Navigating Difficult Conversations …
with your friends and family
Common challenges
The world is full of stories of families that struggle to talk effectively with one another. There are many popular television shows that depict friends moving in and out of connection and / or relationship. (These can be a rich source of ideas about "what not to do"!)
Clearly, there is something universal about personal relationships waxing and waning over time. Yet there are also plenty of examples of resilient and durable personal relationships.
While there is a long list of factors that could account for this difference it is certainly clear that the absence of the ability to discuss issues in a way that builds relationships is a major factor in huge number of unhappy relationships with friends and family.
The Workshop
Learn the skills and confidence to master the conversations you’ve been putting off.
5 x 2 hour Live Virtual Workshops
Free access to follow up sessions for 12 months
Downloadable workbook including worksheets
Choose Your Stories, Change Your Life eBook
As John discusses in his book Choose Your Stories - Change Your Life, we can usually cite plenty of evidence to support the stories we have about those that are close to us - especially when those stories are connected to some conflict we might be having. There is also plenty of evidence to support the idea that our stories are often a little bit, or a lot, wrong.
The truth is that human beings are "story making beings". Indeed, we are masters at it! It is one of our evolutionary strengths and we are certainly not suggesting we attempt to stop doing it. Even if that were possible (which it is not) it is likely to have a detrimental effect on our well being. Instead, the trick is to be as aware as we can that we are making up stories because it is wired into our brains and to habitually check the assumptions that generate the stories.
It takes practice at certain skills to be able to get good at doing that. We need new "automatic thinking" - new habits of mind...
How the program can help
Interestingly, when working in organisations we often encounter the idea that the conversational skill set required at work is somehow different to that required at home. The good news is while the content of the conversations might be different the process is basically the same.
It requires a similar skill set to any other difficult conversation context. For example:
Curiosity about the experience of the other person
The ability to deconstruct and express one’s own experience
Listening deeply to understand
The ability to see another perspective