Can we really take out stress from stressful conversations?

In today's class, Isaiah talked about strategies on how to "take" the stress out of stressful conversations.

The style of his presentation was pretty relaxed and I enjoyed that he made us go into pairs to discuss the ways in which we thought we could reduce stressful conversations. We all had similar ideas.

I think that we collectively came to the conclusion that stressful conversations are unavoidable. We even need stressful conversations from time to time.

However, with a few simple strategies, we can probably limit the amount of stress in *some* conversations that we have on a regular basis.

I believe that the most important out of the three that were discussed is fighting tactics instead of people. This is because a lot of times we are quick to attack a person when in reality, the problem lies in their communication style. Emotions will always overcome us. We are emotional beings. But understanding that our emotions are not always right (or that sometimes they're a little too much) we can find better ways to become greater communicators.

This topic was of great significance for me because it speaks to what I wanted my blog to be about in the first place. Yes, it's a space to share my ideas with everyone else, but I also wanted it to be a timeline for me to look back on as the semester moved forward and be able to assess my progress. Part of this is also why I wanted to be in a leadership role and next year, the position of Chairperson in the International Students Association will hopefully help me further my communicative skills even further.

I think it's important to constantly assess how good we are as communicators because as it was mentioned at the beginning of this chapter: "We live by talking." We wouldn't live in an advanced society if it weren't for our ability to communicate, and thus we should always be looking for ways to improve ourselves and our communication style.