Beliefs and Stephen Covey’s Value Framework

1/6/25

Verbal Conflict, Values and Beliefs

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

I don’t really care to define “Fighting,” except for as simply “Conflict.”

With any conflict, comes threat,

and the theft of

your mental health, expression, and freedom

So, let’s begin…

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

But such interactions 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 aware of them, or not.

I would not want to infringe on your values or changes the ones you are conscious of.

I would want you to better align you to your own values and ideals, the ones that I know come from your heart.

I do not 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.

This is definitely a driving factor for 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, we will need 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.

Let’s break down these conscious and subconscious belief in psychological layers if you will.

First layer (deepest): I See our values as what we would colloquially call our core beliefs. The basis of your actions across multiple scenarios and contexts.

Second layer: I see our ideals in the next layer. This is how we mirror our core beliefs, into the material plane. If our values, (or core beliefs) include the prioritization of charity or service, the ideal is a foundation, non-profit, or 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.)

Third layer: 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 act in accordance to my values, whatever that may be.

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

We’re unfamiliar with our own 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 usually miss, is also 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 values.

We will explore this later.

The second scenario 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 in turn,

during the times 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 your 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 beliefs, 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, connection and cooperation,

instead of letting them turn your conversation into monkey-shit-flinging 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?

Contemporary relationship advice only treat the surface symptoms (words),

not the root cause - our value hierarchy and

the resulting and trained behavioral patterns

used to manifest your values (or core beliefs) into the material world.

So then, what drives your emotions? This is 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 (mode of operating or communicating): “You’re a slut”

Reasoning: She’s wrong for not sexing me.

Emotions: Let’s introduce anger, a reactive (and automated, optimally streamlined) tool we use to ecounter, reject and fight something “unacceptable.”

Values: 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 such subconscious “givens” affecting your brain in lightspeed, 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 thought, memory, trigger, with curiosity-driven questioning and Socratic learning. To create a pattern of your mode of operating (or behavior), you ideals and why you seek them. Many well-seasoned Gurus do this as well.

This is an oversimplification, but try to see how your values 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 can 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?

Can you now see how our lack of digging into vocabulary in our everyday dialogue creates such blind spots in our understanding of our own human experience?

Imagine the heated moments of your relationship in ultra-slow-mo.

Can you see how life at every given milli-second - is a “picture?”

And if your partner sets you off, it’s because this moment of time, or “snapshot,”

instantaneously conflicted against your beliefs and caused a reactionary response.

This is how forgiveness works, adjusting your beliefs, so that snapshot can exist with you, and no longer rub against your core values. Allowing us to shed such unnecessary, infesting and toxic resentments.

Behind every word is a thought or reasoning.

Behind every thought or attempt to reason

is an emotion.

Behind every emotion

is a value.

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

And this is to just show you how building, testing and refining values work, so you can start to use your subconscious productively.

It’s highly effective to read Stephen Covey’s and Chris D Wallis’s explanation of how impactful our belief systems can be.

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 attempt 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, even nonsensical for you

to “fight” the way we imagine as “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.