The Power Of Self-Reflection. A Personal Example About What I Learned.

An honest look at how important communication is in every relationship. My exhibit. My marriage. After a communication misstep.

Photo by Dev Asangbam on Unsplash

I must confess I’m not a perfect husband. Nor am I a perfect man. These truths are obvious, but I hope in sharing this forthcoming confession you might be able to relate.

There are times when I just mess things up.

I drove home from work the other night feeling funky. Just off. Unhappy with the state of the world or something like that. I talk about politics on the radio for a living. Some days it personally affects me. This was one of those days. Even though I know I can’t control what happens in Washington, the nation’s ‘leaders’ leave me disappointed.

Taking that home with me impacted my decision-making. Because I didn’t feel right. 

Feelings or emotions impact how we communicate. Sometimes positively. Sometimes not. That night, my emotions took the driver’s seat, therefore, I couldn’t connect with Mrs. Hunter. 

Communication lies at the center of every relationship, including my marriage (and yours). Foster healthy communication, where judgment is reserved and everything is on the table for discussion, then your relationship will have a strong foundation.

Doing the opposite, avoiding certain topics and judging each other or holding grudges, will crack any relationships foundation. In other words, relationships with poor communication struggle.

In retrospect, after this particular night, it’s easy to see why.

Mrs. Hunter started her own consulting business called Painted Porch Strategies. She’s helping a new company prepare for change by honestly assessing all aspects of their business. It was a big opportunity for her and her company both financially and professionally. She wanted to celebrate.

I did too. But, I wasn’t listening to her.

I was too self-absorbed with the way I was feeling to focus on her. Ironically, Mrs. Hunter tasked me with creating the communication portion at Painted Porch Strategies based on our ‘communication determines the quality of your relationships’ theory. Part of Master Your Message revolves around how your emotions impact what you say and how you communicate with others. 

A lesson I teach.

And a lesson I still need to learn (obviously). 

Mrs. Hunter was sharing, excitedly, what she learned after talking with the team she was working with earlier that day. As we were sitting on our back patio, those words just feel on deaf ears. 

My answers were short — giving the impression I was uninterested. Honestly, I realize now after reflection, I wasn’t interested. I was distracted. 

Distracted by the way I felt. Not only were my answers short, my tone was cold. So much for the celebration. Yup. I messed that up. 

Like Usher said, ‘these are my confessions.’ I must also confess I didn’t think anything of my behavior until we went to bed. As I was laying there knowing sleep wasn’t going to come easy. 

Because of the way I felt.

So I felt. I let the feelings go. I didn’t judge them. I didn’t interpret the emotions. I just let them be. By this point Mrs. Hunter had fallen asleep. The feeling continued to nag, so I got out of bed and laid on the couch in our sitting room. It’s a blue L-shaped couch that sits in the southeastern corner of the house. That’s my corner, where I do my thinking. 

I’ve always liked staying up late to get work done. Now, I stay up late to do work on myself. To me, figuring something out, a self-puzzle, is worth one night of less sleep. 

On this night, around midnight, as I started to let the feeling go, I wanted to get a little deeper, wondering what lesson am I supposed to receive from this. I try to think about that now. When something doesn’t go according to plan, what can I learn? Then it clicked. All of what I have admitted above. 

That I was being selfish.

Because my emotions were in control. At Painted Porch Strategies, Mrs. Hunter, our mindfulness sherpa Sierra, and I, have been studying the Stoic philosophies. Most prominent is the dichotomy of control. 

Focus on what you can control. Don’t worry about what you cannot.

Control is simple. You can only control you. What you think. What you say. What you do. You can’t control much beyond that. You can’t control what someone else will say, think, or do. Accept that basic truth and life becomes more freeing.

That’s why I tell you this. 

Hurricane Carter taught me that. He was convicted of a crime he didn’t commit in the prime of his boxing career. After he was freed, he didn’t hold a grudge because he explained ‘they couldn’t take my mind.’ 

That’s what made him the best boxer. And a strong man.

I tell you this because telling yourself the truth is freeing. The actual truth. When you stop bullshitting and believing your own excuses. That’s what I did on the couch. That’s when I realized, again, I was being selfish.

Not because of my emotions, because of my actions. My actions, my communication, made it about me. Not about Mrs. Hunter’s hard-fought accomplishment in the ridiculously challenging entrepreneurial arena. She has devoted the last two years of her life to getting to this point. 

And I was selfish. As her husband and number one supporter. Which meant I wasn’t being supportive. That is what telling yourself the truth looks like. I could have blamed her. I could have excused my behavior. But, I chose not to.

So I wrote her a note. Apologizing. Because I learned an important lesson. Emotions flare up as some ancient survival skill, passed down through thousands of years of DNA. Back when danger meant something completely different in that it was almost constant. We, in America, whether we want to admit it or not, live relatively safe lives compared to when our relatives lived in caves worried about tigers and bears. 

But those instincts remain the same. Instincts send out emotional flares that change our body chemistry we feel as feelings, feelings that turn on our ‘selfish’ survival instincts that make everything about us — as if our lives depended on that very moment.

Yet it manifests in modern days in short, cold answers that impact the people we love the most. Because we feel safest around them.

It all ties together. This is what I realized in my thinking spot. 

My plan to implement this lesson will be the next time I encounter feeling this off I will ask Mrs. Hunter for space, something she has taught me the value of. Me time. Sometimes you need ‘me time’ to process. Sometimes you need just ‘me time’ to hang out with yourself. Hell yeah. I recommend it. 

Maybe that approach will work. Maybe it won’t. If it doesn’t, I’ll try another approach. Each problem is answered by a creative solution. 

There’s been a lot of time on this blue couch over the past five years. Underneath an amazing print of Jimi Hendrix by a brilliant artist Randall Hedden, Stevie Wonder, the rapper Big L (#2 on my top 5 MCs), and an OutKast autographed record (#1 on my top MCs). 

This is where I will find my space when I need ‘me time’ before my communication adds more cracks to my most important foundations. The one I have with myself and the foundation of my marriage. 

I’ve put enough cracks in both. I’m in the repair process. I’m not always going to get it right. But, I’m never giving up either. Call it mental health. Call it men’s healing. Make fun of it. Think I’m soft. 

I’m doing it anyway. 

Maybe you’ll consider joining me on this journey of exploration. A promise to treat as many people as possible with respect, as equals as I have long believed. I enjoy learning about the differences we have 

Accepting you has helped me accept myself.

Thank you.

This is why I created Master Your Message, here if you want to take a look. Because of what you have taught me. Honest to God’s truth about why my life is amazing is all the beautiful people I’ve met and been friends with. 

I hope what I am creating can offer one-one hundredth of what I’ve learned from having close friends from all over this country. Life is beautiful because of us.

And we connect via communication. Communication like I confess to above, negative and bond-breaking. Or communication that is open, honest, and without judgment. Not only is how you communicate with others essential to the quality of your relationships, how you communicate with yourself, for the very same reason, is even more important. 

This course is literally from my heart. This isn’t meant to be a sales pitch. Just the truth. Something in short supply right now when it appears everyone has an agenda. Let’s focus on the agenda of you. 

Find your spot. 

Allow yourself space when you need it. 

Tell yourself the truth. 

No negotiation.

No excuses. 

Feel when you need to feel. 

Don’t hold it in. 

Space.

To rebuild.

Coincidently, this is the answer to the disappointment in political leadership as well. Politics hasn’t changed since this country was founded. Why? Because people haven’t changed. If we accept ourselves we will accept others. Religion, politics, and sexuality wouldn’t matter. 

A pipe dream, sure. 

But, so was this technology you are reading this on.