What’s your best question to generate a Deep Meaningful Conversation
A little handy one for holiday time.
“How did you get down?”
“How’s work?”
“How’s the dog?”
The same questions every Christmas, there’s no bad intentions whatsoever but we can’t go on this way. Life is too short to talk about the traffic, the banalities of worklife, where your dog is spending Christmas and so on.
How about:
How have your strengths help you success? How have your faults hindered you?
What is holding you back from being the person you want to be?
We have these awfully poor conversations with the people we have known the longest in our lives, our cousins, lifelong friends and family members. Christmas can be a tough time for a lot of people, families can be stressful and very often both people in the conversation may be still hurting from a past argument that they don’t want to telepathically engage with. So we resort in that party awkwardness...... to shite talk.
Catch someone off guard with a left field question for a change:
In 40 years what will people be nostalgic for?
Is a hotdog a sandwich?
People have found a way out from shite talk, it’s been replaced with shite swiping. Looking at social media posts of your friends while in the company of the people you have known the longest in your life, it is very damaging to those old relationships. Yes, it’s your default when you feel uncomfortable in someone else’s presence because you’ve lost the ability to converse. No longer do people chat at a bus stop, but I don’t believe that’s out of desire, it’s from lack of confidence. Shite Swiping (Trademark Mr Twig) is the go to that has replaced the excitement of the dog entering the sitting room to break up the conversations. “Oh, he’s great isn’t he, how old is he now? Wow…”
If you had to pick any character in a book, movie or TV show who is most similar to you, who would you choose? Why?
What’s the best Christmas memory you’ve ever had?
How do you combat negative self talk?
There’s no bad intentions but maybe we should all go on conversation courses….? Wait a sec, that’s what schools are really for. You can learn everything from the internet, schools should be where we learn how to coexist with other people
Click on a link below, print off the questions. For me, this little journey was started when a friend passed me on social psychological researcher Arthur Aron’s 36 questions to bring you closer together to your partner.
After than I found the School of Life’s conversation cards as a great addition to evenings when I notice more than one person in the room on their mobile phone a the same time.
Sure look! If you kill one shite, painful, awkward interaction over the holidays by lobbying in a Deep Meaningful Conversation question, happy days. If if you don’t, you may one day regret that you didn’t deepen your bond with that person when you had the chance.
If you’re a video person - have a gander at the School of Life contributions
Just by googling: conversation starters, relationship conversations starters or meaningful conversation starters you’ll find an abundance of stuff.
Finally...
If the thought of conversing with family or people at Christmas leaves you short of breath, a raised heart beat or some sort of anxiety you're not alone! For a lot of people Christmas can bring about bad memories and unpleasant feelings. If so, please don’t suffer in silence, reach out.
Twitter and phone number contacts:
@samaritansirl 116 123
@Womens_Aid 1800 341 900
AmenIreland 0818 222240
@Alone_Ireland 01 679 1032
@PietaHouse 1800 247 247
@LGBTIreland2014 1890 929 539
