A short YouTube talk by Amber Hollingsworth (Recovery Concepts #22) giving practical advice for early sobriety. The video links to a previous tip about tolerating mistrust and presents a core communication strategy: "say it first" — pre-emptively voice the negative thought or awkwardness you expect so you control the narrative and make the rest of the conversation smoother. Amber illustrates the technique with an example of being open about awkwardness when first meeting a counselor.
Chapters
You know, yesterday's tip was about tolerating mistrust no matter how long it takes. And today's video is going to tie right into that. It's all about how to handle and have difficult conversations. I've got a little experience in this area. I feel like that's sort of what I do. I have difficult conversations all day, every day. So. So let me give you a little bit of my advice, things I've learned along the way. So I'm going to share a little tip with you. This is something I've learned along the way and I have found it to be very effective and useful. This is what I call you say it first. Okay. So you know when you have a difficult situation with someone or you think that they're thinking something negative, maybe you've got to confront a situation where you need a little trust or you want to go do something. When you go into that conversation to say, hey, this is what I'd like to do, go straight in and you say it first. Say, I know in the past in these situations I did X, Y or Z, because you know that they're thinking it. If you'll say the negative thing before they say the negative thing, it does what I call like take the wind out of the cells, which means it gives you power and control over that. So instead of just letting their mind go down the rabbit hole, you'll just own it non defensively and it will help them hear what you have say next. So like for example, when you go in and you see some counselor and you don't even know for the first time and that person's wanting you to tell them everything, well, that's freaking awkward. Like you don't even know this person. So in a situation like this, I might say, hey, you don't even know me. How awkward is this? I might just own it. That's what I mean by say it first. And they're like, I know, right? So if you'll say the negative thing first, it will smooth the way for the rest of the conversation. You know they're thinking it, they're probably going to say it. So you say it first, get control of that, just own it and then come in with the rest of the conversation of what you want to add in.
