Practicing Mindfulness With Your Partner

Embracing responsibility for your thoughts, perceptions, emotions, and behaviors is not a sign of weakness. On the contrary, it’s a powerful tool that can enhance your relationships. By acknowledging that your perception might be off, you open the door to understanding your partner's true thoughts and feelings. This can prevent unnecessary conflicts. Moreover, this practice is a form of mindfulness, where you observe your thoughts and make a conscious choice to accept or discard them. 

Responsibility takes an ability to be mindful. Mindfulness comes from Buddhist beliefs and practices. This is the active practice of being aware. Mindfulness can give you the ability to be conscious of yourself, others, and your environment. Mindfulness allows you to choose whether you want to attach to specific thoughts. You might be fused with your thoughts. This means that you may believe every thought in your mind. You might believe the thoughts in your mind are your intuition, so they must be correct or accurate. You have approximately 50,000 thoughts a day, most of which are false beliefs or are made up of fear. Our past impacts our thoughts, cultural beliefs, traumas, memories, television, etc. Not everything you think of is true—much of what you believe is false. Being mindful allows you to be aware you’re having thoughts. You can see the thought, which is more extensive than that thought. This means you can attach to it, grow the thought seed, know the thought, and discard it. You have a choice when you are actively practicing mindfulness. When you don’t practice, the thoughts can be seductive and take over your mind. When the thoughts take over the mind, the body follows suit. It will increase emotion, heart rate, lung activity, and digestive system. Now, we’re off to the races. The emotion can enhance thought, causing panic. Now your worst memories are coming true. 

Mindfulness practice can allow you to slow down and recognize the thought. You have the ability to observe the thought and decide if you want to incorporate it in your system. You might choose to get more evidence before attaching it to the idea. Asking your partner curious questions (being mindful of your tone, time, and approach) would allow you to decide whether to incorporate the thought into your system or discard it. Mindfulness can be an excellent tool to use to practice responsibility. The skill of mindfulness allows you to pause, notice, and become aware. Most importantly, mindfulness reduces impulsivity, giving you a chance to observe all the pieces before reacting. This calm and collected approach helps you learn to respond, rather than react in your relationships. 

There are many resources available to you to practice mindfulness. There are many ways to meditate. You might want to research the right fit for you. Some people like guided meditations. Others like complete quiet. Headspace, an application you can get on your smartphone, offers education and guided mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness can help you become aware of thoughts, perceptions, emotions, and actions, and you can take personal responsibility for them. When you slow down everything- your body, mind, and engagement with your partner- you have a choice. You have an option to take action on a thought or not. If you take notice you took an action that didn’t go well, you can self-correct with your partner. You get to change your mind anytime you want. 

There is the intention of your words and how they land with your audience. Intention and impact are two different experiences. I think the intention is your original aim or plan. I think you may have meant to compliment someone. However, the impact may have felt like an insult because of the delivery. The impact is the way your words land with your audience. No matter your intention, the impact may land in a way you never intended. Unfortunately, the intention doesn’t matter. The impact does. Because you are trying to communicate with your partner, and language is one way to express yourself. Expressing yourself can land in ways that can positively and negatively affect others. You might say, “I need to express myself no matter how it lands.” You should communicate your feelings because they are very important. However, understand if you have a goal, your actions and communication must match that goal. No matter how mindful you are of the impact, you still might impact your partner negatively. Therefore, it's crucial to use language that demonstrates flexibility and openness, making your partner feel understood and considered in the relationship. 

An example of language you would use when taking responsibility for thoughts:

I made up that you were angry with me; that’s why you weren’t talking to me; is that true?” 

I told myself a story that you were frustrated with me. Is that true?” 

I had a thought that told me that you were embarrassed to tell me the truth. Is this correct?” 

Using these prefaces demonstrates to your audience. that you are trying to give some flexibility and personal responsibility for your thoughts versus indicating that you know “the ultimate truth” and have made it so. You are taking a non-hierarchical stance, taking personal responsibility for your thoughts, and being open to other possibilities. This demonstrates to your audience you care about this person’s feelings and want to take special care not to assume you are “right.” This curious stance and language takes your partner off the defense. It’s challenging to communicate with your partner if they are heavily defended. It’s like talking to a wall. You want to take your partner off the defense by presenting yourself as a safe person.

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Time & Talk With Your Partner

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Stages of a Romantic Relationship