Helpful Tips For Conversations
1. Honesty – be brave.
2. Before speaking truth know if it is authentic truth or fear.
3. Your truth might not be the same truth for another and that is ok. Every truth should be ok.
4. Discuss one subject at the time!
5. Don’t use the word “you”, instead tell how it makes you feel, make it about you and not the other. Example: what just happened or what just was said to me, is hard on me.
6. Let others finish before you talk, don’t talk over one another.
7. Practice true hearing without creating a response in your head.
8. Reflect back what you hear the “speaker” say. No reaction of your own. Example: I heard you say – list here exactly what you heard the other say without adding opinion.
9. Have empathy and compassion for someone’s truth, even if it is not your truth.
10. Don’t go into defense.
11. Don’t turn an argument around like “but you did this or that”, or blame others for similar things.
12. No tit-for-tat.
13. No name calling. You can say I didn’t like what you did but you can not say you are childish, or dumb, or a bitch, asshole, or any negative name calling.
14. Do not go into attack by saying things to the other you know will hurt them.
15. Never assume – ask open questions /no assuming questions.
16. Ask for clarification when not understood/no assumption.
17. Give it an extra effort to create/solve/being pleasant instead of breaking it down.
18. See any problem as a collective problem that needs solution, and not as a problem that stands in between people.
19. Plan time/day for serious conversation with people involved.
20. End with solutions and agreements.
21. Don’t catch one another on the words they choose, instead, stick with the content.
22. You have always have more choices.
23. Pause when you get triggered.
24. Forgive for old brain paths mistakes. The old brain path is habitual thinking. Challenge your brain to be creative and come up with an authentic and different way to approach things.
25. Do not use vulnerable info the other shared with you against them.
