The Power of Choice

Life by Design

Jessilyn and Brian Persson talk about choice and choosing things in today’s episode. What is choice? It’s more than the option between two things. Brian explains that true choice is essentially the choice of whether or not we accept what we are given. This doesn’t mean we get to choose everything that happens to us, but we do have the choice to accept what happens and go with it instead of fighting it. How does that impact relationships and why does true choice offer such freedom?

Jessilyn and Brian talk through three main takeaways about choice: first, take ownership of our choices; second, not making a choice is still a choice; and third, choosing everything it is and everything it isn’t. When we make a choice, in a partner for example, we aren’t just choosing the things we like most about that person, we are also choosing the things we don’t like as much. We choose everything they are and everything they are not in equal measure. Jessilyn and Brian explain how the choice to accept things makes relationships healthier, fosters better connections, and lets us release societal imprints that cause us guilt or shame. Their insight into actively choosing what things we can control and what things we can’t provides a way through adversity into stronger unions and greater enjoyment of life.

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Transcript

Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:10] Welcome to the Life by Design podcast with your hosts Jessilyn and Brian Persson. We work with professional couples to help resolve conflict and elevate communication within their relationship.

Brian Persson: [00:00:20] We are the creators of the Discover Define Design framework, which supports you in resolving conflict and communicating better.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:27] Today we're going to talk about choice. Choosing. Everything that it is and everything that it isn't. So what do we mean when we say you have a choice?

Brian Persson: [00:00:37] So most people look at choice like the option between two things. But that's not really what true choice is. Choice for me and for you is basically the choice of whether or not you accept what you are given. So just to use a really common example, cancer is not necessarily like a choice. You would not say, hey, between getting cancer and not getting cancer, I'm totally choosing getting cancer. But you can get cancer. It's not something you want, but you can get it. And whether you choose cancer, when or if you get it, is really what we're talking about in choice.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:19] What do you mean by when you choose cancer? Because obviously you get cancer, you get it. It's just, it just happens. Right? And so now, uh oh, you got cancer. So now you're saying choose it. What do you mean?

Brian Persson: [00:01:34] Not resisting it. As in, in the terms of cancer, not obviously letting yourself die over it. No one wants that. But not being miserable, not being upset, not saying God, why did I get it? And just saying, hey, you know what, I got cancer. Let's deal with it as best as I can.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:53] Choose that you have it, accept that, and then choose from there how you want to move forward with it in terms of fighting it and doing the best to live in the situation you're in at the time.

Brian Persson: [00:02:08] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And inside of a relationship that can look like, or it always looks like, your partner because you may or may not choose everything about your partner. So they may have a quality or a trait or a lack of quality or a lack of trait that you just either want or don't want, and you're not choosing the trait or the lack of the trait, and it's causing you anxiety, it's causing you depression, it's causing you anger towards your partner. It can cause all kinds of negative effects by trying to resist the fact that it exists or doesn't exist.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:50] Yes, you make a great point. So I think we're going to start here with our first takeaway, which is take ownership of your choice. So own the fact that you always have a choice regardless of what's in front of you. You have a choice. And wherever you land is directly related to whether you were active or passive in choosing. And that impacts your actions and outcomes.

Brian Persson: [00:03:15] Mhm. Yeah. Like between you and I, there are things where it took a while for us to actually like take ownership of the complete choice of choosing you and me and for a long time we fought the parts that we didn't choose, like the parts that we didn't want. And until we took complete ownership of the choice that you chose me and I chose you, there was a lot of conflict and a lot of a lot of strife, because there was a lot of thoughts along the lines of, well, I love this about the person, but I don't love that about the person, whatever that might look like for you.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:03:56] I think that's a fair comment in most relationships. I know, and we talk about this in many of our podcasts about communication, how it's key. And I know in, early on in, not so early on in our relationship, communication just was not my thing. I was the strong silent type, as I like to say it. But it was firstly, I just struggled to communicate. I think I was more of a people pleaser back in the day, and I just wanted to make sure everyone was happy. And so, you know, you could ask me something as simple as like, hey, where do you want to go for dinner? And I'd be like, oh, it doesn't matter. And then I'd kind of like default it, let you pick and then you'd pick somewhere and I'd be like, uh, no, nope, I don't want that. And you'd be like, why didn't you just say? I'm like, oh, I don't know, because I didn't want you to be upset. I wanted you to think you had an opinion too, which you do. But as we learned later on, of course you love everything when it comes to food, so you're not picky. So it makes sense for me to choose where we're going.

Brian Persson: [00:04:55] I choose all food.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:04:57] That is true, I do not. I'm okay with that. But yeah, I think we just, you're right. We selectively choose things in our partners, and sometimes they're they're menial little things.

Brian Persson: [00:05:12] Yeah. Like I didn't choose your communication style.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:05:16] You did not.

Brian Persson: [00:05:17] Early on. No, I came from a family of largely women. You know, I had all sisters. A number of my uncles had passed away early on. So from a very early age, I was largely surrounded by women. And so I talked a lot because I think that's just what the women in my family did.

Jessilyn Persson: