Archive for month: May, 2007

My family is just about to move to Redmond Oregon and after living apart from my family for almost three years, we are finally going to be together. But probably as many would agree, uprooting the family and moving is very stressful. Planning for the move and making the decisions about what stays and what goes and what we need to purchase is even more stressful.

My inclination is to simply say here is what we need to do and do it. As you might imagine, this simply does not work well. Finally my wife Hazel and I sat down and started to talk about all of the decisions we needed to make. We took our little girl out to see new furniture for her new room. We explored what to get rid of. As we sat down to talk, the stress of all of these issues came to the surface. We were tense and the conversation started in spits and spurts. A conversation did emerge and as we worked through all of these issues. We began to move into our normal pattern of give and take and had a wonderful conversation. At the furniture store, I had envisioned that we get our little girl a Loft Bunk Bed as we will have far less space in our new home. She was highly resistant particularly since she too is very stressed out over the loss of her home and many treasured furnishings. After letting her work her way through her concerns she ended up falling in love with the Loft Bunk Bed. It was a lesson in relaxing and letting a conversation emerge rather than try to force a decision too quickly.

For a high “D” person, this letting go takes quite an effort but the results are fantastic. Being in conversation is so much more meaningful and rewarding that a discussion. See etymology in my first post to see the difference. This weekend was an excellent reminder of the power of conversation. A conversation can not be rushed, it can not be controlled, and the outcome can not be dictated. One needs to be open to letting emerge what should emerge. I am again reminded that conversation is what binds together people in a living system and leads to order out of chaos. This is not always easy to see when one is in the middle of the chaos.

I wish you the best in your conversations.

John