If you're in a relationship, you've probably wondered how to overcome
insecurities in a relationship that will become very clear today.
How we feel in a
relationship is less about the relationship and more about our own
focus so I invite you for a few moments to get outside of your own head for a
minute. This is something that's called metacognition. Now cognition means
thinking. If we put that right here at this level, metacognition is a higher
level, it's thinking about thinking. This gets a little loopy so stay with me but
notice that you can do this. You can think about your own thinking. As you
think about your own thinking, let's go to focus for a moment. In a relationship,
there are two columns of where my focus might be. I might be focused on how I
feel. I might be focused on how you feel. So let's do a visual for that with these
two columns where the red column is, how I feel. The yellow column, how you feel.
Now let's add another dimension to that. Getting away from the feelings for a
moment, let's now take a look at what our focus is about, alright. Or more
accurately who our focus is about. My focus might be about me or my focus
might be about you so for this dimension, I've added these rows. The red row is all
about me, the blue row is all about you. Now it gets really interesting when we
overlay these two dimensions. Watch what happens. Now we have a quadrant system
and notice that your focus can be in any of these four quadrants. Let's break the
down and see what each quadrant looks like and what effect that might have on
my relationships. So starting in the upper left where the red intersects with
the red, this red quadrant is how I feel about me. Think about your thinking. What
kinds of thoughts are you having when you're in this red quadrant? I might be
thinking hmmm.. Am I good enough? Can I do this? Can I handle that? Okay, do you
see how that feels? How is that going to impact you if you're in the red quadrant?
How is that going to impact other people if you're in the red quadrant? What I've
found is that there's a common pitfall for being in the red quadrant and I've
labeled it self-consciousness because I'm so focused and tied up about how I
feel about myself. See that doesn't feel so good. Self-consciousness gets in our
way all the time in relationships and other people will pick up on it.
Think about it. How do you feel when you're around someone who's in the red
quadrant? If I'm all focused on how I feel about myself, how's that going to
affect you and what will that do to our relationship? Okay, now let's move over to
the orange quadrant where red intersects with yellow, we get orange. Now our focus
is on how you feel about me, alright. Now if I'm all tied up about how you
feel about me, some of the thoughts that might go through my head. Do you
approve of me? Do you do you think I'm smart enough or good enough or pretty
enough? Hmm.. Do you see where that's going to lead? The common pitfall here is
insecurity because we're so wrapped up in how other people feel about us and we
don't even know so that's all imaginary. We imagine what other people
are feeling about us. We don't know. Even if they tell us. All we know is what they
told us. Look at the insecurity that happens when my focus is all about how
other people feel about me, it's all externalized. Now how is that going to
impact other people? If I'm really worried about how you feel about me, how
does that impact you in the relationship? You can see how our focus really makes a
difference. Now whether you're in red or in orange,
our problem is insecurity. As long as it's all about me, I generate and create
anxiety. Wow, do you see that? The anxiety is almost
always about me. Do you see that in your own experience? This is a powerful model.
Let's move down to purple and see what happens. This is where red intersects
with blue, we get purple. Now my focus is how the hell I feel about you. How I feel
about you, do I like you? Do I approve of you? Do I think that you're good enough
or smart enough or pretty enough? No, okay. Now how does that feel to you if my
focus is in purple? The pitfall we run into here is criticism. Notice this
happens even if it's positive. What if I approve of you? I approve of you, pat you on
the head a little bit. Oh yeah, like I've got that kind of
authority, like I'm here and you're here. See how that creates a sense of
criticism? Even if it's positive. Whether it's red or purple, we run into the
problem of judgment. It's either that anxious self-judgement you know,
self-consciousness or it's how I feel about you and that
feels critical in judgmental even if it's positive. So how do you like your
options so far? Yeah, kind of a problem, right? Let's go green. When we go green,
our focus is no longer about us, how we feel is only secondary. If I'm in green,
my focus is on how you feel about yourself. This
is a powerful quadrant. I've labeled this one the influence quadrant. Influence
because when we go green and we get out of our own way, it's no longer about us,
how we feel is only secondary. We are now in a position to truly have influence on
other people. Now if we look at the whole model, it looks like this.. When we go
green, we are no longer insecure or self-conscious or critical and
judgmental, we're in a place where we can truly have influence on other people but
if you do it for that reason, it's no longer green, it's purple. Think about it.
If you're trying to influence someone, then you have an opinion about them or
their behavior, right? And we can't get away from this because we're human but
if our focus is there, trying to change someone, it's purple, it's no longer green
and we won't have the kind of powerful influence that we could have. Think about
how this relates to parenting for example. Parents get trapped in this all
the time because their focus is on, oh, do I approve of my child's behavior? Well
that's purple, not green. You will have influence if you can get into that green
and your focus is truly on how other people feel about themselves and if you
go green, people will love you, they will, they're going to love you but if you do it
for that purpose, it's not green, it's orange because now your focus is on how
other people feel about you. Do you see? It's like holding a stick of butter. If
you grip it too tightly, you're going to lose it, it's going to squirt right out of
there. You have to hold this very gently and this is the paradox. For you to have
the most influence on other people to get out of insecurity and self judgment,
we have to shift our focus to how other people feel about themselves, we need to
go green and if we do it for any other purpose, it stops being green. It always
amazes me how much power comes into our life when
we understand how to operate the equipment, that's what we're about here.
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