Reading about how to have difficult conversations is a bit like reading about how to have sex. You might learn a few tricks, but it’s not nearly as fun (or productive) as the real thing. To get better at these conversations, whether in our personal lives or when talking about culture or politics, we need to sit down and experiment with new ways to communicate.
That’s the idea behind a free workshop we’re running next week, hosted by Authentic Relating expert Sara Ness. It’s on Tuesday, 29 March at 8pm London / 3pm New York / 6am Melbourne and open to everyone - just register on Zoom here.
It’s both a standalone session and a taster of what to expect in our upcoming course with Sara ‘The Art of Difficult Conversations’. In case you missed it, we recently put out a film with her exploring her work, why it matters right now and what’s going to be on the course.
As Sara points out in the film, the culture wars and our growing levels of political polarisation don't just divide nations: they split friends and family. As the debates over vaccination, politics, gender, race, and identity politics increase, many of us are struggling to navigate these conversations.
This is partly because they’re inherently difficult, and activate so many of our innate defences, pulling us into ‘fight or flight’ responses and cognitive loops. But it’s also because we haven’t been trained how to have these conversations - how to take responsibility over our own nervous system, how to think flexibly in the moment, express our ideas clearly and stay receptive to others even when we’re in disagreement.
The session will be very experiential, with techniques you can take into your day to day life. We’ll look at models and theories that helps us orient ourselves and make sure we’re actually talking (or arguing) on the same level of the issue. We’ll also play some Authentic Relating games that help us get out of our own way, reframe tricky conversations and have fun in the process.
A lot of this work helps us develop our creativity, flexibility and openness; all essential qualities for navigating the times, and things we can only really get better at by authentically communicating with each other.
You can read more about the course here - as usual we’ve also opened up a number of discounted scholarship places in case you aren’t in a position to afford it right now, which you can apply for here.