10 Powerful Tips For Sharing Thoughts and Feelings

When you want to confront an issue, knowledge gives you power. You can either harm or help your relationships by how you approach them. We talked in the last post about confronting an issue versus letting it slide, “bagging it” and then dumping it all at once. At the same time, we need wisdom in the best way to express ourselves. Here are powerful tips to help share your thoughts and feeling effectively. 

1. Wait until you are calm. When you have an issue, give yourself time and space to think things through. This will help you purify your thoughts and feelings and get to the core issues. When you take time to think, it also keeps you from lashing out and saying things you later regret. You will be reasonable and be willing to listen to reason.
2. Respect for others as well as self – When you approach the sharing of your thoughts and feelings with others, do so with an attitude of respect for yourself and for the other person. This will create a healthy discussion atmosphere. Get yourself ready and then ask the other person for some time to discuss an issue when they are ready.
3. Affirm of the value and worth of the other person. When you start a conversation, tell the other person what you like about them as a person, what they do that you respect or the contribution they make to your life that you value. When you truly value the other person, it makes them more willing to consider what you have to say.
4. Take responsibility for your feelings. Use "I" messages. “I think…I feel…or “When you do this, I feel this or think this…” These phrases may not always work for you. Don’t be hard on yourself for not doing it just this way. The general idea is to avoid an accusatory tone of blaming the other person for your thoughts and feelings.
5. Be considerate. Listen with the intent to understand the other side. It constantly amazes me how I think I’m so right but then when I hear the other person’s point of view, I realize there is more than one way to think about the issue.
6. Be peace loving. The general idea is to come to a place of peace with each other. At the same time, peace at any cost is not peace. Part of enjoying peace in a relationship is to admit there is conflict and work it out to come to a place of peace. This does not always mean agreement. You can agree to disagree as we discussed in an earlier post.
7. Be willing to yield to others. The world doesn’t revolve around you and the world doesn’t revolve around the person. One of the keys to success in relationships is learning to yield to each other.
8. Be full of mercy and grace. We all have faults and make mistakes so we need to make allowances for the fact that we are in a learning process and extend mercy and grace to each other.
9. Be fair. Be impartial as you consider the other person’s viewpoint. Fight fair by not using manipulation, putdowns or threats. These won’t get you anywhere in a relationship. As tempting as they are sometimes and believe me I know they are tempting, these tactics will do more to drive a wedge between you rather than bring you the peace you desire.
10. Be sincere. When you speak the truth about how you think and feel with sincerity, people will take you more seriously and be more likely to receive what you have to say.
     

"But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere." James 3:17 (NIV)

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Comments

[sandi]

Excellent!