Introduce People to Taking Turns
Everybody hopes, on any date or in any social meeting, to somehow develop the kind of situation that we RCers can very easily create (I’ll call it a “support group situation”), in which people get to take turns being listened to.
If you persist and people get any taste of what happens when they do take turns, after a little bit of experience it will become their program and they will deal with anybody who resists abiding by the terms. They will recognize the tremendous value and relief of this turn taking and will be your thoroughgoing* supporters, once they have had a chance to experience it. Until they do experience it, how could they know?
Excerpted from The Rest of Our Lives, page 168 to 169
(Present Time 183, April 2016)
* “Thoroughgoing” means complete and zealous.