“Why not?”―Einstein by Mimi Stuart ©
Live the Life you Desire

Good conversation has an edge. It opens your eyes to something, stirs your imagination, reverberates in your mind later in the day. Your mind has been sparked.

What if you start worrying that the person you are conversing with will get angry or roll his or her eyes at you? Fear of someone’s reactions will stifle your imagination and creative thinking. The possibility for a good conversation will shut down.

Intimacy means sharing your depth, vulnerability, and creative imagination. Intimacy vanishes when someone is threatened by another person’s ideas. Intimacy also evaporates when someone desperately craves agreement and support at all costs.

When we strive to balance two fundamental drives: our desire for connection and our desire for individuality, our sense of self becomes more resilient, allowing our conversations to become freer, deeper and more meaningful.

People who have some emotional autonomy don’t need to have their ideas constantly validated; they are not afraid to express an absurb or eccentric idea.

Emotional autonomy allows people to have true intimacy in conversation, because they don’t pressure others to support them emotionally. Support becomes voluntary and thus more honest and meaningful.

Emotional autonomy frees up conversation to be experimental, more passionate, stirring and stimulating.

The first step toward meaningful conversation is to listen and engage the other person with presence, openness, and curiosity. The next step is to dance with the idea and give it a twirl in an unexpected direction.

Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after.

~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

by Alison Poulsen, PhD