From the category archives:

Speak mindfully

Words that don’t piss people off

Pretty much any time we make a statement,  the most we can truthfully say is: Looking at the part of the world I’ve had access to through the filter created by my experiences, the part of me currently in control of the mouth thinks that… What we actually say is: It is… This is what [...]

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If the world is provisional, certainty is insanity

These days, when I say, ‘You might be right,’ I often really mean it. I remember when I first started working as an internal training officer (several life-times ago), I attended an assertiveness class. Phrases like ‘You might be right,’ and ‘Could be,’ were labelled ‘Verbal Judo’ or something, and were ways of taking someone’s [...]

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Do you hear me?

Ok, kittens. Seeing as it’s a Speak Mindfully week, I wanted to put up a normal Monday post about this week’s experiment. I’ve been teaching for the past two days, so I don’t have time to make this into any kind of post I should press Publish on, but there’s a thought that’s been going [...]

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You are so wrong

Ok, here’s one. Very little gets my back up more than someone telling me I’m wrong. (What? I’m working on it.) I’m sure that doesn’t apply to you. Thing is, I’ve noticed that if I go one level deeper, one level more specific, I think there’s a way of phrasing ‘You’re wrong’ that might not [...]

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Speak mindfully

The fourth principle/habit/practice/key/secret/thing of my four principles/habits/practices/keys/secrets/things that I think might help with fighting less is (adopts deep and wise voice): 4. Speak Mindfully Ok. A bit of meta-blogging. My Inner Expert is desperate that I not write this article in this way. He keeps talking about things like ‘a comprehensive framework’ and that people [...]

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