#102 – Take Radical Responsibility for Your Relationships
If you’re like most people, when you’re struggling in a relationship, you fall into either blaming another person for how they are making you feel, or you’re trying to get them to be different so you can feel better. Maybe you’re doing both!
What if you didn’t have to do either, and instead of focusing on the other person, you’re focusing on yourself and your own responsibility for the thoughts you’re having and the emotions you’re experiencing. This is a radical idea! But this is also where you get your freedom.
You are here to be an agent in your own life, not a victim of your circumstances. You have the ability to choose to be reactive by default, or to respond intentionally. Once you take radical responsibility for yourself, you’ll see your relationships begin to change without doing anything else.
I’m Tina Gosney and I’m your podcast host. I’m also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I’m coach that focuses on building stronger and healthier relationships within our families no matter what is happening. Those strong, healthy relationships begin with you – so let’s start there.
Apply to be considered for the Beta Test: Positively Impactful
To learn more about my work, visit my website tinagosney.com
Full Transcript
I am so glad to be back behind this mic and podcasting again. I missed doing this during the summer. But it was really a needed break for me, as I had some other things that needed to be attended to.
And I have to let you know that since I podcasted, the last time back in May, there’s some construction going on around my house, there’s actually a lot of construction going on around my house. And so if you’re hearing some pounding, or drilling, or just construction noise, just can’t do anything about it. It’s just going to happen. And I’m going to podcast right through all of it. And so there are going to be times when you just hear some of that noise. So welcome to my life. In my house right now.
I have had a lot of conversations with a lot of people. Maybe some of these people are like you, but I’ve noticed a theme in so many of those conversations. And this, I think, is an underlying theme sometimes said outright, sometimes just implied. And that is people saying, I see people in my life, people that I love, who are struggling, and I really want to help them. But they won’t listen to me. That’s hard. I see how hard this is for the people that I’m talking to.
And I hear the desperation that they have in their voices. And sometimes it’s just written all over their face. These are their precious family members they’re talking about, sometimes it’s a spouse, sometimes it’s a child. Sometimes it’s a loved sister, or brother, or niece or nephew or parent even. And it’s breaking their heart to see someone that they love, make choices that are leading them into dangerous territory.
And that’s why one of the things that I’ve been working on this summer is a new masterclass that I’ll be teaching. It’s how to positively influence the people you love. Now I created this class for people who have been having conversations with for people who are watching their family members suffer, and they just want to help them. They just want to be a positive light and a positive influence. But they’re just not able to get through, they’re falling on deaf ears. Maybe this is something that you’ve been experiencing. And maybe you’ve been trying to help the other person. And they just don’t want to hear what you have to say. Or they listen, and it sounds like they’re going to make changes, but then nothing changes. They just stay the same. And then they start to get resentful when you try to help them.
If you’re really wanting to help someone, and it’s frustrating to you, and nothing that you seem to do makes a difference. I want you to know, this class is for you.
Now, I’m not registering for this class yet, but I hope to have that link up ready. Ready to go for you by next week. I promise that you’re not going to want to miss this class. It’s going to give you some clarity. And it’s going to give you some direction and it’s probably not going to be I’m probably not going to say the things that you think I’m going to say.
So, I’m going to invite you to come back here with me next week or check my website and find the link there. Another thing that I’ve been working on this summer, is that I am getting ready to run a beta version of a new program that I’ve been developing this program If you’re going to, I’m going to tell you about it. And you’re going to say this goes right along with a masterclass.
Yes, it does. I’m just going to tell you that right now, it goes right along with the masterclass.
This program is for faith-based women who want to have a positive influence in their families. Now, I’m not going to let you not do it if you’re a man, but it’s really based on women. If you can handle that, you can come and join us. In this program, you’re going to find confidence, you’re going to find your voice, and you’re going to find joy, joy, true joy in your life, maybe for the first time.
This program is not going to be like any other class or any other program that I’ve ever run. So if you’ve done something with me in the past, program, a class, anything else this is this is new, it’s going to be really, really good. And it’s exactly what you need to begin to positively impact your family members, the people that you love the most.
Now, space is limited. I’m not taking an unlimited number of people into this beta test. So, I’m having people fill out who want to participate, I’m having you fill out an application, I’m calling it an application, it’s really not like a job application, it’s not a test or anything, it’s just giving me some information, so that I can see if you would be a good fit for this program. So don’t be worried that you’re going to be screened out if you don’t make the bar. Because that’s not what this application is for.
So, if you’re interested, I really hope that you will go to the link in the show notes. And that link is available. Now, when you go and fill it out. It’s just a simple Google form, it’s easy. But there is a link in the show notes, too, to apply to be part of this beta program. And I just really hope that you will take advantage of this opportunity.
The beta program, you know, is a testing version, it’s going to be the full version of the program, but it will be a test and so the price is lower. And I have details for you later that, but the price is lower when they’ve done when the full version would come out.
So, if you’re wanting to get in on this and wanting to take advantage of a lower price, I suggest doing that now. I’ve been coaching and working in this family relationship space for several years now. And I can tell you, because I’ve talked to so many people, both the masterclass in the and the beta program are going to be so helpful to you. I know what issues families are facing. I know the things that are getting in the way, I know the things that we need to work on, to get ourselves into a healthy place. And I know also that everyone listening to this podcast right now, and even those that are not listening to this podcast right now are struggling in at least one family relationship. That’s a given.
At any given time, everybody in the world is struggling with at least one family relationship. I’ve never met anyone who isn’t.
And there’s, you know, there’s so much good information out there. And it’s so accessible. There’s a lot of information that is not helpful though. The things that I talk about in this podcast and the tools and the concepts that I teach, and I help my clients with are all research based. They’re up to date with the latest findings in mental and emotional health. And in relational health. They are proven tools and concepts.
And I know that learning and getting information feels great, especially if you are struggling and you’re just wanting some help learning things is, so it just feels good. It feels like we’re making progress, you can find out so much with a simple Google search. Or by listening or reading books listening to or reading books, I love Audible.
And I love to read books to I find Audible is just a little easier for me, because I can do it while I’m doing other things. And I tend to fall asleep when I read books as individuals do that. I have a hard time staying awake while I’m reading. But I really love books, hard copies of books, too. You know, the problem is, is that we take in all this information. And we don’t know how to use it. We don’t know how it can be effective in our lives.
And I’ve had literally client clients that have come to me, and they’ve said, I know all the things. I know the model I’ve read this person I know that person in and out. I know about this stuff. But I don’t know how to use it in my life. That’s so common. And so, they’re still stuck Because learning and knowing something is one skill set, and applying and doing is another skill set.
And as a coach, I will help you with both. I have clients that need help with both. Some of my clients need more help with the knowing learning site. And some of them need more help with the applying doing site doesn’t matter which category you fall into; it doesn’t matter in the least. Because as a coach, I help you make progress wherever you are, I’m just meeting you where you are.
And the first thing to do is either to come to a masterclass or apply for the beta program. So go to the link in the show notes. Sign up, do this for yourself. This is who you do it for, for the health of yourself, and for the health of your family.
This summer was eventful in many ways. In some heartbreaking ways, too. I had a friend who suddenly passed away, just almost a month ago. And this happened at a time when I was already facing some difficult challenges, some extremely difficult challenges. And I was trying to make sense of these things in my life. And then my good friend passed away. And it just sent me into a different headspace, into a different line of thinking. And a different just a different way of viewing the own things in my own life.
It really got me thinking about why am I here, what am I supposed to be focusing on? What’s important. And that’s nothing new. I know, I’ve thought those thoughts so many times. But these were thoughts that in questions that were really moving deeper and deeper into my soul.
And I was pulling out new levels of personal understanding.
Reading also, like I mentioned before, I’ve learned so much from reading, it’s really helped me to understand things that I’ve already understood. And on a new level, because this summer, I’ve been reading books that are out of the norm for me. And it’s been such a beautiful gift and so meaningful to me, a gift from God to my soul at a time when I really needed it to be focused on different types of books that I had been focused on in the past.
And those are just a couple of ways this summer has been impactful on me. And I’m going to be sharing some of the things that I’ve learned in the podcast in the coming weeks. And this is one of the things this this today, this podcast today about taking radical ownership of your own relationships. This is part of this learning for me this summer. You know, I see how I have done this in the past.
And I see. I watch. I like to watch people and how they react to different things. I think I call myself a people watcher. Or maybe let people observer just really want to observe like and question what is going on for this person? Or for me, that I’m reacting to this situation right now? Or what is this? Might this person be thinking or feeling or this making them do this right now.
And I see how we let other people so often take over and dictate how we feel about ourselves, and how we define ourselves, and how we feel about our own life we get in so this mode of being reactive in our relationships and reactivity in relationships is not usually a good thing.
We’re not taking responsibility for our own health, our own mental and emotional well-being and our own responses to our environments. We generally are being very reactive in taking care of our bodies, and not even knowing that we’re not taking care of our mental and emotional loving. We’re just reacting to the environment around us and is not a positive thing.
I did some training with Amy Gianni a few months ago and we talked about a book called Love 2.0 by Barbara Fredrickson. And we went over this section that is talking about creating happiness and health in moments of connection. We talked about how important relationships are to us.
And we talked about how there’s so much research showing positive effects of love and connection. and social interactions, and how that is positively affecting our physical health, not just our emotional mental health, but our physical health. And it alters our biochemistry.
And if it can positively affect our mental, emotional, physical health, it can also, if we don’t have relationships, love, and connection in our lives, it can negatively affect our biochemistry. You know, a lack of love and connection in our life is more damaging to our health than smoking cigarettes, or drinking alcohol excessively, or even being obese.
Love literally makes us happier and healthier people. And a lack of it makes us sick. A lack of it compromises our immunity, and our health, feeling isolated and disconnected. In relationships with others, does more body damage than actual isolation. You can be in a room full of people and feel completely isolated and disconnected.
Painful emotions drive these body systems that will steer you towards dire health outcomes. And we really need diverse and rewarding relationships. Because when we have those, we are healthier, and we live longer, we have more thriving, and just positive emotional experiences in our lives. And bonus, our health is better. Isn’t that amazing?
I think it’s amazing that none of the pieces of us live within a bubble. Our physical health affects her mental and emotional health, which affects our relational health. And all these things feed off each other, they help or hurt each other. So, it’s important to pay attention to the whole person that you are. But this is what happens. We are cutting ourselves off from really feeling connected in our relationships because we are reactive. And we’re reactive to situations and people around us. And we’re feeling out of control in our own lives.
We start taking a victim mindset where we feel powerless to feel better, unless other people decide to change. Or maybe until our circumstances change. We’ll add when we take a victim stance, we also somebody must be a villain, right? There’s a victim there must be a villain and so the other person becomes the villain.
Sometimes we take on both roles, and ourselves. I’m the victim, victim, and I’m the villain. That’s an interesting dynamic for another podcast.
We are just living our lives on autopilot. We are not being creators, and deciders in our own lives, we’re getting stuck in our routines and just doing the same thing day after day not thinking about why we’re doing something or if it’s something we should be doing, or if we’re doing it effectively, or if we’re doing it. Like we just don’t even think.
And we get stuck in thinking that our personality, and our strengths and weaknesses dictate who we are. And we think well, I just that’s just the way I am. And we don’t even question whether that is the way I want to be? We don’t see that we have a choice. We think those things are fixed. That it’s just the way I came. It’s just the way I am. And so, there’s nothing I can do about it. I mean, so often, I hear well, this is just the way I am when it’s not a positive thing.
And that implies there’s nothing I can do about it. We’re just feeling trapped. We don’t see where we have choices. We’re focused on how things are right now here today and how much we don’t like it. We’re not focusing on the big picture. We don’t see how much power and responsibility we have in our own lives.
And we have become this group of people who are not acting for themselves. We are being acted upon. We are not taking charge of the agency in our own lives.
If I painted a bleak picture for you, sometimes it feels bleak, doesn’t it?
But it doesn’t have to because relationships are important. I think it’s interesting in the scriptures that the first and second commandments have to do with relationships. And then everything else hangs on those two things.
Your relationship with yourself, how do you think, feel, and act towards yourself or maybe against yourself, that’s going to be evident in how you think, feel and act towards others, or against others. Because you can’t give someone else something that you don’t have. And in our relationships with others, we are all inextricably connected.
When we hurt another person, we hurt ourselves. When we build and inspire another person, we build and inspire ourselves. A lot of people have an easier time being nice to nicer to others than they, they are to themselves. But, you know because we are all connected in a very, very real way. We can’t be unkind to ourselves without harming the collective humaneness of the world. And we are part of that, and so is everybody else. So when we are unkind to ourselves, we’re actually unkind to others. And when we work on our relationships with ourselves and others, we are honoring God. Even if we’re doing a bad job, just that we’re trying, we’re honoring God, we’re doing what he’s asked us to do.
I don’t know that there’s anything that is more important than that, especially since the Scriptures tell us everything else hangs on those two relationships.
So here we are, these flawed human beings who are being so reactive. And we’re on this earth trying to grow, trying to develop, and trying to become like Jesus Christ. We do that through our relationships, we work those things out through our relationships, with ourselves with others, our relationships with difficult life circumstances, our relationship with our, with our own thoughts, with our own emotions.
We don’t often get a say in what circumstances show up in our life. I know in my life, there are circumstances that show up that I had no say in them showing up. But I do have a say, and what I do with those circumstances, that is in my power.
And I just I like to give examples because I think it helps us really apply. So here, here, I have an example for you. If I’m not getting along with another person, well, that’s my responsibility to deal with it. That struggle that I’m having with another person gives me information. It’s showing me where that person is in their life, and it’s showing me where I am in my life, and where my work is to do. The other person doesn’t have to do anything, for me to deal with myself.
Now, I’m not saying that the other person doesn’t have responsibility. But I don’t get a say in what the other person does, and how they react to me, and what they think, what they feel or what they do, I don’t have a say, in what they choose. But I do have the ability to respond, I have a response ability. How I do that.
My response ability is my choice and my agency. And this is where I find freedom, peace, and power in my own life. Now, it might mean that I need to change my thoughts about this person, it might mean that I need to deal with some difficult emotions that the situation is bringing up for me. And those are mine to own and mind to deal with. It also might be just telling me that maybe I’m not honoring myself in this relationship. And I need to be more kind to myself and in how I allow myself to be treated.
Notice that in nowhere in this example, did I become a victim of my circumstances, because I get to own my life experience. I respond to my life. And what I do with it is my choice.
So ultimately, I am responsible for me, no one else is responsible for me. And what I do matters, what I think matters. What I feel matters, because what I think and feel and do affects me and it affects the people around me. And when I take radical ownership of my own life – that brings me peace. That brings me peace. And in more authentic connection with myself, with other people, and with God.
Here are my takeaways for today.
Take Away #1
Everything that you go through in this life is for your own growth and development for yours. Everything is happening for you, and not to you. When you let this really sink in, and you let it become the way you see your life, everything starts to shift.
Takeaway number #2
When you leave this earth, you take yourself, who you have become. And you take your relationships, you get to decide right now what you want those to be, who you are, and what your relationships are with others is in your control. No matter what anyone else does or doesn’t do.
Weekly Challenge
Here’s your challenge for the week, you have a difficult situation, I know that you do because everybody does. You have a difficult situation with a family member, maybe it’s an immediate family member. Or maybe it’s not immediate family member, but you have one I know you do. What is the one thing you can do today, to take hold of your own agency in this situation. It doesn’t have to be something big; it could be a very small thing. But I want you to commit to do it before 8pm. And if it’s 8:05pm right now, when you’re listening to this, you have 23 hours and 55 minutes, because I promise you 8pm is coming again tomorrow.
Now, it might be something as simple as noticing an unkind thought that you’re having about them, and telling yourself that you don’t want to think that way about them today. Maybe it’s making a phone call. Maybe it’s getting out a piece of paper and writing one thing that’s positive about that person. Maybe the difficult situation is in yourself and not with somebody else.
So, if this is the case, how can you be kind to yourself before 8pm Maybe you’re having an unkind thought about yourself, and you tell yourself, I am not going to think that today. Maybe you drink an extra glass of water, or you go for a walk, or you call a friend and connect. Maybe you spend 10 to 15 minutes meditating.
You know, as humans, we underestimate the small, simple actions that can add up over time. We totally underestimate them. We’re really all we ever have are the actions that we take right now. Because tomorrow never really comes. It’s always today. So today is always the right time.
This summer has been a significant one for me for so many reasons. And the experiences that I’ve had have changed me. And they’ve changed the way I see the world. I see myself as so incredibly powerful in my own life. And I am humbled by it. It’s a gift from God.
I see my clients as so powerful in their own lives. Coaching me is having a front row seat in a very sacred space of the lives of my clients.
I see the people that I love, people in my life who are struggling, but I see them as powerful in their own lives. Some of them I know don’t see it yet. And that’s okay. Because I have enough belief that they are powerful, that I can hold that for them until they’re ready to take that out for themselves.
And I know that you also are powerful in your own life. Each one of us has the power to take charge of our agency. And that agency is a powerful force. Agency is a powerful and sacred gift that too many of us are discounting, not valuing it, and not holding responsibly.
And now I don’t want to discount the impact of my increase in always growing faith in Jesus Christ and the influence that he has had on me. Please know that I might not always mention it in such a direct way. But my faith in Him holds up everything that I do and say on this podcast, and in my coaching business. I consider Christ to be my business partner as I look to Him to guide me and direct the decisions that I make down to the classes that I offer and the way that I coach my clients.
The very fact that I’m in this coaching field right now is a direct response to a very sacred spiritual experience that I had several years ago, that I will probably never share publicly. But that’s why I’m here. And that is why I do what I do.
Now, I know that you are powerful beyond your belief, and you can be an agent in your own life by taking radical responsibility for your relationships and how you show up in them.
I am looking forward to seeing you in this masterclass on how to positively influence the people you love. I don’t have a link to give you today. But I will have a link for you next week, crossing my fingers. So, look for that.
And I’m looking forward to seeing your application to join the beta program to help you develop your ability to have a positive impact on the people that you love that you want to have them have a big giant happy life and take care of their own agency and take it how powerfully responsibly in their own. I am so grateful that you’re here with me today. I’m grateful to be back on this podcast for the next several weeks. And I hope that you begin to see the power that you must take a radical responsibility for yourself in your own life.
