Session 1:
Liberating Assumptions
Liberating Assumptions is the first of nine (9) sessions. In this Session Don Baughman sets out twelve (12) "liberating assumptions" that form the basis of healthy communications. The goal of this segment is to start to change your mind about how to think about your relationships. These liberating assumptions are:
All behavior is purposeful.
You cannot not communicate.
It is better to have choice than no choice.
You have everything you need to change now!
What you get is what you give.
The problem is not the problem.
Problems are resources, gifts and opportunities.
The only failure is not learning from experience.
Embrace change: in every loss there is gain and in every gain there is loss.
Goal of relationship is understanding, not agreement.
You alone can do it but you can't do it alone.
The most powerful relationship gifts can only be acquired by giving them away.
Introduction to Healthy Communications
9 minutes 27 seconds. In this segment Don Baughman introduces himself and explains why when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. He also goes on to explain that awareness give you choice and choice gives you power.
Liberating Assumption 1:
All Behavior is Purposeful
14 minutes 35 seconds. In this segment Don Baughman explains why 90% of why people behave the way they do has nothing to do with the situation. It's about their life story. If you want relationships to be effective, you have to get rid of the assumption that people will respond to situations the way you respond to them.
Liberating Assumption 2:
You Cannot Not Communicate
18 minutes 15 seconds. You are always communicating verbally and non-verbally. 75% of your message is carried in the non-verbals. So, if you want to get to what's really going on pay just as much or more attention to the non-verbals as you do the verbals. Also, whenever anybody's behavior looks crazy to you, it's because you're missing information, and the only person who can give you the information you are missing is the other person. Therefore, be willing to be curious rather than defensive, and let them teach you what their reaction meant.
Liberating Assumption 3:
It's Better to Have Choice Than No Choice
11 minutes 5 seconds. They way it works in relationships is whoever has the greatest communicational repertoire or choice controls the next direction the relationship goes. Remember, a person's behavior is a statement about them. It is not a statement about you, even if it is directed at you. As soon as you realize that you have some new choices. Now you can choose to be curios, instead of being judgmental and blaming.
Liberating Assumption 4:
You Have Everything You Need to Change Now
15 minutes 30 seconds. It's critical to understand the tings you have control over and those you don't. You control how you choose to take in information or stimuli from the world and how you give meaning to what you take in. And you can chose your behavior. You can not control the other person's viewing and doing.
Liberating Assumption 5:
What You Get is What You Give
9 minutes 53 seconds. The Golden Rule applies to communicating. If you don't like what you are getting in a relationship, take a look at what you are giving.
Liberating Assumption 6:
The Problem is Not the Problem
15 minutes 24 seconds. The problem is not the problem. The way we are dealing with the problem is the problem. No one is to blame, everyone is responsible for what is. It is healthier to frame it as you and me against the problem, not against each other.
Liberating Assumption 7:
Problems are Resources, Gifts & Opportunities
4 minutes 36 seconds. Problems are information. They show you what is working and not working in our life and relationships. Listening to the problem is letting them teach us. And in doing this we grow. It is in difficult and troubled times and relationships that we grow the most.
Liberating Assumption 8:
The Only Failure is Not Learning from an Experience
4 minutes 37 seconds. To make your relationship better you have to be willing to do something different. And success is not whether what you tried worked or not. The success is that you chose to do something different. Can you see how you can use every misunderstanding, every communication breakdown as an opportunity for growth, instead of beating up on each other?
Liberating Assumption 9:
Embrace Change
4 minutes 23 seconds. We don't know what we want, we want what we know. Be willing to take a chance. Sometimes you have to let go of "what is." That can be scary. But in every loss there's gain and in every gain there is loss.
Liberating Assumption 10:
The Goal of Relationship is Understanding, Not Agreement
6 minutes 9 seconds. When people feel understood, everything inside them shifts. They lose their defensiveness, their fear, and they are more open and flexible, and their hearing improves. You have to accept and affirm differences. You have got to let the other person teach you. Come in with an attitude of not knowing.
Liberating Assumption 11:
You Alone Can Do It But You Can't Do It Alone
5 minutes 49 seconds. The only way you can learn how to do this communications stuff is to have the courage to keep trying to do something different in a relationships that come into your life everyday. Challenge yourself to leave every human interaction such that the person is in a better place than before you interacted.
Liberating Assumption 12:
The Most Powerful Relationship Gifts Can Only Be Acquired by Giving Them Away
4 minutes 57 seconds. The way you acquire things like trust, caring, kindness, acceptance, is you personally have to start giving them away. As you start to giving them away, you get them. And the more you give them away, the more you get.
Liberating Assumption Summary
3 minutes 43 seconds. Don Baughman wraps up this segment by reminding us that you can create the kind of life and the kind of relationships that you really want, but it's an ongoing journey.