WARNING. THIS CHALLENGE WILL REVEAL HOW YOU THINK ABOUT YOUR SPOUSE...
WARNING!!! This exercise will reveal how you think about your bae, boo, partner, sig other, fiancé or spouse.
Step 1. ON YOUR OWN Iphone, hit home button, then swipe right until you see search at the top of the screen.
Step 2. Type your person’s name in the search field and hit search button. This should bring up that name everywhere on your phone.
Step 3. Tap “search in app” next to messages. This will bring up every message that has that person’s name in it.
Step 4. Look through 20, 50 or 100 messages. Count how many times you said something uplifting or complementing. Count how many times you said something negative (this includes putdowns, complaints and gossip).
• There will be some messages that are just neutral or just informative type messages.
Step 5. If you have just 10% negative, you have likely done damage with your words. Anything over 25%, you may have to ask yourself if you even like the person.
How you talk to others about your mate is how you think of them. If you think of them negatively, you will begin to only see negative aspects of them. This creates a perpetual negative process in thought and perception and communication. In addition, if those negative messages have been with family and friends, they likely have a tainted view of your mate. Left unchecked, your “allies” will agree with you about how bad he or she is, or worse will point out new negative attributes for you.
If the person is really that bad, you may need to re-evaluate the nature of your relationship. Before that, however, try forcing yourself to counter thoughts of your mate’s perceived negative attribute or actions with positive ones. Think of your mate as a car. You can see him or her as old, dirty and boring OR you can see it as seasoned, paid for and reliable. The choice is yours. “For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he”. The mind is a powerful tool. If you think a person, situation, job, object… is negative, your mind will find all the ways to make it so (at least to you).
What to do with this knowledge…
- Change, share with your mate, ask for forgiveness and do better
- Change and do better
- Think about it
- Do nothing
- Resist, blame and make excuses