The Value Of You!
Leonie Cutts
How do you see yourself?
How do you think others see you?
How often do you express your gratitude for the value someone brings to the relationship?
In my recent interview with Kerrie McFadden from Relationships Australia, we explored the importance of sharing feelings, and really appreciating each other in a relationship. We also talked about the challenge of mis-perceptions, and the benefit of clarifying how we see each other.
One of the key goals of Relationships Australia is to develop emotional and relationship literacy, or intelligence. They help people to tune into what’s going on for them and to articulate it.
One of the critical areas in a relationship is clarifying how you see yourself, and how others see you. This can often be two very different things!
In clarifying how you see yourself, and clearing up any mis-perceptions, you can move forward in a relationship.
The other key ingredient to a relationships success is truly valuing the other party. Kerrie reminds us that
often couples know they’re loved… but the substance of what a person values about the other is not always articulated, and that can be a real affirming boost
Articulating what you value in another person is not only important in a romantic relationship, but also in the workplace. I was reminded of this again recently in a work relationship. A client told me about her exchange with her boss, where he said to her ‘You know I think you’re doing a great job’, to which she replied ‘No, actually, I don’t.’
My client was an exhuberant, confident, and very competent person. One could assume that of course she would know she was doing a great job. But in fact, her boss had never expressed that. She really appreciated him letting her know.
Underlying many of the communication issues is the challenge of the assumption. Assuming you think the same as someone else. Asssuming they see your behaviour as how you meant it. Assuming they know you think they’re great.
You may be reading this thinking ‘I know, I know’… and yet so often we do make assumptions, and we don’t articulate how much we value each other enough.
Together with Relationships Australia, CCS Corporation helped to develop The Us Kit – a kit for families to help build hope and good will, and build good habits of communicating with each other. This kit was designed to help families break down the barriers, break down the assumptions and build strong communication and happy memories together.
Relationships Australia has been a long time user of CCS and uses it in many ways with families and couples.
To hear more about how the CCS is used in Relationships Australia, and many wonderful stories from The Us Kit, you can listen to the full interview here
