When we learn an approach like Motivational Interviewing, we become comfortable asking “How ready is this person for change?” But how often do we stop and ask ourselves “How ready am I for this person?”
So often we are trying to have meaningful conversations with a head full of distractions. What we plan to say next, our fears, our hopes, the ongoing assessment of risk. The last appointment, the next appointment, our manager asking us to “pop into their office when we have a minute’. The targets, the documenting, the awareness that any or all of this could end up in a court case. The lack of sleep, the argument we just had with our partner, the sick parent. The lack of housing, the discontinuation of that support program, global crises. It can all take us away from being truly present.
It helps to have strategies for when we catch ourselves drifting. Reorient into our body and senses. Remember our intention. Reconnect with the human in front of us. Acknowledge the lapse and rewind the conversation a moment.
And perhaps it is what we do in the five minutes before the conversation starts that might really make a difference. In the gym we warm up before our workout. We start our piano practice with scales. We wash or chop the ingredients before we start to cook. The preparation helps us to be ready to move into more complex skills.
Losing focus is normal, it’s human, it will happen. We can also make room for the other person to be distracted by their own world of competing priorities and pressures. And drawing on the wisdom of Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, we can simply try to “smile, breathe and go slowly.”
Helen Mentha 