Tip number 5 is so relatable because this paper is making me defensive myself.

This advice is probably trying to tell us to be doubtful and suspicious of our emotions as if we're literally amogus imposter. "I don't think, therefore I don't am" (setracseD eneR). That is the reason why we should always doubt ourselves and it will contribute in our pursuit of the truth about ourselves.

This tip is useful if you want to improve upon your perception of yourself and your relationships. So in general, quite useful. If you don't care about having emotional connections with people, pass on this.

Whenever someone close to me talks about a sensitive (to me) topic, I will tell them to wait for me as I run away and contemplate the questions in the tip... Yeah that should work.

i chose this cus normally i can barely construct rational and ‘perfect’ thoughts anyways. i yap a lot and so i’d appreciate the idea of showing up imperfectly and starting yapping cus well, it’s better than not showing up at all.

even if u cant think of some rational or smart thoughts just show up and try to talk things out.

very useful, cus i tend to yap so if an argument requires me to construct meaningful and strong arguments and come up with smart rebuttals, i aint showing up.

for example:

mom: we need to talk about your behavior lately

you: i got nothing to say tho

mom: yeh sure but we’ll try to figure things out while on the topic.

you:…

you: ok

i chose this tip cus i make this mistake a lot too. sometimes my expectations and criteria and people’s are very different from each other so we gotta make it clear to each other.

for example:

your mom: u got such a low score.

you: (holding a 9 in your hands) wdym low?????

and you 2 start arguing

very useful, cus again everyone’s expectations and criteria are so different from each other, sometimes it’s hard to figure out what people mean by ‘bad’ or ‘not enough’. (even worse when you are trying everything you can to improve but they just dont care because of their ridiculous criteria that they won’t open their mouth to speak about)

teacher: your presentation is not good enough

me having prepared for it for days: ok??????

insert us having a more detailed conversations about what’s good and what’s bad about my presentation

me: ok i get it now, thanks for the advice

I feel pretty much related to the tip since I have always been a vulnerable person and needed somebody to share some of my thoughts with.

I choose this bc I find myself related to this advice. I used to afraid to share my thoughts with others, even with whom I’m sure that she won’t do harm to me.

I think that dare to have hard convo help you to express your own feelings, make other people understand what you want, and even becoming closer with others

I find this advice useful because I used to be afraid to have hard convo with my friends and family. But after a long time suffering from bad feelings and big pressure, I first time opened my heart and share my feelings with a friend, and surprisingly she felt sympathetic for me and didnt judge me. So I think everyone should confront the fear of being judged, attacked bc there’s always sb truly kind and won’t do harm to you.

Everytime I think that I will share this thought with sb, I will find sb that I can belief. This will make me feel more comfortable to have hard convo.

This resonates with me on a spiritual level since i put it to practice almost everyday and in almost every argument.

I believe holding yourself back and remaining silent is the best solution to a conflict situation. This gives yourself and the person you are disagreeing with time to think and reevaluate what to say and do, further reducing the chances of accidentally hurting the other person again.

I find this tip extremely useful as i have many times implemented it into my daily life. For instance, there have always been heated arguments between my friends and i whenever we game together, and to calm the situation i always choose to keep quiet or just say something out of pocket so that my friends would stop yelling conflicting.

In order to capitalize on the usefulness of just not saying anything, i would expand into using it against more conflict situations i encounter as it is ultimately a practice of self control. Whether it is a friendship, romantic relationship, parent-child relationship or just a random encounter on the street, solving conflict by staying silent and thinking thoroughly is the greatest solution, provided you inform them you will have some silent time in order to process and not just give them the "silent treatment"..

I feel related to this advice because this is what my parents always tell me about what to say in an argument without resulting in any hard feelings.

When you're arguing with somebody, it's perfectly normal to rush to make your point, to point out that the other person is wrong. But doing so could cause hurt feelings. Instead of doing this, try asking about the other person's point of view might make them see that we are a reasonable and level-headed person. After listening to them yapping, you should point out their errors gently and proceed to make your point.

I think this tip is useful and applicable to social relationships. For example, when I'm arguing with my parents. They will first try to get their point across, i will try to listen to them, then i prove to them that i'm right. If i'm not then i get to learn new lessons.

This tip not only helps you gain more knowledge, see things in various points of view but also stops you from making a fool of yourself.

i feel related to this advice because i usually overthink about how different other people define things.

meanings of words are perceived by people differently, so this can cause high disagreements or conflicts between many people. To avoid this, you should rephrase their words and ask them carefully about what they meant. Although this might cause them irritation but it's better be safe than sorry.

for example, my parent told me to get them a bottle of water, but they didn't tell me specifically which one, so i ended up graping the wrong one. They were irritated and told me to get the blue one. I was a bit angry because they didn't say clearly which water bottle they really wanted. They could've save some time if they had told me specifically which bottle they wanted.

Applying this tip could help me save a lot of time trying to guess what other people wanted, and helps me avoid unnecessary arguments and hard feelings. Even though it might cause other people's slight irritation, i think it's very important that everyone apply this tip.

I feel related to this advice because i often find myself in an akward situation where i cannot say or do anything to relieve the tension.

Allowing room for silence instead of filling it with unnecessary word is the best solution for these situations. Silence helps people process the other person's action and words. This helps them fully finish their train of thought. Speaking when they're deep in thought will only result in their irritation and make the situation worse.

For example, when a youtuber is yapping to me about a crochet pattern that i don't fully understand. Even though she was enthusiastic and talks nonstop about how to form the pattern the right way, i was irriated becasue she didn't let me have the time to process what she said. Therefore, after the lesson, I can't remember what she said and learned nothing. I think she should've let people have sometime to figure it out first.

Implementing this stratergy helps you figure out many things on our own without relying on anyone and can avoid unnecessary irritation and frustration.

I feel related to this advice because i sometimes get defensive for no reason and everyone was like: "Chill bro". I didn't know if it was because of my ego or my fear or my frustration about something else.

Getting angry, frustrated, irritated is at someone else especially it's not their fault can result in hurt feelings. To avoid this you need to analyse the source of what you're feeling. Sometimes what you're feeling is only triggered by what the other person is saying not because of their action. What they said might remind you of an unpleasant situation you encountered in the past. Therefore, this causes anger deep inside you and makes you hurl those feelings at directly at the other person.

For example, my mom kept yapping to me how hard me sister study in university but she still got to sleep for more than 8hrs. I thought that however she studied she still got to be treated as a normal human being, unlike me. My buried resentment towards the overwhelming lessons was unleased and i had an argument with my mom.

Applying this advice helps me analyse my feelings, therefore i can minimise the damage before it was done. I can also keep my composure and avoid causing other people's hurt feelings.

i chose this because i think it’s one of the most reasonable things to do in any discussion. everyone really should do this more often in discussion. instead of trying to protect your own viewpoints at any costs, we should all try to open up and listen to what people have to say.

from what i understand, this tip is telling us to stay open-minded and ask questions in discussions whenever there’s something we don’t agree with or don’t really understand, instead of getting angry and start rushing to get your point across.

i find this tip very useful because first of all, as I’ve said above, it’s a reasonable thing to do. besides, not only will you be able to understand other people’s points more, staying calm and curious will also help others understand you more. such a positive discussion will likely lead to a more positive outcome.

someone: “you’ve been acting weird lately, please stop”

you being confused because you don’t know what you did but still try to stay calm: “hmm i’m not sure what you mean by that, maybe explain more about it? i’ll try to improve but you gotta tell me what’s wrong”

i chose this because out of all the tips here i relate to this (and number 8) the most. a moment of silence, in my opinion, is always a very necessary thing to have in any discussions, allowing both sides to have time to comprehend each other’s perspectives better.

from what i can understand, this tip is telling us to have moments of silence during any discussion in order to organize your thoughts and take in what the other person just said, in order to understand and provide reasonable responses instead of losing your mind and trying to protect your viewpoint at all costs.

this tip is so useful because:

• try to give your point while the other person is not listening will only anger them more. some silence gives both of you some time to think about what things have been said, what the other person said that we understand/don’t understand/agree/disagree.

• silence is always the best way to calm everyone down. (why do i know this? cus i do this too many times. whenever i try to protect my points the other person will only get more hyper and start going insane. if i talk less and only say important stuff, they’ll calm down, significantly, and actually try to listen.

someone: “yapping nonstop, going crazy to protect your point, trying to disapprove everything you say”

you: “calm down bro. stop a bit. let’s both try to think more thoroughly and not raise our voices at each other”

i find this interesting, cus this is something we always deny doing, yet always find ourselves doing it during discussions. i think we always subconsciously do this (we’re just humans, after all), what we need to try to do is try to organize our thoughts and figure out what are we getting defensive about and what are we hearing from the other.

from what i understand, sometimes we bring our own frustrations into discussions and act extremely unreasonable to others just because we’re upset. not only will they not understand us, but it will also make it harder for the two to get any points across in such a tense atmosphere.

i find this very useful because as said above, we subconsciously do this a lot. it’s important that we don’t let our negative feelings affect how we feel towards someone else that’s just trying to have a nice respectful discussion with you.

me raising my voice cus i’m angry with someone else.

someone: “why are you being mad with me? did i do anything wrong? did i say anything to upset you?”

me: “oh right sorry, nah i‘m just a bit upset about something else”

A reason why I choose this is just because I often find myself feeling fear of being judged. That's why I tend to avoid having hard conversation.

I just don't want to share and express my feelings and thoughts because in my mind those people will not feel for me. They might also look down on me and make fun of my problems, although they know nothing about me.

I find this advice useful because I just want to have hard conversation with someone who is patient enough to fully understand my problems - who truly want to understand me and appreciate our relationship.

I have the belief that people will treat me the same way I treat them. So I will apply this advice by being curious and ask for more clarification.

The expect outcome may be that I want to find someone who could be patient and sympathetic so that I could feel more comfortable to have hard conversations

i think this tip is fantastic. if we only focus on the differences between us and the person we’re talking to, we’ll have nothing to work up and we’ll just end up being frustrated. thinking about the similarities does the exact opposite.

from what i understand, this tip is telling us to find the similarities between us and the person we’re talking to while having a discussion, whether it’s an opinion, the conditions, some random thoughts or spontaneous ideas.

i find this very useful because again, if we only focus on differences, we’ll have nothing to build upon, and this will only contribute to creating more frustration between the two. thinking about similarities will make us feel like we’ve made some progress and this will make hard conversation feels a little bit easier to deal with.

someone: “this film is so bad”

me: “i don’t think so, but the plot certainly needs some improvement”

someone: “ye i think so too”

I choose this advice because I really think that silence is necessary in every conflicts. We could have time to cool down, to think carefully of what to say and find out solutions to the problems.

I think that when we are angry, we could say something that would hurt other people. Or maybe we could say something nonsense and embarrassing. And the fact that we allow room for silence may give the other person opportunity to cool down and fully finish their thought.

I find this advice useful, because I used to be very angry and literally say anything that I pops up in my mind, regardless of people's feelings. And afterwards they start estrange me or avoid sharing with me. So I think I should have taken this advice earlier so that I wouldn't have lost such good friend.

I think that I will try to keep calm and think carefully before say anything, even if there would be uncomfortavle silence.

The expected outcomes may be that I could make more friends and get on with my siblings.

it’s not hard to find yourself in difficult situations like this. we a lot of the times don’t think in similar patterns with others so there are things people say that we may not understand.

i think this tip is telling us to actively try to understand what the other person just said by rephrasing and asking the other person again to confirm that we do understand what they’ve just said.

i think this tip is useful because it’s so easy to misunderstand others during conversations, making it a hard conversation even harder. rephrasing and asking the other person again about the point they’ve just made makes us feel like we’ve made some progress towards a positive outcome.

me: “so what you’re saying is that this font looks bad on this background”

someone: “ye”

me: “got it”

i find this interesting. because there are lots of things that we ourselves are in denial and wouldn’t allow ourselves to think about it thoroughly just because it’s a hard topic that we don’t want to think about.

from what i understand of this tip, there are topics so hard that sometimes it’s not even easy to actually think about it. however, we must try to break this barrier, overcome this fear and actually address this problem ourselves and stop procrastinating.

this tip is so useful because we, as humans, tend to procrastinate on tasks that we feel are too hard. it’s the same about hard conversation. our laziness and fear wear us out and keep us from actually addressing and talking about it to ourselves, let alone to others. trying to break this barrier means that we truly make an effort to understand the problem at hand more and would help you to come up with something helpful.

me: “i need to improve upon my presentation skills. what can i do”

me: “i’m too lazy tho, let’s do that tomorrow, i don’t even know where i’m lacking at”

someone: “stop procrastinating bro”

me: “fine I’ll do it now”

I picked this tip for i relate to it deeply as i subconsciously stay silent during heated arguments in order to gather my thoughts and come up with what to say so that i don't hurt the other person.

Pausing a conflict may seem like delaying the inevitable but it actually means giving each other a moment to rethink and come up with solutions and/or rephrase how to communicate your thoughts in a peaceful manner.

I find this highly useful because it lowers the possibility of unpurposefully hurting your relationship and paves the way for solving problems without being controlled by emotions.

I already use this tip without really knowing i do it. I always take some time to think before replying during a misunderstanding for i know what being wounded by people not thinking straight feels like, i try to think of the least aggressive way to interpret my thoughts and ideas on the matter and if i can't, i'd just say i don't know what to say and ask what the other person is thinking about and how they feel about the situation so that we can calm down and take on the problem as adults..