Let the music come out of you - I’ve come to identify the moment or moments in conversations where I have a choice to make a call in my head. I can keep on track and not tell myself my sad story in SILENCE or dump on the one I love and drag her into the ‘poor-me club’, or go the other way to ANGER (yell back louder). No, I refuse to go into my sad story. I make the choice and call. I’m not going down that path ’cause I will miss out on the gold of this important conversation. If I want the best conversation, it’s up to me. Just think: If I’m going to dump on Margaret, that’s going to make her anxious and can knock her down emotionally. I can turn her away from me without even knowing it. That’s crazy!

Learning to play conversation tennis - Our defences of silence or anger come out when we don’t feel safe. What’s the solution? If you’ve ever had a go at tennis, you know what it means to have a good old rally back and forwards over the net. How many shots could you get up to in the rally? Rallies work best when both players return the ball over the net in a manner that keeps the rally going. We get to play some nice little shots, a few relaxed backhands, a few overheads, and a few lobs and we never try to put the other bloke off. In fact, we try to keep the rally going, keeping him on the court returning the ball. One or the other eventually wins the point but only after we’ve both had the best rallies backwards and forwards.

When conversations go wrong… Usually, when we get lost in a conversation and it goes belly-up, we go down the drain one of two ways. We say to ourselves, ‘Poor me, I don’t deserve this, I’ll shut down and get back at the other person by giving them the SILENT treatment.’ I’ve been on the receiving end of that treatment many times from different people. It’s very frustrating being on the receiving end of that treatment, especially if you’re a person who’s learned to ‘have it out’. The other way we can go is into some form of ANGER. We raise our voice, thump the table, get red in the face, the blood pressure goes up, fold our arms, yell louder and lose it. I’ve also been on the giving and receiving end of that treatment many times during discussions on contentious subjects. I’m sure that you, too, have experienced both. You quite often find that the person who loses it has other big stuff on their mind and this blow-up moment is just the straw that broke the camel’s back.