Conscious Relationship Skills Survey
By Gay Hendricks, Ph.D. and Kathlyn Hendricks, Ph.D.

The foundation of conscious relationship is integrity. Integrity, from a Greek word meaning 'wholeness,' is widely misunderstood to be primarily a matter of morality, and thus people often feel ashamed to focus on integrity rather than seeing it clearly. Integrity is actually primarily a matter of physics. When you are in integrity, you operate from a place of wholeness, harmony and connection. When you are not, your relationship with yourself, your associates and your loved ones will suffer. Eventually, the shimmy caused by lack of integrity will result in disorganization, breakdown and failure. Integrity is the first place to look when things are not working well.
 
    The First Dimension: FEELING

Feeling is the first place we go out of integrity with ourselves. An anatomical fact will illustrate the importance of emotion: the brain is the size of a grapefruit. The feeling portion is the size of the juicy part, while the thinking portion is the size of the rind. To make best use of your thinking capacity, you must be in harmony with your feelings. Otherwise, much of your thought processes will be taken up with noise from undealt-with feeling. In conducting this audit, be unflinchingly honest about yourself, your associates and your loved ones.

This first series of statements taps your ability to acknowledge your feelings to yourself. Acknowledgement--simple non-judgemental awareness--is considered a priority skill to master in the feeling domain.
 
I acknowledge my anger when I'm feeling it.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I acknowledge hurts when I feel them.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I acknowledge fear/anxiety/nervousness when I feel them.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I acknowledge pleasant feelings (joy, excitement, happiness) when I feel them.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I resonate with the feelings of others. (e.g.: Your colleague is sad about a family issue, and you can discern that he/she feels this way.)
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always

This next series of questions taps your ability to express your feelings effectively to others. While there are many ineffective ways to express feelings (i.e., from physical threat to rageful blame to stonefaced denial), there are only a small number of effective ways. For the purposes of these questions, imagine that effective emotional expression is the ability to communicate your feelings in a clear and straightforward way so that they are understood, much as you would tell someone the time of day.
 
I communicate my anger effectively.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I communicate my hurts effectively.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I communicate my fears effectively.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I communicate pleasant feelings effectively.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I communicate the feelings I discern in others effectively.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
    The Second Dimension: TRUTH

This next set of statements taps your ability to speak the authentic truth and listen to the truth being spoken by others. Authentic truth is defined here as those things which cannot be argued about (e.g. "I'm scared right now" cannot be argued with, while "You're making me uncomfortable" can.)
 
I tell the truth to significant others about my feelings.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I tell the truth to significant others about my worries.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I tell the truth to significant others about my motives.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I tell the truth to significant others about things that have happened in the past.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I give negative feedback to others effectively.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I listen non-judgmentally when significant others are speaking the truth about their feelings.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I listen non-judgementally when others are speaking the truth about their worries.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I listen non-judgementally when others are speaking the truth about their motives.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I listen non-judgementally when others are speaking the truth about things they have done in the past.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I listen undefensively to negative feedback from others.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
    The Third Dimension: AGREEMENTS/RESPONSIBILITY

The next set of statements taps your ability to keep your agreements and take full, healthy responsibility for your life. Healthy responsibility is defined as taking 100% responsibility for yourself while inspiring others to take 100% responsibility. Healthy responsibility can be contrasted with two forms of unhealthy responsibility: the condition of less than 100% (perceiving yourself as a victim) and more than 100% (perceiving others as victims and you as their caretaker.)
 
I know how to make clear agreements with others.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I enter into agreements initiated by others clearly and consciously.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I can be counted on to do what I say I will do.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I can be counted on not to do what I say I will not do.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I know how to handle instances when I break agreements.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I know how to handle instances when others break agreements with me.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I know how to change agreements that are not working.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
Others keep their agreements with me.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I take healthy responsibility for my life and the projects I'm involved in.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
 
I give others inspiration and room to take healthy responsibility.
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Always
Copyright © 2002, The Hendricks Institute.
Used by permission of the authors.

Please Note: Once you submit the skills survey, you will not be able to go back and review your individual answers. You may wish to print this page to remember how you answered each question.

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