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The Key to a Healthy Relationship: Self-awareness starts with a simple yet profound shift in questioning.
Most of us are familiar with the now famous commercial: Jake, from State Farm. Jake (actor, Kevin Miles) is helping a married man (actor, Justin Campbell) get affordable insurance through State Farm in the middle of the night. His bathrobe-clad wife, (actress, Melanie Deanne Moore), grabs the phone from her husband’s shocked hand and with air quotes asks:
“What are you wearing, ‘Jake from State Farm?’”
The dumbfounded Jake answers honestly, “Uh, khakis.”
What is it about this commercial that we find funny? A wife’s assumption that her husband is getting stimulated by some form of infidelity when the audience knows he IS getting excited, but by State Farm’s insurance policy.
Off screen and unscripted, we make assumptions in our relationships. Those assumptions are based on our inner dialogue, our inner stories. The key to rewarding relationships, whether intimate or work-related, is self-awareness.
But what does that mean? What does it mean to be self-aware of our inner dialogue and inner triggers?
According to psychologist and author (INSIGHT), Tasha Eurich, the key to self-awareness is a shift in questioning: Ask WHAT, not WHY.