Tunia: The emotional conversation method

AUG 30

My dearest brothers and sisters,

This is Tunia speaking. I love you so very much.

It's strange that on Earth, most people are motivated by emotions. Yet, most conversations are about facts, about logic, about events, and about other rational bits of information.

So most people are driven by emotions, yet talk about rational bits of information.

This is part of why relationships often don't work out.

It's part of why people with substantially different viewpoints can never seem to convince the other person, even if one person very clearly wins the debate. After all, people talk about rational bits of information, but they care about their emotions.

So, let me share an alternative conversation method that you can try out. I'm not saying it's the only valid conversation method. It's not. In fact, in some circumstances and contexts this is not a good method to use. But sometimes it's great.

I call it the emotional conversation method. And it's simply: when talking to someone, focus on making sure that both people understand how both people are feeling.

So let's say John is talking with Sally about politics or about their relationship, and the discussion is going nowhere. Then they could try the emotional conversation method, where their focus becomes:

Help John understand how John feels

Help John understand how Sally feels (and have her verify this)

Help Sally understand how John feels (and have him verify this)

Help Sally understand how Sally feels

So the focus is purely on just making sure both people understand how both people feel (including themselves). That's it.

Pretty straightforward, right? But it's very effective in certain situations.

This can make people feel loved and nourished and cared for, because people generally really enjoy it when others sincerely listen to them and try to understand them.

It can strengthen relationships or friendships.

It can lead to breakthroughs in discussions, if people realize that what's actually going on is some emotional need that one side has.

To be clear though, the emotional conversation method is not a universal magical fix.

Maybe John and Sally just fundamentally disagree, and then it's still good to understand how everyone is feeling, but that may not fix the disagreement or incompatibility.

Maybe there's a practical problem, and someone just needs to fix that, and talking about people's feelings doesn't by itself fix the problem.

You might also run into people who really like that you're listening to them, but they're unwilling to listen to you, or try to understand you. If they consistently do this, and just gently asking them to listen doesn't help... then maybe find better people to interact with.

You may also run into people who simply don't want to understand either their own or your emotions.

So the emotional conversation method certainly doesn't always work and certainly isn't always appropriate. But sometimes it really is, and sometimes it can be really nourishing and relationship-strengthening.

I'm sure that some of you were already doing this. Kudos to you. But even for those people, I want to invite you to keep an eye out for situations where a discussion seems to go nowhere, and it might be helpful to try and understand how the other person feels.

I hope this was helpful.

With love,

Your star sister,

Tunia