Resolving relationship conflicts could be difficult, and what adds to such obscurity is the way couples let the words slip as they stand in the way of their emotions. A lot of men and women blame each other for their uncertainties, and it never results in a ceasefire but only pours more fuel to the flame. Learn the distinction between “I” and “You” statements and learn how it can strengthen communication to dodge conflict. As we reveal ways on how to align with your divine self, discover why it is crucial to own your feelings and preferences as things go unsteady with your partner.
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Below is a transcript of the video and audio above. The paragraphs and sections are alternated between bold / not bold for ease of reading along with the video or audio.
“I” Vs “YOU”
We are talking about I-language versus you-language. That whole statement, “If you would change, I would feel better,” is going against the Law of Allowing. With the Law of Allowing, that feels constricted. With the Law of Allowing, we want to feel expanded. When we are blaming our partner, “If you would just change, if you would do something different, it’s all your fault. Because of you, I feel this way.”
The partner is on the defensive.
“If you would just change, I would feel better.” You are assigning your feelings, your power, everything that you have control of, outside of you because you don’t have control over him. Ladies, how many times have we tried to control his behavior and it doesn’t change? He just digs his heels in. We can’t change our partner. We can’t control our partner. We can influence and we influence by our own energy, by taking responsibility of how we feel. Here’s a different situation, “If you would just leave the seat down or if you would just cook the meals or if you would just clean the dishes that are in that sink, I would be happy.” How does that feel?
Starting it in an I before the you, it feels better.
If I come to you and I say, “I would prefer that the sink is clean.”
Now, I can receive this inside my heart because she came from her own perspective. Now I’m open to receiving. I can feel it too. When I’m hearing her and it’s not hearing something that comes to me or something wrong that I did. It’s a matter of, “She prefers to have the dishes done.” I get it and I want to be there. I want to be understanding of her that she doesn’t prefer to have dishes in the sink. I’m getting it slowly.
It’s also for the good, the bad and the ugly. It’s like, “You make me feel so wonderful.” We’re making our partner our source of how we feel something. If he stops doing what he does to make me feel so good then all of a sudden, I’m not feeling good, “He’d stopped loving me. He’s not bringing me flowers anymore.” When all of a sudden he’s not doing the things that he did to make me feel good, now I can’t feel that way. Our emotions are ours. Whether we feel good, bad, indifferent, mad, glad, sad, happy, whatever it is, those emotions are inside of us. It is a choice in how we perceive and choose to react and respond. We have to remember that. When he does something or doesn’t do something or says something or doesn’t say something, it’s up to me to go, “That didn’t feel good. That’s an ouch.” That’s what we say to each other. I said something to him and he goes, “Ouch,” immediately I take a step back and go, “I’m sorry,” instead of, “You hurt me.”
That took a lot of time for me to understand that I could speak out and say, “That doesn’t feel good to me.” Previously, I would just keep it in and it would be stored inside a place of anger or resentment and it would come out afterwards in another way, either it would come out sideways. It would come out as a passive-aggressive way. Whether I’d be driving with her in the car and all of a sudden, I’d swerve and make her feel unsafe. It takes time in order to realize that you need to come from the I.
This honestly changed our relationship and it’s interesting because we do this in society. If you watch entertainment news, people are always talking about, “When you do this, when you do that.” One day it hit me. Tom Cruise was talking about Mission Impossible where he did a stunt hanging out of an airplane. If you’ve seen it, he’s literally flying 200 feet up in the air and even higher probably. He’s hanging onto the outside of the plane. He goes, “When you’re doing a stunt and you’re hanging outside of the airplane,” I’m thinking, “I would never do that.”
I don’t know that feeling. Why are you mentioning me or you?
I Versus You: Our emotions are ours. It is a choice in how we perceive and choose to react and respond.
We do this. My mom will say, “You know when you have a knee ache,” and I’ll say, “No, mom. I don’t know what that feels like.” We do this, speak in you language. What’s happening though is when you say I or even another one I used to say is, “It feels better,” I’m not an it, I’m an I. Instead of saying, “It feels better,” like when I had a headache. It’s not it and my head is a part of me, “I feel better. I prefer this. I love this.” That’s part of communication in any type of relationship. It’s practicing that has the juice of where things do change in your relationship, how it makes it better, how you become more accountable, how I have been able to express who Christy is to Frederic. It’s not just you need to change in order for me to be happy. With me taking responsibility for how I feel, I’m able to process my own emotions. I’m able to take responsibility. I’m able to own my own power. I understand where my source of all good feelings comes from. I understand that he is not responsible for making me feel loved. He is not responsible for making me feel safe or protected or anything. He’s not supposed to change in order to fit how I want to feel, yet we get to co-create together and live together and I get to say my preferences.
That gives me the opportunity to do the same. “I’m off the hook now. I don’t need to try to understand how she feels or try to understand what she’s trying to tell me. Is there a message in there that I’m not catching?” No, it’s clear. It’s direct. It’s coming from her I and now I can see her. I can feel her. Now I can even focus on my own self. We have the conversations together that are coming from the I. I feel like I’m being heard now or I feel like I’m not understanding what you’re saying. I feel like I need you to be more specific.
Just to give you a real-life example. We’re in the process of negotiating a puppy because the kids and I are ready to have a puppy. Frederic for a while said, “I eventually want to get a dog. I don’t know if it’s right now.” The kids and I wanted a King Charles. One of those smaller fluffier cute little dogs.
What am I going to do with a small King Charles? I grew up with Labradors and German Shepherds and Chow Chows. I want a dog that’s active. I want a dog where I can throw the ball and have it run not just five minutes.
King Charles’ run and get balls too.
I know but it’s tiny. It’s small like a squirrel. I don’t want to feed my dog peanuts. I want a big dog.
The point is we have a difference in opinion. All three of us want to get a dog. The biggest thing is does it have to be a King Charles? Could I be more allowing in my preferences? I also love Labradors. We have to figure out the dog that’s right for us or looking at a Labradoodle, that kind of thing. It’s being able for him to be honest. What usually happens is just because he wanted to make me happy, I’d say I want a dog and I wanted it to be a King Charles, so he would not be expressing himself and what I felt and what he felt. We would go and get a King Charles and then it would come out sideways as resentment. He would raise his voice or passive aggressiveness because who is he mad at? He wasn’t necessarily mad at me. He’s mad at himself that he didn’t express himself.
By him expressing his I and saying, “I prefer a big dog. I want a dog I can wrestle around with. I want a dog that I can do this with.” For me, that’s not important. It’s like, “That’s important to him.” Having a King Charles or a smaller dog, I love little purse dogs and stuff, it’s more important for him to have a dog to wrestle. I just want a dog. I’m willing to then listen to his preferences and say, “I’m willing to get a Labradoodle or Lab or a German Shepherd.” I’m willing to get that because I also want a dog. It’s not saying, “Because of you, I can’t get my King Charles. Because of you, I can’t get what I want.” That’s not it at all. It’s coming from, “I would prefer this. I just want a dog.” We’re using this as an example, but this goes into how we raise our kids, how we spend our money, how we choose the vacations that we go on, how we create the vision for our future, how much time we spend with our in-laws.
It’s everywhere in our lives now. It’s with family, even extended family, with relationships that are our friendships, even co-workers. People could use that type of language. It’s a much healthier way of communicating. I’m thinking how do we go about and people don’t do that automatically right away. How do we give them the opportunity to understand how to create that type of language for themselves? I was thinking we are going to create online events that will give tools and processes and ways in order to start doing and learning these ways of coming from the I instead of the you.
A perfect example is it’s a habit. I coach people all the time and I say, “I want you to come from the I so that you’re owning.” Two seconds later, they will say, “When you.” I’m like, “No, come from the I.” It’s a constant retraining. We had to be retrained in that. Our mentor, Karen Lamark Wilson, years ago when we were doing this, it was a constant reminder because it’s so ingrained in us to say, “You, you, you.” To come from the I, it literally is like learning a brand-new language. It’s a whole different consciousness perspective. Words are important. Words are so creative. It’s the first part of the creation process, “In the beginning, there was the Word.”
I Versus You: To come from the “I” is literally like learning a brand new language for it’s a whole different consciousness perspective.
I did a whole entire series called Watch Your Words. You could go to WatchYourWords.com to know what words not to say and what words to say. What are creative and what are destructive because words are so important. Just this small word of you versus I literally creates a whole different thing. What it is, it’s a paradigm shift from outside in. You need to change in order for me to be happy. I need to have more money in order to feel secure. I need to have my partner do this in order for me to feel safe. I need the kids to act this way in order to do this. It’s a very different life from the outside in approach than the inside out approach. I feel this, I feel secure, therefore I then create. It’s the Law of Attraction at its best. It is a huge paradigm shift.
What we recommend and first thing always is you have to be able to start owning your feelings. We understand that that is a big concept to say that’s step one. Own your feelings. How do you do that? It’s a practical application. The first thing you have to do is you have to start asking yourself, “What do I prefer? How do I feel? What do I want?” A lot of times we’re not asked that. I grew up being very hypervigilant and in my relationships up until we worked on this, I was worried about what everybody else wanted and needed before myself. Then I would sit in their feeling of resentment and anger because I’m not getting what I want, but I’m doing it out for everybody else. Everybody else is getting what they want except for me. That anger would seed as I still was trained to what do you want and how can I serve you and what can I do for you?
I wasn’t getting my needs met. Who needs to take responsibility for our emotions? We do. If we don’t feel respected, are you respecting yourself? If you don’t feel heard, are you hearing yourself? If you feel criticized, how are you criticizing yourself? This relationship that we have with us, with our own person, some people will say that’s selfish. Yeah, because you can only come from the self. It’s not like because I’m now coming from my own feelings, I’m saying what I prefer and what I want and this is how I feel that I don’t care about him or I don’t care about my kids. I prefer to have a dog. He wants a bigger dog. Let’s get a big dog. It doesn’t mean that I don’t listen to him and I don’t consider him and any of that, but I get to be heard.
You don’t have empathy for others. That’s not selfish.
This is a healthy selfish where the only person and the only perspective that you can come from is yourself. You start to own your feelings. That’s what this show is all about. That’s what the work that I’ve been doing for almost twenty years, not only on myself but with others has an impact. It’s returning back to yourself and not just your personality self, but your divine self. The divine in you that praise you, that loves you, that never has a bad opinion about you, that is always the source and supply of all of your good. When we are feeling anything that feels bad, we are coming from lack and limitation and we are out of alignment with that divine source. Our divine source is always in a space of abundance. How do we know how we’re feeling? How do we know if we’re in lack or abundance? The way we feel. How do we know that? We have to ask ourselves, “Am I feeling good right now?” How can we expand that feeling of good? Am I feeling bad right now? Where are you in lack? Where are you in fear? Where are you in anger? Emotions and emotional intelligence are extremely important to have a thriving, successful, abundant and connected relationship and life experience. Number one, own your own feelings.
You could also start writing. A lot of people suggest doing some journaling. Write down one sentence for how there’s something that comes up. There’s an anger that comes up, write it down. “I’m feeling angry because I’m not heard,” or whatever it is. Write it down and that will start the process of earning to come from the I.
Put yourself Post-It notes. I instead of you and catch yourself. Hire a coach. Hire us to help you with your relationships. Some of the things that we do offer are counseling and therapy work. We bring in the Council of Light to do healing work with individual couples. Our time is limited to do that, but we have online events. We have amazing couples retreat that we do. There are different opportunities if you want more continued support. At first, it has to come from you. As you start to create the I language within you and communicating with your partner, “I feel this,” instead of “You did this or because of you.” It’s very different. We’re talking about defense versus allowing. When you’re in the space of allowing, that’s where love lives. That’s when you can create a more conscious, connected coupling relationship of a couple. Own your feelings.
Number two, don’t blame your partner that if he would change or she would change, then you would feel something different. If you hear yourself saying that, say, “What is it that I’m not feeling?” We’re so conditioned in a society that, “I’m not feeling fulfilled. I have an empty spot in my heart. I’m not getting what I want. I’m unsatisfied. Because you’re my partner, you need to give that to me.” It’s not the case. It’s relearning. Own your own feelings. Don’t blame your partner and then release your emotions. Everything is energy, including emotions, including feelings. It takes about 90 seconds to feel what you feel. I recommend to people, “Go into your lower body.” That is where your emotional body is. Feel whatever dominant vibration. It’s like keys on a piano. You have different keys.
Emotions have different vibrations. When you can feel what your dominant vibration is and start to feel it, you don’t need to connect it with your mind to go into the story or justification or why you’re right or any of that kind of stuff. You don’t even have to say this is fear. You have to feel the pulsation and let yourself be with yourself. Let yourself be with the energy that’s inside of your body and let it pulsate out of you. When you do that, you then become more aligned with who you are. You’re more open for the joy that’s available. You’re more open for the love that’s there. You’re more open for the fun and the connection. You’re not stuck in the anger. You’re not stuck in the fear. You’re not stuck in the resentments or the frustrations or whatever you have. You allow that stuff to go. You release it because you’re now owning it.
Ultimately that’s what we want in a relationship. We want to have a relationship with someone we love that is playful, that has energy, where we feel we’re both heard. Where we can communicate from our soul where there’s an exchange, there’s wonderful experiences and adventures together. That’s why we get into long-term relationships with people that we love. Not to have negative experiences, but so that there can be a positive experience. Transform your relationship. That can happen. We’re proof of that. That’s why we’re doing this show. We’re not perfect but we give you examples. We’ll give you even some of our experiences and we’ll share everything that we’ve learned with you. We all want to have this loving long-term relationship where we could just be ourselves and play.
I Versus You: Emotions have different vibrations. When you can feel what your dominant vibration is, you don’t need to connect it with your mind to go into the justification of why you’re right.
That is the divine design. The council shares that having loving relationships and connected relationships is the way it is designed to be. Just like we were designed to have two arms, two legs, ten fingers, ten toes, one brand and one heart. It’s designed that way. We are so happy to help you get back in alignment with your original divine design. Thank you so much for tuning in this episode of Conscious, Connected, Coupling with Frederic and Christy.
See you in the next episode.
