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10 15 24 Motivational Speaker Laurel Huston discusses surviving political fights
If you put aside $0.25 every week for a year, what could you get at the end? A few cups of coffee, maybe? A candle? Or you could get a year of the best reporting from all over the world. Go to washingtonpost.com/bf24 right now. You'll get a Washington Post subscription for $0.25 a week for your first year. This is a Black Friday sale, so it won't last long. It's beginning to sound a lot like the holidays. The Roku Channel, your home for free and premium TV, is giving you access to holiday music and genre-based stations from iHeart all for free. Find the soundtrack of the season with channels like iHeartChristmas and North Pole Radio. The Roku Channel is available on all Roku devices, web, Amazon Fire TV, Google TV, Samsung TVs, and the Roku mobile app on iOS and Android devices. So stream what you love and turn up the cheer with iHeartRadio on the Roku Channel. Happy streaming! Deciding on what to listen to is hard. Using zoomo to stream music from iHeart90's radio is easy. Or play iHeart Country, or hip-hop beats. Your choice, all for free. Stream easy with zoomo play. Get live and on-demand entertainment with no log-ins, no sign-ups, no accounts, no hassle. This November, get cozy and stay in from movie night with Air Force One starring Harrison Ford and Glenn Close, and The Art of War starring Wesley Snipes, all streaming free on zoomo play. Go to play.zumo.com now. Life is hard. Zumo is easy. And in a presidential election year, it can be almost impossible to avoid a conversation centered around politics. And depending on if you agree or not, that conversation could go a number of directions and even put a strain on your relationships with friends or family members. Three weeks left until election day, how can you talk about these subjects with loved ones? Well, joining us now on the KOA Common Spirit Health Hotline. She's a relationship expert with reflection inside and out. It's Laurel Houston. Laurel, thank you so much for your time this morning. Thank you. Good morning. So, when we're looking, this is a fascinating conversation, too. Because we all have those friends that we love and adore, but they may have differing opinions in politics or just their walks of life and how they work and go about their time. So, you want to keep your friendship, but you don't know if it's worth talking and addressing those things or is it something that you should just put on the back burner and we're good friends without talking about these. What's the best way to go about this? I love this question and I actually love what you already brought up because this is one of the things I talked to my clients about. The very first question to ask yourself is, will this conversation build a relationship or will this conversation create resentment? And so, as you're saying, we want this connection to continue. And so, quick questions to ask yourself and then phrases to use as this comes up would be does this create resentment or does this create relationship? And the next one is, can I share and listen to others' perspectives and do it without fear of retribution? And I know that sounds extreme, but I'll tell you why I ask you to say that. Every relationship we have in our life, we have because we are wanting it to meet a need. Does this meet a physical, an intellectual, a social, an emotional, a spiritual need? Why do I have you in my inner circle? So, politics comes up and it makes us question whether or not the people around us will continue to meet our needs. So, these conversations are not about just the political issues. They're about asking, do I have people around me, close around me, that I can trust in times of needs being met? Laurel, this goes deeper than politics, though, because I would say with the divided electorate along these lines, not even politics, is about world views and ascertaining what is readily accessible, observational reality. How do you bridge that gap? Not just the political divide, but somebody who has just sees things and sees information maybe differently than you do. Absolutely. And you hit it right on the head. It's not just a political topic. This conversation is what this is doing to us. Is it going to create, and here's the key, is this conversation going to create more safety, or is it going to make me so more unsafe? So, whether it's politics, religion, what pie we want it in the next Thanksgiving meal, it is, how does this conversation make me so, does this make me so safe? And I know not everyone wants to talk about their emotions, but you can't talk about topics like this without emotion coming up, because we're trying to find out, am I safe? Is this conversation going to help create safety? And if we disagree on how that safety is going to be created through political views, through policies, through things that you're seeing or not saying through perception, will this person stay in my life, create more safety, and what we're actually asking is, will this create deeper connection? So, something to keep in mind is you're having these conversations. Can you look at the other person and say, I disagree with you? And you still matter to me. I still want you in my life. Even if we don't agree, you're safe to state your opinion with me, and this one's my favorite. I hear you, I don't agree with you, and I still want you in my life. So, when it comes to politics, when you're focusing on a relationship like that, is it healthy to just be like, hey, I know we both have differing opinions. We get along so well, because we don't talk about them. We're just those two friends that enjoy going out and having fun and not even addressing. It's almost like you're way of just suspending and getting out of the real world and just enjoying time together. Absolutely. And a lot of people also say, well, what about social media? I have a friend, I have a family member, and from October all through November, everything is a Facebook post. Keep scrolling, keep scrolling. No one in the history of social media saw someone's family meme and said, oh, that just completely changed my entire political view. I'm going to vote the other side now because of that meme. So, this is where you literally look at me and say, I want you in my life. Let's not talk about this or let's talk about this respectfully. Because three months from now, I still want you in my life. I don't want this to be the thing that stops us from continuing to connect. Laurel, you kind of set the groundwork for how this interaction should or should not take place. But what does it say about somebody who continues to want to engage with you on said issues, and you're trying to extricate yourself from that? Is that just simple boundaries saying, I can't do this, you're not respecting my boundaries? Is that how you address it? Or is there something else? Beautiful. Now, this is where I say, is this going to create resentment? Or is this going to create relationship? Because actions are a language. And so, when people say, oh, I'm not good at communication. Well, communication is a skill. So, if you have someone that's constantly bringing up a topic that you have expressed, you know, I can see this is doing damage to our relationship. Can we please talk about someone else? And they are continuing to bring it up. Guess what, that action spoke a lot. So, this is where I would actually bring up the question and say, so what I'm hearing you say is that this topic means more about our relationship. Relationship expert with reflections inside and out. It's Laurel Houston. Laurel, thank you so much for your insight on this. We really appreciate it. Absolutely, and good luck. If you put aside 25 cents every week for a year, what could you get at the end? A few cups of coffee maybe? A candle? Or you could get a year of the best reporting from all over the world. Go to washingtonpost.com/bf24 right now. You'll get a Washington Post subscription for 25 cents a week for your first year. This is a Black Friday sale, so it won't last long. WashingtonPost.com/bf24. It's beginning to sound a lot like the holidays. The Roku Channel, your home for free and premium TV, is giving you access to holiday music and genre-based stations from iHeart all for free. Find the soundtrack of the season with channels like iHeartChristmas and North Pole Radio. The Roku Channel is available on all Roku devices, web, Amazon Fire TV, Google TV, Samsung TVs, and the Roku mobile app on iOS and Android devices. So, stream what you love and turn up the cheer with iHeartRadio on the Roku Channel. Happy streaming! Deciding on what to listen to is hard. Using zoomo to stream music from iHeart90's radio is easy. Or play iHeart Country, or hip-hop beats. Your choice, all for free. Stream easy with zoomo play. Get live and on-demand entertainment with no logins, no sign-ups, no accounts, no hassle. This November, get cozy and stay in from movie night with Air Force One starting Harrison Ford and Glenn Close and The Art of War starring Wesley Snipes. All streaming free on zoomo play. Go to play.zumo.com now. Life is hard. Zumo is easy.