How I Transformed Difficult Conversations

(theme music) Hi, it's Andy here and welcome to Radio Headspace. It's a Friday morning. So I dunno how it's been in your household over the last seven or eight months. I know a lot of you will have been at home, perhaps spending a lot more time with family members, with friends, with housemates, whatever it might be than you usually might. And often when that happens, it might be some arguments once in a while, some difficult conversations and a lot of people have kind of written in and said how challenging it's been. And it's interesting when we think about sort of the art of conversation and the way in which conflict, verbal conflict can sometimes arise, whether it's with the people we love or perhaps complete strangers sometimes. But there is a definite sort of pattern to explore and something that we can start to explore even in our own minds outside of those situations, but then something we can carry back into those situations. I remember in one particular monastery while I trained in, there was a practice where the younger monks, especially the monks that were learning academic information they would gather together in the courtyard and they would essentially have a debate. So one person would propose something and then as the other one was sort of countering that, or exploring it in one way, the other one would be trying to distract them in some way. They distract them by sort of stamping on the floor, by clapping their hands, it's quite a sight actually to watch. And his incredible to see how focused these young monks and nuns are able to be as they maintain their sort of learning and position without being distracted. And at the same time, they're not really sort of holding fast to a particular view. There's a sense of openness, like there's a sense of movement that they could go and change in a particular direction. I'm not suggesting that you move to that model in the home, it's a little strange, but there is a sense I think that we could carry into our conversations, into our communication, into our relationships. A greater sense of exploration in our conversation. Like how often have you sat down with someone, you know, you're really close to and had a heated conversation where you simply can't understand maybe why the other person doesn't see your point of view, why they don't share your point of view? And it's almost as though the more they resist it, the more you sort of try harder to apply it and get them to subscribe to it, to sign up to it. It's not really an exploration, it's more of a process of convincing, of persuasion. So how do we go into a conversation where, sure, we might have a preconceived idea of what we think is the best way or the right way or the right outcome for whatever we might...