Is It I?

what's happening today i'm tyler wandering therapist i'm excited to be with you and i just wanted to talk with you about a little bit of a principle that came across my brain this morning when i was out just doing my own kind of spiritual practices and i want to talk to you about a simple tool that you can use to bring yourself instant relief from suffering in relationships and increase your ability to be emotionally intelligent and the principle is this is think about a situation in your life right now where you might be having a conflict with somebody else where there might be a disagreement i don't think you have to look too far in our world all you have to do is turn on something political or to turn on the news and it's not going to be too far away maybe it's something a little bit closer to home maybe there's something going on your marriage where you're at an impasse with a decision you're trying to make or a principle that you guys are trying to decide on or live and and you're getting stuck because you're waiting for the other person to acknowledge where they've gone wrong and this idea is based in that scripture that says when you see a moat in somebody else's eye before you pull it out you ought to look inside yourself and see if there's a beam in your own eye and it would be a lot better off to take the beam out of your own eye first before you try to help the person with the little motor expect a dust in their eye and the term is is it i this is the question that we should be asking ourselves when we look at our situations can we ask it without judgment can we ask it without criticism can we ask it with true curiosity is it i when christ was getting ready to be crucified it was in his last supper with his apostles as part of the last supper he said to his apostles that somebody in the room with him was going to betray him and you would think that most people when they hear that they'd be wanting to defend themselves and they'd be saying it's not going to be me or i wonder who it's going to be let's find the let's go on a witch hunt and find the person who it's going to be but instead the apostles turn back to christ and with full faith and with wonder and with hope and with hope they said lord is it i they were able to ask themselves and ask the lord if it was going to be them instead of getting defensive instead of having to stay stuck in their principles they were humble enough to be able to ask the question to themselves and of course we know that that ended up being judas iscariot and then you know guys know the rest of the story but the principle here i think is a true one that we can liberate ourselves in relationships we can actually have more space and create more ground to communicate with people if we're able to be intelligent enough and emotionally strong enough and mature enough to ask that to ourselves before we get stuck in a position is it i so i had a discussion with one of my friends this week about the the way that the mass mandate is going to be going in utah back and forth and i happen to be one who leans one way towards saying it should be everybody's choice and we should get back to letting people make their own choice for their own safety and then i probably won't be wearing a mask as soon as it's not mandated anymore and my friend was saying that he was absolutely going to be wearing a mask and you know this topic is a hot topic with people people have a lot of strong feelings on this and both of us could very easily have gotten into a position of saying well you're an idiot because you're just playing a political game or he would say tyler you're an idiot because you don't care about people's safety and look at all the statistics on how the disease is spread and transferred and the truth is is that there might be kernels of truth on both sides of that but if i'm going to have an effective conversation with my friend i have to pause and i have to listen to his perspective and i have to say is it i is there something in my approach that i need to look at that i need to change that i might need to reassess is there something that i can be learning as a result of this new perspective that somebody's giving me am i willing to try to do some learning am i willing to try to tease out the principles of truth and in doing so i allow myself to formulate maybe a new perspective that doesn't have to be exactly what my friend's perspective is but it might be a little bit more understanding a little bit more compassionate a little bit more patient a little bit more gentle and a little bit more willing to be wrong one of the best things we can do for our relationships is to acknowledge that sometimes we're wrong and to be willing to admit that when that happens not so that the other person wins this isn't about winning it's about effectiveness it's about us both becoming better people as a result of being with each other as a result of having a relationship we can become better people because we whether we mean to or not are constantly going to be able to point out each other's blind spots and we can continue to learn and grow i love watching people discuss things when there's not actual drama happening because you can actually watch people change in the moment that they're discussing things as they learn and grow together and often can find a deeper sense of truth than where either perspective started in the first place so are you at an impasse with somebody in your own life right now can you ask yourself the question and sit with it with honesty and wait for an answer to surface is it i is there something that i can take ownership for is there something that i can change is there something that i need to be accountable with in my relationship before i sit and wait for the next person to fix everything for me is it i it's a powerful statement that allows us to be free to own our own choices and to own our own actions and to continue in in growing into becoming a better and more strong person so is it i ask yourself that if you find something that comes to the surface follow whatever that impression and prompting is good luck guys have a great day thank you so much for being here with me if you found this to be valuable for you please hit the like and subscribe button if you're facing particular struggles that you need help with or roadblocks that you're running into please submit a question i'd be happy to answer it for you [Music] you