Living More Fully
  • Home
  • Appointments
  • Services
    • Anxiety Therapy
    • Couples Therapy
    • LGBTQ Therapy
    • Mindfulness Therapy
    • Friendship Therapy
    • The James & Heather Show
    • Retreats
  • Biography
  • Testimonials
  • Vlog

How to Pause Difficult Conversations

1/15/2022

0 Comments

 
Difficult Conversations

Take a Time Out When Needed

While we may have an urgency to resolve conflict, when things escalate too far it’s much more likely that we won’t do it well.

Instead, we need to take a break — at least 20-25 minutes — and come back at it when we’re more capable of thinking clearly.
This doesn’t mean we can’t have intense conversations full of expressing anger/hurt, it means that when our prefrontal cortex has gone “off-line” we need a pause to reconnect it so that we can bring the best of us forward to resolve conflict well.
When we're emotionally flooded and conversations are quickly escalating, it's useful to take a break.
Difficult Conversations
Research shows that we need at least 20-25 minutes of focusing on something else to reconnect areas of our brain to think more clearly.
Difficult Conversations
This isn't about shutting down a conversation or stone walling someone.
Difficult Conversations
Taking a break is meant to give us a better chance at coming back later and resolving it well.
Difficult Conversations

Examples of What to Say:

Difficult Conversations
"I'm feeling overwhelmed and need to take a break before talking more."
Difficult Conversations
"I need some time to sit with this more before talking further.  Can we talk again later today?"
Difficult Conversations
"I notice we're both really upset and before I say something I regret, let's take a pause."
Difficult Conversations
More Blogs
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    Anxiety
    Couples Counseling
    Friendship
    Healing Trauma
    Holidays
    Inner Work
    LGBTQ
    Mental Health Abuses
    Mindfulness
    Process Of Change
    Relationship Advice

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    December 2017
    June 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    August 2015
    January 2015
    November 2012

Contact
James Guay (#lmft39252)
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist
​for clients residing in the State of California
310-405-0840
james@livingmorefully.com

Mailing Address

8581 Santa Monica Blvd #146
West Hollywood, CA 90069

  • Home
  • Appointments
  • Services
    • Anxiety Therapy
    • Couples Therapy
    • LGBTQ Therapy
    • Mindfulness Therapy
    • Friendship Therapy
    • The James & Heather Show
    • Retreats
  • Biography
  • Testimonials
  • Vlog