WHAT did you SAY??!!!!!

#1

https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/what-ma ... ps-thrive/

What Makes Relationships Thrive

Harry Reis: People feeling misunderstood is something that is growing by leaps and bounds in the world we live in now. With all these stresses and tensions that we have, there's more and more of a need to get connected with other people and part of that connection involves the sense of really understanding where people are coming from. In the old world, most of the people that you dealt with were people from your community. People who had lives that were relatively similar to yours, who lived with the same context as you lived with, and it was easy enough to understand them because everything that they were facing was the same as what you were facing. But now we are so much more mobile and we're so much more connected, we're coming across people who have different backgrounds, different goals, different priorities. Indeed, they may be living on opposite sides of the planet. And so the context is so much different and it's so much harder to establish that core base of understanding.

Harry Reis: Yes. Well, many times, we are much more interested in expressing our point of view than in listening to the other person's point of view. This is one of the great conversation skills that people sometimes need to learn. Instead of listening, people will be thinking about what's the next thing I'm going to say? And when you do that, it's that much harder to understand what the other person is actually talking about. We really have to learn how to focus our attention on the other person rather than ourselves.

Harry Reis: Sure. The speaker-listener technique is a very straightforward way of trying to both enforce the idea of needing to listen, but also to create the sense of being listened to. So in the speaker-listener technique, there will be a box on the table with two red lights, one in front of each partner. And the way the process works is only the partner who has the light is allowed to speak. So the light's on, you're allowed to speak and you can say whatever your concerns or issues are. Then the light switches and the partner's job is to repeat what you just said as they heard it. Then the first person's light comes back on and that person then has to comment on whether you got it right or how you got it wrong. And then the other person's light comes back on and they have to amend what they said to reflect the feedback that you just gave them.

Harry Reis: Yes, we've done a number of studies of this where we use an experimental manipulation that will temporarily allow people to feel more understood or alternatively, to feel more misunderstood. And what we find is that once we give people a sense that they've been understood, that they've been validated and responded to, they become more open-minded, they become more willing to consider opposite points of view. This is work that I did with an Israeli colleague named Guy Itzchakov, and we gave people a sense of being understood and then measured their prejudice toward some outgroup that they might have known. Perhaps it was an ethnic group, perhaps it was people with a different sexuality. Some groups that prior to the study, they had expressed some negativity toward. And we found that after feeling understood, they become less concerned with inflating their view of themselves, of thinking of themselves in a more ego-enhancing way, and most importantly and most interestingly, they become less prejudiced towards outgroups.

#2

Like being back in college, where I got my degree in interpersonal communications.

#3

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/1 ... -I-said-it

Happy Holidays. There, I said it.

It is December. Happy Holidays! There, I said it. And I don’t want any of my atheist friends giving me crap about not saying “Happy Solstice!” You are not the only ones celebrating a holiday this month. In the northern hemisphere, many cultures and religions, past and present, have designated times for parties and celebrations. So, please refrain from demanding that I acknowledge only your special day at the expense of others.

I will give you this, on your special day, I’ll say “Happy Solstice!” But don’t expect me to say it everyday this month. Which brings up another issue. What is your special day? Is it the 21st or 22nd? You change it from year to year. Why didn’t you stick with the 25th? You had that day long before the many religions jumped on the bandwagon. It was a good day. Several Gods were born on the 25th, Jesus being the most recent.

No, you had to go all sciencey on us. Without your powerful telescopes, accurate clocks, and models based on the earth circling the sun, December 25th is the first day raw human sense organs can tell the days are getting longer. Fortunately, scientists also gave us the computer and Internet to look it up. This year the winter solstice is December 21st at 11:49 P.M. Down to the minute! Why do you believers in science need to be so accurate?

If you know someone who celebrates a specific holiday in December, greet them on their special day with the appropriate greeting. On December 25, you should greet Christians with “Merry Christmas” and greet Jewish friends with “Happy Hanukkah” from December 16th to 26th.
There is no war on Winter Solstice. That's fake news. Happy Holidays! Party on!

#4