Have you ever wished you could go back and change those words you spoke in a relationship? or with a departed loved one? or with your child? Are there certain situations that seem to “bring out the worst” in you, instead of the best, with respect to communication? Here then is your chance to revise what you said then, or to better prepare for what you will say, next time.
Tuesdays are Prompts List days at Better Endings. I invite you to use the list of topics below to write/journal, actively contemplate, or talk about a REVISION of a communication situation in your life. Create a dialogue that revises or remodels how you did, or would, engage in a conversation, to improve the outcome more in the direction you might wish that sort of conversation might have gone, or could.
Woulda/ coulda/ shoulda…but if you practice the principle of Better Endings we are developing weekly with this blog, you CAN change habits and improve communications in the present as well as envisioning how you might have done better in the past.
Already this week since I have been practicing some communication “re-writes” with respect to recent workplace and past personal relationship situations, I find myself becoming more mindful in the present moment with email and face-to-face conversations. Mindfulness, especially Mindful Listening to others as well as to ourselves, is the First Principle of Better Endings that governs the Prompts List this week.
So, here is a Prompts List, below. How might you apply a revision to one or more of the following situations? Go ahead, Practice Better Endings! I invite you to pay attention afterwards as you go through your daily life, to see how you may apply this principle Now!
- what you wish you WOULD have said
- workplace communications
- email communication
- social media communications
- what to say to someone who has lost a loved one
- what you wish you had said to a departed loved one
- how you might rewrite or revise a conversation that went awry
- how you might repair words said under stress or duress
- talking with certain others: your child; your boss or employee; your spouse/ significant other; a stranger;your pets
- changing bad communication habits (e.g. situational cursing)
- revising road rage thoughts or talk
- improving specific kinds of situations in which you have trouble communicating
- finding just the “right words” (e.g. editing)
- self-talk: positive affirmations
- self-talk: revising negative self-talk
- other-talk: revising critical harping or gossip
“The best way to capture moments is to pay attention. This is how we cultivate mindfulness. Mindfulness means being awake. It means knowing what you are doing.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
Please feel free to share your results, comments, insights, and stories!
Better Communication to You! – Linda
Better Endings 