Beliefs and Stephen Covey’s Value Framework

1/6/25

Fighting and Belief

Fighting in relationships, the first Rakshasa for my Rati and I to defeat.

When it come to fighting, we are only concerned with the words

But it includes emotions and reasoning as well as words.

Every word is driven by one’s reasoning.

What they don’t tell you is all reasoning is driven by emotion. And all emotions are driven by beliefs. It’s helpful to see emotions, as traffic light for your actions, and your values is where these emotions are trying to direct you to. No matter the values. Whether you know of them, or not.

I don’t want to infringe on your values or changes the ones you are conscious of.

I want you to better align to your own, the ones that I know come from your heart. I don’t need to convince you of anything, except of strategies that will help you get out of your own way.

Vocabulary is foundationally important.

Nowadays, every person on social media has their own definitions of English words.

That is the base of any confusion you have regarding your relationships.

Authorities in Relationship Management and Spiritual Management, will tell you to practice what they cannot define, such as gratitude, compassion, love.

So, to start with vocabulary, trying to apply how Stephen Covey would see values. Stephen Covey’s process in defining your values, is the same exercise every Vedic king had to do, in any geography, as they were the adjudicators of morality.

But if we want to throw away the ancient terms, we need to redefine our own in a way that’s more helpful.

(1) I See our values as what we would colloquially call our CORE beliefs. The basis of your actions across multiple scenarios and contexts.

(2) I see our ideals in the next layer. This is how we mirror our core beliefs, into the material plane. If Core Belief is charity or service, the ideal is a foundation, non-profit, and Mother Teresa. Belief is the feeling, ideals are the image. (Interestingly enough, Vedic mythology was carefully crafted to associate the right images to the right feelings.)

(3) Then, it’s a more pragmatic layer, a mode of operating or “this is just how I do this thing.” An example, this is how I talk, to align with my ideal, so that I can hit act in according to our CORE belief, whatever that may be.

When we fight more than we would like to, more than we think is “righteous”, two things happen:

We’re unfamiliar with our values, and how they stack up against each other. We rarely understand their sources and deeper purposes. This is what we learn through questioning with a therapist. What we miss, is how pliable your ideals and “mode of operating” could could be, without destroying your integrity, or your ability to act in accordance to your core beliefs. We will explore this later.

The second that may happen, is that two layers of our behavior, such as our Mode of operating and our core belief, don’t align optimally with each other. For example, we want to love ourselves, but then we make our generosity conditional, making it harder for us to love ourselves, when we are not being “generous” to ourselves, like during the consumption of our vices.

For many spiritual paths, all they do is align these beliefs, or make our own criteria for loving yourself so low it’s impossible to fail, or abolishing the idea all together.

Then boom, healed.

So we’ll insert some believes, or retest some existing ones so that it can eliminate the invisible friction between intrinsically-opposing values, that end up being the fuel to the fire of your fight.

In other words, we’ll help design beliefs so your heated discussions solidify and sharpen your core beliefs, and do not violate them. This way, we can help you receive what your soul actually craves, instead of letting them turn your conversation into monkey madness.

When you’re fighting, three things are involved, words, emotions, reasoning.

Essentially, one of these are getting in the way of your goals, no?

Did you ever wonder about their nature, where they actually come from, these things that can so dramatically affect our relationship?

There’s an order to these three “things” and they sequence in your brain’s operating system in a matter of seconds. 

Last in the order, are words. Words are only driven by your reasoning and emotions, no?

Emotions, by design, work faster than rational thought. The neural pathways used in emotions, are more “hard-wired” than our rational thoughts.

For example, we get angry before we know why, but we never have angry thoughts before we are angry.

So then the order is this, emotions, then reasoning, then words. Why is this important, though?

Fighting advice doesn’t help because they treat the symptoms (words), not the root cause, our value hierarchy and the resulting and trained behavioral patterns used to manifest your core beliefs.

What drives your emotions? Less straightforward. But it’s important so let’s dig in.

Your emotions are the watch dogs, the chief of staff, for your values and beliefs. 

Outer layer: Words: You’re a slut

Reasoning: She’s wrong for not fucking me

Emotions: Let’s get angry, a reactive (or automated, optimally streamlined) tool we use to encountering something “unacceptable.”

Belief: This level of intimacy is unacceptable.

If our words do not match what we mean, it is entirely due to your subsconcsious “givens.” If you do not even know of them, or how they affect the words coming out of your mouth, what shot do you have not hurting the other?

This is where a therapist can be very effective, to non-judgementally ask what is driving every throught, memory, trigger, with curiosity-driven questioning and Socratic learning.

This is an oversimplification, but try to see how your values and beliefs can be causing how you use your words and how you react to the words of others.

Here’s some homework. Put the phone down and ask yourself:

How is it two people an have two different emotional reactions to the same picture?

How can one person, even, have two different reactions to the same picture, but at two different points in time? (this is art)

We say meaning, resonance, connection, but what does that actually mean? See how our lack of digging into vocabulary in our everyday dialogue, can create blind spots?

Imagine the heated moments of your relationship in ultra-slow-mo. Can you see how life at ever given milli-second is a “picture?” And if your partner sets you off, it’s because this moment of time, or “snapshot,” instantaneously rubbed against your beliefs and that caused a reaction.

This is how forgiveness works, adjusting your beliefs, so that snapshot can exist with you, and no longer rub against your core values. 

Behind every word is a thought or reasoning.

Behind every thought is an emotion.

Behind every emotion is a value or belief.

This is why we can give you beliefs that will invalidate your unwanted behavior, or spark desired behavior. 

Everyone and their mothers throw around beliefs and values, sometimes adding the word core, but it’s important to separate them. At least to make your own definitions, so you can start to use your subconscious. It’s highly effective to read Stephen Covey’s and Chris D Wallis’s explanation of how impactful our belief systems can be.

(editor notes: maybe the weirdo can expand on the above…)

My belief on beliefs:

Currently, this is how personal development handles perspectives and beliefs.

Author: This is what I believe, and here’s why.

Reader: Oh lawdy lord, so true. This changes everything.

Then nothing changes because life, right?

This is how to actually try to assimilate a belief.

Read it. Then pause.

Then read the argument. Pause.

Then ask around. Ask your partner and loved ones.

See if you agree initially, but not in practice.

See if others life by it and observe the cause and effects, cost rewards. Do this without forgetting to observe those that don’t live by it.

If it doesn’t work for you after this research, move on, but never forget it. This is for any belief you may want to consider. If it’s worth considering, it’s worth remembering in the future.

I would stress never to let an argument here or other there color your experience in trying out a new idea or new belief.

Shortly, we’ll review beliefs, that once chosen and assimilated, if you decide to buy it, will make it incongruent, nonsensical for you to “fight” the way we imagine “fighting too much”. 

We’re going to offer a handful, and just one can turn the tide.

I’ll give you ways to exercise and test these beliefs so you can turn these beliefs into values. But I’ll also try to show how beliefs, or lack of, is manifested around you so you can at least see them behind your words, and the words of others, and in real time.