"I Can't Breathe." 6 Ways to Approach Heated & Emotional Topics

When approaching conversations about heated/emotional topics, there are probably 10 tips I could offer. But for now, I will offer six. This assumes that you want to build relationships, learn, and be constructive.

(If you just want to spout your opinion and don't care what emotional shape you leave another person in, then just do what 99% of people on tv and in your neighborhood do.)

1) Humility. Practice great humility. Assume you don't know all the facts, that you don't really understand the other person's perspective or experience. Assume that you're blind and have confirmation bias, that you consume opinions and viewpoints that merely reinforce your own (without even realizing it).

Assume that you will be defensive about your own deeply held beliefs. Because you will be, naturally. But fight that urge.

Assume that you don't really have the answers and that your reflexive, go-to response/opinion is probably informed by too little knowledge even though you feel justified in offering it.

2) Listen and ask questions. Often we are so busy composing our reply to the other person's views that we don't actually listen.

Be more curious about what the other person thinks than you are anxious about sharing your own thoughts.

3) Never, ever attack another person's motives...unless you want yours attacked. Few things feel worse than being misunderstood. Don't make it personal. Take the high road.

4) Assume that you're not going to convince the other person that you are right. Because you probably aren't. And that shouldn't be your goal anyway. A more mature approach is to have a desire to better understand others AND give them some perspective to think about and wrestle with in their own minds and hearts.

But if you are an overbearing jerk, or callous, or dismissive, or arrogant, they will not hear "truth" or consider your viewpoint. Why do you feel the need to prove your point? Why does this burn so deeply inside us as humans? Spend some time considering that.

5) Before you try to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye, first work on that big log in your own. Instead of trying to fix or control another human being, work on yourself. Own your own mess. That would keep each of us pretty busy every day. It's a full-time job for me.

6) Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Listen to that other person the way you want the other person to listen to you. Care for their heart, their soul, the way you want yours cared for. Respect that person's son, daughter, mother, or father the same way you want them to respect your son, daughter, mother or father.

If you and I don't do this one right, then any words or lectures or testimony about your faith ring hollow, are destined and deserved to be despised, and harm another person's soul and heart.

Relationships are more important than being right.

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