By Ann Lukens

We’re finding out lots of wonderful things about ourselves, our families, our communities and resilience during these strange times. But every now and again, we may be experiencing some tricky bits as we negotiate many different aspects of our lives.

Frustrated, irritated, ineffective, angry, impatient, tired, sad, overwhelmed and just not ourselves!

This year in particular COVID 19, lockdown and the global financial crisis has meant a difficult time for us all, and many people may be facing the prospect of some difficult conversations at:

Work – redundancy conversations, performance and efficiency issues, roles and responsibilities changing, teamwork shifting, too many meetings, too much online …   and just not seeing eye to eye on issues

Home – role changes – who’s looking after whom – kids, adult kids, parents, grandparents, each other, role changes – what about the laundry, rubbish, cooking, dishes, school run, groceries… from hardly any time together to sometimes feeling it’s TOO MUCH TIME!!!!

And so we may feel a bit

Frustrated, irritated, ineffective, angry, impatient, tired, sad, overwhelmed and just not ourselves!

What might help?

  • More understanding of ours and others needs and interests – how they differ, how they’re the same, and how we can work with difference
  • Feeling a bit more comfortable with conflict and its role in how we work, relate
  • Adjusting our empathy switch – if we understand more, we can work together better
  • Knowing ways to challenge that are supportive and productive
  • Finding the language to support understanding and change…

So…  what might you do next?

We suggest signing up for the Transforming Difficult Conversations Course  in January– where you will explore aspects of everyday conflict for understanding and learn and work with some tools to:

  • Map issues and find common ground
  • Explore behaviours and triggers to foster empathy and identify responses that work
  • Coach others (and yourself!)  to identify change and make steps to achieve it
  • Challenge what’s not working  – supportively and with a solutions focus

Designed for responding to workplace and community issues, the ideas we explore and the tools you’ll learn are every bit as applicable at home – using a couple of these changed my difficult dialogue with my teenage son many moons ago….

Hope to see you in January….