Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today, I'm going to share a three step method to stop arguments. Now we probably all had the experience of trying to express how we feel to someone and that leading to an unintended argument. We've all been there. Well, psychologist, author, and relationship researcher, John Gottman says that in those times, a mistake that we often make is that we start the conversation with what he calls a harsh startup, which comes out sounding like basically a criticism towards the other person.

A harsh startup usually begins with the word, you, as in, you never pull your weight around here or you don't even care what I want or you don't listen to me. You didn't do the dishes. So starting a conversation like this, the other person is very likely to get defensive and things can pretty easily escalate into a fight. In fact, Gottman's research found that 96% of the time, if the discussion starts with harsh startup, the outcome of the conversation will usually end as it began, negative and hostile. So how can we communicate more clearly and effectively? Well, Gottman recommends using a gentle startup.

You can read more on the gentle startup in his book, which I highly recommend. But here today, I'm going to boil it down to three simple steps that you can remember and just give these basics a try. So step one is start with, I feel. In difficult conversations, start with I statements instead of you statements, that way you're much less likely to be critical. And if possible, you want to name the actual emotion you're feeling in the situation.

So I feel frustrated or I feel sad. Step two, describe what happens specifically that led to you feeling that way, but without making any judgements. So the first two steps might sound like this, instead of saying you're so lazy, you can say, I feel frustrated because you said you would do the dishes last night, but you didn't. Instead of saying you're so bad with money, you could say, I feel concerned because the last three weeks you've spent more than our agreed upon budget. Right? A big difference.

And then step three is to ask for what you need. So in this step, it's really important to ask for what you do want from the other person in positive terms rather than what you don't want. So after you say, I feel frustrated because you said you would do the dishes last night, but you didn't, then you can add, I would really appreciate it. If you could do them today. When you say, I feel concerned because the last three weeks you spent more than our agreed upon budget, you can then add, would you please stick to our agreed upon budget from now on? So step one, I feel.

Step two, describe what happened without judgment. Step three, ask for what you need in positive terms. Now, of course it goes without saying that speaking in a polite and kind and caring way goes a long way to diffusing any potential arguments, because so much of our communication is not in the words, but in the way we speak them. As Mother Teresa once said, "Kind words can be short and easy, but their echoes are endless." So I encourage you to give the soft start up a try the next time you find yourself needing to have a tricky conversation. As always, thank you for your practice and your present presidency.

Let's settle in for today's meditation.