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September 1, 2023 18 mins

Are you ready to challenge your perceptions and fuel your relationships? This episode promises to take your understanding of relationships - with yourself, others, and God - to a whole new level. 

Imagine an engine where each part is connected, all contributing to the overall function. The same goes for our relationships; our thoughts, feelings, and actions are all required to keep the engine smooth and robust. We dive into the dynamics of these interactions, scrutinizing the impact of our perceptions on our relationships, the pitfalls of attempting to control others, and the power of authenticity.

Shift your thought gears and prepare for a journey to transform your relationships. We'll explore the power of changing your thoughts and the profound ripple effect it can have on our relationships. We take a hard look at how our stories about the past, shaped by our current thoughts and feelings, can evolve over time. We emphasize the importance of taking responsibility for our own feelings and choosing our thoughts intentionally to create healthier, more loving relationships. 

Check out all my resources and ways to work together at www.thehappiestlives.com. 

Discover ways to work with me at www.thehappiestlives.com or www.myhappyvault.com
Questions? Email Jill directly at Jill@thehappiestlives.com

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to the Happiest Lives podcast with
Jill Lillard, episode number 18.
Welcome to the Happiest Livespodcast, where you'll learn to
think better, feel better andbecome the woman God says you
already are.
Here's your host, jill Lillard.
Welcome to this five-partseries Relationship Foundations.

(00:20):
I am passionate about thisclass, as this has been my
life's work.
I'm excited to help you enjoyyour relationships more, not
just with others, but withyourself and the Lord.
A relationship is an interactionbetween the parts.
So, whether we're talking aboutcogs in an engine or people in
a room, a relationship is theconnection between these parts.

(00:43):
It's how they work together.
I like to think the parts arenever independent.
As they interact, they areinterdependent, forming one unit
individually serving thefunction of the greater whole.
In 1 Corinthians, chapter 12,it tells us the body is the unit
made up of many parts andthough the parts are many, they

(01:05):
form one body.
This is how it is in Christ.
Romans 1245 states just as ourbodies have many parts and each
part has a special function, soit is with Christ's body we are
many parts of one body and weall belong to each other.
As we look at the interaction,let's break down the parts and

(01:27):
examine their relationship witha greater whole.
So first we have to start withyou.
If you don't have a goodrelationship with yourself, you
will struggle in relationshipswith others.
Your relationship with yourselfis made up of parts.
Those parts interact to make upthe greater whole which is you.
Your relationship with yourselfis the interaction of your

(01:51):
thoughts, feelings and actionsyou perceive with your senses,
your eyes, ears, touch, tasteand your mind takes an
information assigning meaning toit.
These are your thoughts, basedon what you are thinking you
feel.
Your feelings fuel your actions, how you engage with the world.

(02:13):
So knowing what you arethinking is super important.
Consciously choosing what youwant to believe matters.
This will impact how you feeland how you show up.
You will then have thoughtsabout that, which will begin the
whole cycle again of thinking,feeling and doing.
This is your relationship, notonly with the outside world, but

(02:37):
with yourself.
Your relationship with otherpeople is all your thoughts
about them and their thoughtsabout you.
Your thoughts of each other areinteracting.
We think our relationship issome separate thing outside of
us or happening to us, based onhow the other person behaves,
but really, how we internalizetheir actions and react is our

(03:00):
relationship with them.
The same is true for yourrelationship with God.
What you believe about Godimpacts your sense of identity,
worth and having or not havingtrusting how you think about
others in the situations youfind yourself in.
God has thoughts and sharesthem with us in his word.
He also shares his thoughtsthrough the Holy Spirit.

(03:23):
Our thoughts invite and welcomehis thoughts, or they don't, as
he gives us free will to thinkand feel and do whatever we want
.
He doesn't force us or make us.
We have this agency.
We can interact and take on histhoughts or we can reject them.
This does not change who he isand what is true.

(03:44):
He will do what he will do,regardless of whether we
cooperate or not.
When we live a life in step witha spirit, we are surrendering
our mind, will and emotions tothe one who made us, knows us
and loves us.
He is the one who is 100%sovereign, even as he gives us

(04:08):
100% free will.
This is a paradox that we can'tfully understand with our
finite human minds, but Ibelieve exist as I study God's
Word.
In the same way, we cannotunderstand the paradox of God
being three persons in one, orbeing fully man and fully God.
There is a mystery incomprehending God's sovereignty
and our free will.

(04:30):
Welcoming Jesus into our hearts,inviting him into our minds,
will and emotions, begins withbelieving he is who he says he
is.
We recognize ourunrighteousness, his perfection
and our need to be restored.
We realize we can't do this onour own, but we must cooperate
with his spirit doing the workof redemption.

(04:52):
With our mind, we repent of oursins, our infractions against
God's perfect law, and recognizeour need for a Redeemer,
acknowledging Jesus as the onewho makes us whole and does what
we cannot do for ourselves webelieve and receive.
The Holy Spirit then takesresidence in our hearts with our

(05:15):
permission and willingness.
He transforms our thinking.
His spirit living in us flowsthrough us like a rivers of
living water, washing away theold and bringing in the new.
This is the beginning and theongoing process of becoming who
he made us to be.
In the story of sin andsalvation we see that our

(05:36):
relationship with Christwillingly begins in our minds as
we interact with his thoughts.
Our relationship with othersbegins in our mind as our
thoughts interact with another'sthoughts.
Often people come in forrelationship counseling with the
belief that their spouse isresponsible for their feelings
and they are responsible fortheir partner's feelings.

(05:57):
There are a lot of couplesinterventions and treatments
that focus on trying to meeteach other's needs.
The problem this creates is, ifI am responsible for how you
feel and react to me and you areresponsible for how I feel and
react to you, my life willconstantly be trying to
inadvertently control you withmy behavior.

(06:18):
When we try to control otherpeople, either by telling them
what to do or controlling themby pleasing them, we get
frustrated.
It doesn't work.
People rarely behave how wewant them to.
The truth is, we barely knowhow to make ourselves happy, and
yet we're always trying tocontrol other people so we will
be happier.
Manipulating other people'sbehavior to feel good or

(06:41):
manipulating your behavior totry and make them feel good is
an endless cycle ofdisappointment and control.
You keep banging your headagainst the wall, trying to get
people to follow your script ortrying to follow their script so
they will be happy.
On the other hand, when you letpeople be who they are and free
yourself to be who you are, youwill both show up more

(07:04):
authentically.
Today, I want you to see thatyour relationship with someone
else is simply all your thoughtsabout them.
You have thoughts about themand they have thoughts about you
, which interact with each other.
Yet so many of us view ourrelationships as something
happening to us or outside us,and so we lose our effectiveness
and feel powerless.
I want you to imagine someonein your life that you think you

(07:28):
have an amazing relationshipwith.
Think about why you believe youhave a great relationship with
them.
Come up with three things.
When I asked myself this aboutmy husband, my three things were
he's a good team player, he hasa great sense of humor and he
is supportive.
These are my thoughts about myhusband and our relationship.

(07:48):
Now imagine there's anotherperson that does not like my
husband or his sense of humor.
They describe him as annoyingand selfish.
How is this possible?
We are describing the sameperson.
I know many of us is right, orwho is wrong.
Well, we both are.
My relationship is based on mythoughts about him.
The other person has thoughtsabout him that define their

(08:09):
relationship with him.
Have you ever been besties withsomeone and then one day, you
are no longer friends?
What changed?
Did the person change or didyour thoughts about them change?
Maybe they did something and inturn, you changed your
assessment and your relationshipwith him.
Now I want you to imagine yourmost challenging relationship.
Why is the relationship hard?

(08:30):
What is the sentence about them?
Now, you think you're justdescribing the other person.
This person is controlling.
You think you are describingthe truth about this person, but
you are telling me yourassessment, your thoughts about
them.
There is someone else out therewho thinks this person is
amazing.

(08:51):
They may even jokeaffectionately about their
bossiness and anxiety, but theydon't feel offended or
threatened by it.
They love this person.
How is this possible?
How can one person have such agreat relationship with someone
and someone have a terrible oneBecause your thoughts are
different?
How can one person love theLord and another person has

(09:12):
anger, distrust and animositytoward him?
He's the same person.
It's because of their thoughtsabout him.
Now let's have a little fun.
Let's take the person you havea great relationship with and
the one you have a challengingrelationship with.
Now swap the thoughts.
Attribute the positive thoughtsto the challenging relationship
and the negative thoughts tothe positive relationship.

(09:34):
If the person you loved didwhat the other person did, would
you have the same thoughts orwould you interpret their
actions differently?
If your daughter did what yourmother-in-law did, would you
offer her more grace andcompassion?
Early in my career, I started anew job as a therapist at a
community behavioral healthcenter.
When I received the chart of myvery first client there,

(09:57):
recently released for prison formurder, my heart sank and my
stomach churned.
How could I find compassion forsomeone that willfully murdered
another human being?
I noticed all sorts ofjudgments and fears which made
me feel closed off.
I wanted to love and help thisperson, so I asked the Lord to

(10:19):
help me see him the way he sawhim.
This was my first new thoughtwhich shifted my will.
Lord, I'm willing to see himthe way you do.
As I willfully participatedwith God, asking his thoughts to
be my thoughts, the Lord wasgracious, giving me thoughts
that generated feelings ofimmense kindness, compassion,

(10:41):
gratitude and humility aroundthis person.
Now, I'm not saying you shouldonly have great relationships
and only think positive thingsabout people.
Sometimes you want to havenegative thoughts about people.
I just want you to understandthat you can change your
thoughts.
If you want to feel love andhave a better relationship with
someone, you must change yourthoughts about that person.

(11:02):
When you start dating someone,you have many positive thoughts
about this person and theirrelationship.
As the relationship progresses,your thoughts may change and so
the relationship does.
I see this all the time.
When I assess a new couple Inthe interview, I always ask them
to tell me about the time theyfirst met and fell in love.
Why, of all the people in theworld, they married this person?

(11:26):
If contempt has set in therelationship, they will have
difficulty assessing positivethoughts about dating and
falling in love.
They will go into negativememories and attributes, even
though this is the person theychose to marry.
They can't access any positivethoughts.
We rewrite our relationshipstory based on how we're feeling

(11:47):
today.
When negative thoughts andfeelings override positive ones,
we will find evidence ofnegative things in our past.
We will tell the story aboutour past in such a way that it
is a sad, sad story.
We will view our relationshipas something that was always
negative, even though there wasa time when we said we were in
love.

(12:08):
I want you to pick arelationship you want to work on
.
What are the thoughts drivingyour interactions?
I like to capture my thoughtsby bullet-pointing 10 to 20
beliefs about the other person.
Don't overthink things.
Just write what comes to thesurface.
Your lists may include amixture of positive and negative
things.
These are your thoughts.
Consider how each thought makesyou feel and how you show up

(12:32):
when you feel that way.
Do you like who you are beingin this relationship?
Why not?
If not, your thoughts probablyaren't serving you.
But good news you can changeyour thoughts about the person
and your relationship willimprove tremendously.
What is the main thought youhave for this person?
I always tell my husband andkids that I love them and you're

(12:55):
my best.
This makes me feel loving andopen, which helps me turn toward
them positively and receivetheir bids to connect.
I then find evidence that theyare my best.
I find more thoughts thatsupport this thought.
I feel more loving.
Now this doesn't mean I loveeverything my husband and
children do or that I don't makerequests or set boundaries.

(13:15):
It just means I feel moreconnected, appreciative and
loving than if I were thinkingabout what I don't appreciate
about them.
Now you don't have to changeyour thoughts if you don't want
to.
You can keep any thought thatyou want, but if you want to
feel more appreciative andloving and loved, you can start
thinking about others in a waythat generates these feelings,

(13:36):
which feels so much better thanbeing frustrated.
The alternative is put yourenergy into wanting others to
change so you can feel betterwhen we have a manual that we
think they should follow,believing we are entitled to
certain things.
We suffer.
We will talk more about that inan upcoming episode in this
series, but until then, knowthat you can stop trying to

(13:58):
control or change the otherperson by taking responsibility
for what you are thinking,feeling and how you are showing
up in the relationship.
It's easy to justify being ajerk when you think other people
are being a jerk.
I was rude because they wererude.
I shut down and withdrewbecause they did this thing.
I lied because they lied.
But you must ask yourself ifthis is who you want to be.

(14:22):
Is this how you want to show upand do you want to give all
your power to the other person,blaming them for your actions,
or do you want to be loving andkind, no matter how others act?
The easiest way not to somehowmirror or react to what you see
someone else doing is to decideahead of time how you want to

(14:45):
think about them.
This takes discipline and beingvery intentional and aware.
I also believe filtering ourthoughts about the other person
through our beliefs about God'sgoodness, faithfulness, grace,
sovereignty and love can help usrenew our minds and find ways
to experience more love.
Jesus gives us the perfectexample of loving.

(15:06):
Despite mistreatment, he wasfocused on his mission, the
reason he was here, and he couldlook at the people in his
circumstance in a way many of uswouldn't.
In response to his oppressors,he said Father, forgive them,
they know not what they do.
His eyes were focused on hisvindicator even as he became our

(15:27):
redeemer.
Now we aren't Jesus and wenever will be.
But even David, who wasimperfect, was said to have a
heart like his.
I think of David's relationshipwith King Saul.
Though Saul mistreated him andthreatened his life, david
viewed Saul in such a way thathe never took matters into his
own hands by harming ordisrespecting Saul, although we

(15:50):
see he set boundaries, fleeingfrom Saul when he threatened his
life.
His thoughts about God shapedDavid's thoughts about Saul.
Despite Saul's flaws in pursuitof David, david respected that
Saul held a divine appointment.
David believed it was not hisplace to harm or overthrow God's

(16:13):
chosen King.
David desired to do what wasright in the eyes of God, even
in the face of personal dangerand injustice.
He had a deep trust in God'ssovereignty and timing.
He believed that if God hadanointed him to be the future
King, then God would bring it topass in his way and time.

(16:34):
And God proved himself faithful.
As always, david demonstrated acompassionate and forgiving
nature, even though Saul pursuedhim with deadly intent.
David had opportunities to killSaul.
He chose to show mercy.
Instead, he believed it wasbetter to spare Saul's life and
let God deal with him as he sawfit.

(16:54):
By sparing Saul's life, davidshowed great restraint, faith
and obedience to God.
His actions serve as an exampleof righteousness and trust in
God's sovereignty, even in theface of adversity.
When we keep our eyes on Jesus,he will renew our minds and
allow us to partner with Hisplans and purposes.
So what's going on in yourrelationship?

(17:16):
What is the focus of your mindand energy?
Is it serving you?
Do you like how you're feelingand showing up?
If not, it's possible.
There's another way to look atthings.
This is the work we are doingthis month, in Clarity and
Courage.
If you want to build betterrelationships, I will walk you
through this process inside mycoaching program Sign up today,

(17:39):
where I ask you questions so youcan apply the knowledge.
We also have a worksheetworkshop where you can meet with
other Christian women doing thesame work.
I offer a live coaching callwhere you can work through a
specific relationship struggle.
That's all for today.
We have laid the foundation.
Come back, as there are fourmore episodes on relationship

(18:02):
foundations.
Have a beautiful rest of yourday and I can't wait for the
next time we're together.
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