Biola University
The holidays can be a meaningful time with friends and family, but gathering at the holiday table can also be trying and fraught with difficult conversations on hot-button issues. On this episode, Tim and Rick discuss how to navigate difficult conversations this holiday season in the hope of preserving relationship and deepening connection with others.
Transcript
Tim Muehlhoff: Welcome to the Winsome Conviction Podcast. My name is Tim Muehlhoff. I'm a professor of communication at Biola University in La Mirada, California. In addition to teaching classes, I get to be the co-director of this crazy idea called, The Winsome Conviction Project. We're a five year project, we're halfway through it. Trying to bring people together to talk about their differences rather than just isolate from each other. I get to do that with a good friend, Dr. Rick Langer. Rick, great to be with you.
Rick Langer: Yeah. Thanks, Tim. And we thought we'd do something quick, simple, and practical, what I've affectionately called, a field guide to Winsome conversations at the holidays. And of course this would apply to that time other than the holidays too, but we tend to think about it more. And right now as we're recording this, we're in the election day actually and are thinking ahead to what's coming down the line the next couple months. A lot of times have time with family and I have talked to a ton of people who have anxiety about having a conversation over a special meal at a Christmas party, whatever it might be in saying, "Man, these things can go south in a hurry."
Tim Muehlhoff: And just before we jump in to offer our thoughts, I just want to do a quick disclaimer. Some of you might be thinking, "It must be so easy to live with Tim and Rick, co-directors"-
Rick Langer: Somehow I doubt people are thinking, but go ahead. I'm with you, I'm working with you. I miss Tim, you just roll baby.
Tim Muehlhoff: ... of the Winsome Conviction Project. My wife and I speak at marriage conferences. I remember one, time Rick, Noreen had spent the entire weekend listening to me talk about marriage. And so, as we were leaving the conference, I took her hand and I just said, "Hey, I'm really sorry. I do like half of everything I say up there." And Noreen looked at me, she said, "Half?" So, we're going to do a disclaimer. And that disclaimer is, guys, we struggle with this just as much as you do. I remember a couple Christmases ago, Noreen had to walk outside and just look at me like, "Damn, have you lost your mind? What are you doing?" And so, I just want to say that we believe everything we say and have written, but we are with you in the trenches. This is really hard to actually be Winsome and to speak truth and love. We just want to get that out there before we offer some thoughts and we're speaking to ourselves just as much as we're speaking to anybody else.
Rick Langer: Yeah. So, what we're going to do, we're going to talk some about strategies for having conversational issue itself, but we're also going to do a separate shorter podcast as well on the spiritual side of this, "What are things that we need to do in our relationship with God? What perspectives do we cultivate theologically that might help us be able to have healthy conversations?" So, that's the two goals. Let's just begin with some thoughts about making conversations, go better at the holidays. And let me just give you one thought that hit me immediately was that for people not to feel guilty about not having a conversation at the holidays, in other words we know they have somebody have this issue with and you just feel like you, "Oh, we have to talk about it." And it's important to have conversations and to make peace with others.
But I do want to point out with most of these things, there's good times, better times, really bad times. There's any variety of times to have these conversations. And I worry when people feel, they just go, "Oh, I'd feel so guilty if I didn't talk to John about this here because I know this is an issue, whatever." And to stop and say, "Is that because you're feeling guilty? Or is that because you truly believe this is the best time for him to actually hear and understand your perspective on the issue?" And I think a lot of times when you frame it that way, you're sitting there, you suddenly have a picture of the turkey dinner or the sitting around the Christmas tree and you're like, "I know this won't be the best time for him to hear it." Then it's like, "You should probably seek another time where it might be a little bit better." So, to just give a little bit of an option for a breathing room and to not feel compelled.
Tim Muehlhoff: And there might even be a great communication theory reason for not tackling those potentially hot button topics. We talk about communication climates. Right now, it's raining outside. So, there have been times people have done live podcasts on our campus outside under the bell.
Rick Langer: In the rain.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah. And guess what? The climate will not allow for it right now. So, the good news about human climates, they're not like the weather. We can actually do something about it. And one of the things when we think about communication climates is positive deposits. So, if you think about your climate, and we can go into more detail in a second. But if you think, "Man, my climate is not great with this relative who's coming over, it goes south pretty quick when we talk. Well, what a great time during Thanksgiving, let's say, or Christmas, that you just focus on the positives. You speak life into that relationship. Now is not the time to offer negative critique, but rather positives. John Gottman, a person we have often mentioned on this show, says, "A healthy communication climate is really comes down to a very simple ratio. And that is five positive interactions for every one negative." And a lot of us can think of, "Man, I do the exact opposite."
Rick Langer: Yeah. It feels natural to do the exact opposite.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah. I mean, I do five negatives and maybe I get to the one positive. Well, got me says you need to flip that. So, guess what? In the meal half household, we have a tradition, Rick, come Thanksgiving, we watch the Detroit Lions lose.
Rick Langer: Well that's good because it's good to have consistent predictable things. You don't have to wonder what's going to happen this year. That's good. Go ahead.
Tim Muehlhoff: And then we medicate with food. That's what we do. But you know what? There's something in the misery that's kind of bonding and it's good to see people you haven't seen in a long time. So, I would say heading into this holiday, I would think about the five to one ratio. By the way, even if you're going to tackle a topic, I would still in the back of my mind be thinking as we're talking about this topic, "Am I making sure to affirm this person?" I appreciate how much you think about this issue. I appreciate all the research you've done about this issue. I love the fact that that you're not afraid to talk about these. I mean, those are all positives. And I just listed three, you've got two more before what could be perceived as a negative. So, I think Gottman is brilliant in this issue and it's a really good reminder that maybe I'm just going to take this whole holiday and do positives.
Rick Langer: Yeah, it's actually great. Almost like a slogan, "The holidays, your time for deposits." I'm going to make deposits into the relational bank account during this time and I may have to make some withdrawals over the course of the rest of the year, but let this be a season for making deposits.
Tim Muehlhoff: And if a conversation comes up, like let's say it's right there. It's been brought up and you're talking to a particular person. I think I might do something like this. "Hey, listen. We both deeply care about politics and I could talk about this all day. I don't know if this is the best place to do it, but let's do this. Let's set up a Zoom meeting in a couple weeks. Let's do this." I like that for a couple reasons. One, that probably isn't the best setting. I mean, it's just hard to control the environment, people coming and going. And somebody, that relative, they pop their head in, throw a verbal hand grenade and leave, that's probably not great. And then we're going to do another podcast about preparing for the conversations. That gives you two, three weeks to actually prepare to have that Zoom meeting.
And let me just speak from personal experience. So, I have a relative, love him to death, deeply respect him, but you could not find two people more distant when it comes to politics. So, Rick, we, during the holiday, actually tried to have the politics conversation and that's when honestly Noreen came out and just looked at me like-