The 3 Paths We All Walk That Determine Our Experience

I avoided these timeless paths for a long time. Why?

I didn’t want to be responsible for owning my own walk.

When we got married and I didn’t realize a whole lot of things.

I thought love and being married would just come naturally. Isn’t that what young love always thinks?

I knew I had a mind and thoughts. I didn’t know I had meaningful control over what I thought, and that I could think things that felt natural but that weren’t helpful or true.

I knew I could do things and say words. I didn’t know how to manage and control them, and that it was important to control them because they can have effects that last a long time.

And I ended up knowing I had a soul that was in God’s hands. But I never realized the commitment and purposefulness God had in using everything, especially marriage, to shape my soul.

So now I see I’m always walking on these 3 paths. Always have been and always will be, whether I realize it or not -

1. HOW I THINK

I have mindsets. A mindset is just my assumption and expectation about life and how it works. How I think ends up influencing what I do and how I feel. Most of us just “land on” unhelpful mindsets. I did. I can adjust.

2. WHAT I SAY AND DO

Small actions and words add up to a big influence. And they naturally come from my mindset. But I didn’t see the long term effect my words and actions could have, and how easy it can be to create a positive relationship climate.

3. HOW I’M BEING SHAPED

God is up to something personal and good if I’ll let him. I can cooperate, fight it, or something in between. One way to cooperate is to see my daily challenges and issues as part of how my soul is being formed. Will I?

Aren’t those 3 things kind of “it?” I think things, I do and say things, and I cooperate or not with God in my soul.

I don’t know about you, but realizing this helps me keep things much simpler.

But there’s a problem

In my relationship with Brenda, a lot of my experience of marriage has to do with her. It’s her thinking, her words and actions, and how she’s responding to her soul shaping.

And I’d rather major on her than me.

Isn’t there something inside us that makes us focus on and blame things outside us when we have challenges?

Isn’t “not my fault” one of the first things we learn as a toddler?

In his “Mind Your Mindset” book, Michael Hyatt tells about talking with his executive coach about poor business results. Hyatt had answers for everything, blaming outside business conditions and this and that.

His coach said -

“Mike, what is it about your leadership that led to this outcome?

As long as the problem is ‘out there’ you can’t fix it. You’re just a victim.

I’m not trying to shame you, I’m trying to empower you.

You can’t change your results until you accept full responsibility for them.”

Hyatt realized even if he didn’t cause something, he still had a role in engaging it.

In the same way, it doesn’t mean certain problems or issues are my fault.

It means I have a role that influences things. We both have roles that influence things.

I’m responsible for my role, and just because I think something might be someone else’s “fault” more than it is mine, doesn’t mean I’m off the hook for fulfilling my role as best I can.

For a long time, I didn’t want to face this.

And fulfilling my role goes beyond doing it just to have an effect on my spouse or marriage.

Fulfilling my role is mine. For me.

It’s about who I am as a person. Which should matter to me.

I hate to admit it . . .

But I’ve felt something appealing and even kind of sweet about being “off the hook” when I’ve decided something is someone else’s fault.

It doesn’t free me up from pain, but it frees me up from responsibility. I’m not the bad guy, someone else is.

And I’d get into that mindset that says -

“There’s nothing left for me to do except hope they change, or try to get them to change.”

“It’s hopeless unless they change.”

“I’ve done everything I can, there’s nothing left I can do.”

But darn it then I’d start hearing another voice -

Really Gary? So you have no influence? You’re just a victim?

“Hey I’ve tried everything.”

Everything? Everything?

Me doubling down: “I’ve tried absolutely everything and there is nothing left in my control that I can do. Believe me, I’ve tried IT ALL. If you only knew.”

Gee that’s unfortunate. So your marriage experience is just a crapshoot based on who you happen to marry? Sometimes you get a winner, sometimes you get a loser?

“Oh that’s crude. You know I don’t think that’s true.”

Then don’t act like it’s true. You say there’s nothing left you can do, that it’s all up to the other person. And since things aren’t good, it’s their fault. You’re saying you married a person who’s at fault.

“OK then, so what’s left?”

Well you could try something.

What if . . . you just pretended . . .

That your attitude and words and actions are contagious?

That your spouse is wired to respond to grace?

That when she feels you care, she actually softens a bit toward you?

And that when you see into her heart, you soften toward her?

And then what if you pretended that it’s actually true?

And one more. What if “with the measure you use it will be measured to you” is true?

If just those things were true, or even just a couple of them, could you see anything left for you to do?

Pause. “Well yeah, but those all have to do with just me. What about her?”

You already said there’s nothing you can do about her! You’ve never had any control of her. Nor her you. Ever. And you never will. That’s just reality. Want to face it?

“No.”

“Well maybe.”

I may be off the hook in not being able to change what happens or how someone treats me . . .

But I’m not off the hook for how I handle what happens or how I handle how I’m treated.

I’m not off the hook just because I think someone else is more at fault.

I’m always on the hook for me, and how I take things, and how I respond.

I’m always on the hook for becoming the kind of person I really want to be.

I’m alway on the hook for how I think, for what I say and do, and for my relationship with my God who says he is witness between me and my spouse - “Did he not make them one with a portion of the Spirit in their union?”

The 3 paths are simple.

The complicated thing is, will I cooperate and walk them, or will I try to keep myself off the hook?

The good news is that just cooperating a little bit, with walking some on even just one path, can begin to make a big difference.

Reality leads to hope

For the first twenty years of our marriage, I unknowingly developed negative emotional reactions to Brenda. She did it too with me. Don’t we all?

I didn't see my role in digging a hole in our relationship. I didn’t own that.

I didn’t realize I had developed mindsets of unhelpful thinking, which led to unhelpful words and actions.

And I didn’t realize God was up to something good and personal inside me, and wanted me to let him use my marriage to do it.

Slowly, under pressure, I learned my thinking and mindsets, and my words, and my relationship with God were all one thing. That doesn’t make things simple - but it does make them much simpler.

Email me at gary@garymorland.com.