Turbulent relationships can sap energy, confidence and wear down your sense of stability. It can bleed into the rest of your life and damage other relationships, careers, or even your health.
Blaming other people or hoping they will change isn’t helpful. Sharing self-serving, inflated-ego stories about your boss with your friends may blow off steam but not provide the necessary tools to move forward.
To maintain balance inside toxic (but necessary) relationships, I’ve discovered that seeking to understand by asking the right questions at the right time reveals valuable insights to help us maintain a powerful perspective.
Because, here's the truth:
Motivations drive intentions.
Intentions drive action.
Action can be powerful or toxic.
With insight into what's triggering action, we are better equipped to choose an appropriate response that aligns with our values -- Because another truth is:
Choice is power.
Here are several questions that help us seek understanding -
In others:
What do you want to have happen?
What makes it important?
What is needed most right now?
What is motivating you to ask that question?
In ourselves:
What do I think is the other person’s truth on this topic?
What do I think it will take to better understand their perspective?
What’s my role in this?
What questions should I be asking?
We may not always be free to create the exact circumstances of our life, but we are free to choose what meaning we give to them and how to respond.
Choose relationships and responses that empower you, my friends.
Powerful Perspective
Asking the right questions of yourself and others provides room for an inquiry that can lead to a Powerful Perspective -- those energies that create balance and personal power.
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