting
clear over on the side of the class and he had his hat on backwards and he's
chewing on a toothpick and he's got a bolt through his nose. You know he's got
this attitude. And we're talking about respect and he says, "well I respect
people who respect me." I'm like, "wow that is impressive." That's not hard to do. It's
not hard to respect people who respect you, is it? No. What's challenging is for
you to be respectful no matter what. Disrespect destroys relationships. Now
that kind of leads us into what I wanted to wrap this video up with because we've
just identified four things that can destroy a relationship. Four things that
are self-destructive behaviors within a relationship.
The first one was criticism. The second one - negativity. The third one -
selfishness and the fourth one was disrespect. Okay, so if we're not going to do
those things, what should we replace him with. Let's go
into some opposites and see where we go with that.
Instead of criticism, what if we replace that with appreciation and gratitude.
Appreciation and gratitude, is that the opposite of criticism? Well I don't know,
but it's a pretty good replacement for the criticism. So instead of looking for
what you don't like. Instead of looking for what you don't approve of in this
relationship, what if you were to seek and find, what it is that you're grateful
for? What it is that you appreciate? You shift the direction of your mind to the
appreciation or the gratitude and that's going to change some things isn't it?
Gratitude, appreciation, okay what about for the negativity? Oh that one's obvious.
We're going to replace it with positivity. You know what, go to the main page of
this channel, the intro video is all about how to stay positive. No matter
what. Just go visit that look at it again. I've explained there psychologically how
and why positivity is always a choice. And it doesn't matter what's going on
around you. It's always a choice. I know that's a bold statement but go look at
that video and you'll see exactly what I mean. Can we replace our negativity? Our
noxious negativity, with a little bit of pathological positivity? Pathological, I
get a little bit of flack for that that word. That's it actually the title of my
book, "Pathological Positivity" And I take some flak for that
from a psychological standpoint, the word pathological, means disordered.
Disconnected from reality. Crazy and it sounds a little crazy to
some people. When I make the assertion that I just shared with you, it's
possible to be positive no matter what. That's a challenge because you look at
your own circumstances and it's easy to say, "oh well how can I be positive in the
middle of all this?" Yeah it's a pretty good question, but usually it's not a
question, it's a statement. Disguised is a question. How can I be positive? Hear the
exclamation point? It's not a question. Turn it back into a question and it's a
pretty good question. How can I be positive in the middle of all this? Yeah,
good question. Watch the video I'll share that with you.
Now let's go to the next one - selfishness. Okay,
that one's pretty obvious we're going to replace selfishness with selflessness.
Now this doesn't mean that you don't matter. It means that you change your
focus. You change your focus is not about me. It's about this greater context of we
and all of the people around me. It's not us and them, it's just us. When we change
our focus off of ourselves. Now let me make a little disclaimer here because
there is a benevolent power in self-interest. I'm not talking
selfishness. I'm talking self-interest. An example is, driving on the freeway. The
only reason I can do that safely is because every other driver out there on
the freeway, is concerned about me, no. They're concerned about themselves.
There's a benevolent interest in self-interest or a benevolent make it
possible for other people to live peaceably with us. In fact suicide
bombers, we don't even know how to deal with that. That terrorists used this
tactic because it goes against the human psyche - to put yourself in danger. Okay, so
we count on other people having self-interest and that makes us more
safe. So when I say selflessness, I don't mean you abandon self-interest. I mean
that you get the focus off of yourself. It's not about you. How you feel is only
secondary. There's a greater common shared interest that I think we need to
pay attention to. And so when our focus goes there, it actually serves us
personally better as well. We replace the selfishness with selflessness. Focus on
service and enriching and creating value for other people. There's a lot of other
reasons why that works. And the last one disrespect, we're going to replace that
with respect. Respect is where we value and honor other people as co-inhabitants
of the planet. Other people are more like us than they are different. I know that
there's differences and those differences are important and we honor
and celebrate those differences. It's differences that make us relevant
and interesting to each other. It gives us a reason to have a relationship in
the first place. If we were exactly the same, one of us would be unnecessary and
we won't get into which one. But it doesn't matter anyway because we're
exactly the same right? No, it's our differences that make us relevant and
interesting to each other. We will celebrate those differences and respect
also means that we're more alike than we are different. We all have a heart that
gets filled sometimes with love and other times with fear. We're all like
that. We all struggle to know what is the
right thing to do in this moment. We all ask ourselves similar questions about
our existence. We are more alike than we are different.
I think respect is a manifestation of that acknowledgement. We
celebrate our differences and accept that we are all part of the same family.
I am so glad you're here that we get to have these conversations every day. I
hope you're finding it beneficial.