Hold On To Yourself

“Emotional strength develops out of your openness and willingness to tolerate, face, bear, and know as much of your moment-to-moment experience as possible." —Dr. Joan Rosenberg Why did we write this book? Have you ever had one of those conversations you thought was going along fine, but then all of a sudden something went very wrong? You began to get upset, or the other person got upset. You no longer felt understood, a disagreement or struggle began, and you started to feel awful. Or how about those conversations that seem to be about one thing, something fairly easy to discuss, but you can tell that there is something beneath the surface that isn’t getting expressed? Suddenly tempers flare or difficult feelings begin to bubble forth. Somehow the moment becomes difficult—it’s hard to hear the other person or you don’t feel heard and understood. Or maybe you lose touch with your intention, and forget what you wanted to say and why you wanted to say it in the first place. Perhaps you get swamped with negative feelings, or maybe the other person’s negative feelings throw you into a panic. Whether they’re about work, family or the weather, we are all engaging in conversations every day, and many days we might be involved in hundreds of small conversations. Most of the time conversations are easy. However, inevitably there are conversations that hijack our calm, causing us to lose touch with our goals and our message, and resulting in stress and pain. These are the tough conversations that can cause us to disconnect from ourselves and the other person. They can damage relationships and shared goals, and they can leave scars that are difficult to heal. Hold On To Yourself Through Tough Conversations offers a simple explanation of the science behind this universal experience and provides easy to use tools to help you stay connected to yourself when communication gets rough. When we say to stay connected to yourself, we mean stay in your own body and experience—feel your feelings, trust your instincts, value yourself, and honor your differences. Staying with yourself means staying in homeostasis or balance, recognizing when things are getting tense and stressful, and using tools to help move you back to an open mind and an open heart, able to listen, speak clearly and creatively problem solve. Without tools to support us during difficult conversations, it’s easy to fall into less satisfying relationships, robbing us of the happiness, vibrancy and well-being we all deserve. But, if we learn to hang in there and express ourselves at these roughest of times, conversations can bring rich rewards of deeper intimacy and growth, as well as better solutions to difficult problems. We now know the neuroscience behind this phenomenon of disconnecting from ourselves and others in stressful conversations. It is built into our brain’s wiring. And fortunately, we now have the tools to help us stay in balance and minimize the pain and suffering that can come from stressful, out-of-balance conversations. This book evolved from the extensive professional and personal experiences, struggles, teaching and learning that both authors have had while helping people stay connected to themselves in conflict and stress. As a mental health expert, Judy has worked with individuals, couples and groups for over thirty years and has found a troubling pattern that seems to be universal. When the conversation gets rough, when there’s something important to share or request—something that threatens the status quo or exposes vulnerabilities—most of us struggle. It’s so easy to trigger each other. When we get triggered we can clam up, shut down, spin our wheels or over power the other speaker. Often, we give up and stop communicating honestly altogether. As a mediator, executive coach and trainer, Julia has worked inside organizations for over twenty years. What she has seen over and over again is that during tough conversations it’s normal to get triggered—defensive, angry, shut down, and avoidant. In conflict, we act in ways that may not be our usual selves. Emotions take over, despite our knowing better. Julia wanted to understand more about this phenomenon and wanted to offer her clients ways to respond more effectively to the storm of reactions going on inside during tough conversations. Meeting Judy provided an opportunity to dive more deeply into the area of self-regulation and holding on to oneself. When Julia and Judy met, they shared a passion to bring their combined expertise and knowledge to teach and create tools their clients and others could use in their everyday lives at home and at work. The tools and techniques presented in this book are informed by and adapted from a variety of sources. These sources are as diverse as Marshall Rosenberg’s nonviolent communication training, Jon Kabat Zinn’s mindfulness based stress reduction program (and other mindfulness-based practices), Laurel Mellin’s emotional brain training, Daniel Goleman’s emotional intelligence work, Jeffrey Young’s schema therapy, Fisher & Ury’s interest-based negotiation, Dan Siegel’s interpersonal neurobiology, John Gottman’s couples communication skills, Stephen Porges polyvagal theory and general neuroscience, as well as the science of self-regulation and the art of conflict management. This book presents practical tools anyone can follow to strengthen skills to stay balanced, focused and empathic even in the most difficult of conversations or conflicts. You will learn to identify what stress state you are in—and why that information is important in tough conversations. You will learn tools to protect yourself from going into stress states which make it virtually impossible to stay in balance. You will practice new ways to approach difficult conversations. Our goal is to help you stay connected to yourself and in balance—a place where you can maintain your self respect, your alignment with your message, and your openness to understanding the other person’s feelings and needs during all conversations, no matter how difficult. That way, you can creatively problem solve and build positive, healthy relationships to move you forward in your life in what Julia Cameron calls “good, orderly, direction.” The bottom line is that you matter. Your balance, peace and joy matter, and you can learn tools and build skills that will help you to stay more connected to your wisdom and heart. What we have learned over the past fifty years of combined experience is that the more we can stay connected to our hearts and our wiser self—and communicate from that tender but powerful place—the more others, too, can begin to experience more joy, more connection and more positive resolutions to conflict. Not always, of course (and we’ll be talking about that too), but it increases the likelihood of better outcomes for all.   Chapter 1: Why is it so hard to hold on to yourself through tough conversations? “One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.” —Abraham Maslow Conflict Myths Keep us Stuck Imagine a life without any tough conversations, where you get up in the morning and go to bed at night with no struggles, no challenges, no difficulties in communication or relationships. Your boss and your co-workers are always supportive in every situation ever, your family members love every little thing you do at all times, and everyone is always agreeing with you! If this seems like a pipe dream compared to your life, you’re not alone. A life completely empty of conflict is the life of either a miraculously advanced and spiritually evolved individual or a person who is isolated, numbed out or firmly situated in a too-comfortable comfort zone.