Recently, a friend was worried about an upcoming visit with some relatives, saying “Their politics and worldview are quite different from ours, and I don’t want to react to one of their side-comments without being mindful of possible consequences. Not sure how many times I can steer the conversation to the weather.” Have you been in a similar situation?
Or maybe, you have a date with your spouse or someone else you know very well. In the middle of dinner, you realize that this isn’t intimate quiet, but rather ,you actually haven’t said anything for 10 minutes and it feels a bit dull and embarrassing. .
Or, you meet someone at a party. Perhaps it is someone you really don’t know that well. (If you’re like me, you aren’t even sure of their name.) What do you say?
It is these situations that always lead me back to Spirit Moxie. Really. Any of the “little things that can change the world” [original list] work very well as a topic. And often the response to the subject will catch you off guard. When I was working on the book Moxie Moves (and, yes, all “10 ways to make a powerful difference” work as conversation starters), I was talking about “be litter free.” And I really was talking about litter—you know, that stuff on the ground people drop and throw. But the three others in the car with me immediately started discussing how we litter one another with expectations and negative ideas. Wow! Plus, recently, as another response to the book, I was being interviewed and the host responded to #6 “Listen.” In the book, I make the distinction between listening and actually hearing the other person. “Why,” my host said, “as you say [I did?], is it important to be heard?” That question evoked a whole new Conversation post called “Being Heard.”
This is all fine for me. These are often my go-to conversation gambits, along with “What’s new?,” which for some reason throws a lot of people into defense mode. It is fine for me to say that there are easily more than one hundred fairly non-threatening and engaging topics that can matter-of-factly be explored. It‘s what I write about. But what about you? What topics would you really, really like other people’s opinions about? What are you seeing as challenges for which you could use some insight?
It’s very tempting to offer a list. But it would be my list. So, I’m curious. If you stop and think for a minute, is there a topic that might seem to be from day-to-day life that you dare begin, ask about, or simply mention as a path or challenge?
I have a weakness for conversations about ideas—along with personal blind spots when I focus on an idea. Only yesterday, I was talking with a new friend, “I’m working on a post about conversation.” “With others or with yourself?” she asked. Oh, my!
Bam. A whole new road to explore! How do you talk to yourself? Can you get over the self-criticism, the shoulds and musts that barrage many of our minds most of the time? Have you tried focusing on and talking to yourself about what brings you delight or happiness or joy? Could you change “should” to “want” or “might try” or, even, “am expected to, but do I really want to?” Do you dare say to yourself, “I love you.” And mean it?
My friend visiting her relatives probably should not introduce the topic “vote” if politics causes tension. But what about “sleep” or “play”? Could you ask, if you really know someone, “what conversations do you have with yourself?”
Right now, my internal conversations revolve around allowing things to unfold in their own time (“just being”) and, at least this week, daring to be wrong. But if we get together, I’ll ask, “what’s new?” and “what does it mean to be litter free?”
__________________________________________________
Links have been provided to previous Spirit Moxie Conversation posts and to the Spirit Moxie website as reminders and as conversation!
All photos by Spirit Moxie. From the top:
B thinking what to talk about when out with a friend
The last party attended. The conversation was mainly around shared history.
Note cards of little things that can change the world