Are you feeling sad, anxious, concerned, and scared? Are you aching to be heard and seen?

Are you feeling hopeless about connecting with someone who sees the world so very differently, who doesn’t seem to share your same reality?

Does your heart hurt when conversation leads to disconnection and the love and caring in the relationship seems to evaporate?

If this resonates with you… Are you willing to try to understand? To try to see someone who has a different perspective? Could you start the conversation?

Could you say something like this?

“I care about you so much and feel very sad about our recent conversation and how it ended. Our views are so different that it’s hard to talk about it, and I’d like to try. I know you have reasons for your perspective just like I do. I’d like to hear yours, and I hope you’d be willing to hear mine. Not to debate them or decide who is right, rather so we can understand each other because I value our relationship. How do you feel about what I’m saying?”

If the person says, “Yes,” …

To help create connection in this conversation, you could request that you both repeat back what you hear the other person say, check in for accuracy, and listen for the values or universal needs for each person.

Connection means, “I hear how this is for you.”

~ Bryn