Hard Talks


Hello FPA Friends- and happy November! We’ve all just experienced the conclusion of a tumultuous election cycle. However you’re feeling about the outcome, you probably have people in your life who feel differently than you do.


I’ve been talking with a lot of people lately about how to talk to their friends and family about their political opinions, especially when the beliefs underlying the opinions are in stark contrast.

We want to be able to express ourselves, while we protect the health and the longevity of our most important relationships.

Here are some basic suggestions to make your political conversations more productive and less harmful:

  • Time, Place, and Temperature
Don’t attempt a conversation when you’re already emotionally escalated, intoxicated, or distracted. Choose a time and a setting to talk when you won’t be rushed, and you have the option to end the conversation should it become unproductive. I highly recommend your conversation take place at least over the phone rather than over messaging, and ideally face to face.

  • Check Your Own Intention
Why do you want to engage in this conversation? Be honest with yourself about that. If you want to engage to protect the relationship, great. If you want to engage to unleash your anger and frustration out on another person, pause. If you’re hoping to persuade the other person to see things the way you see them, pause. If you want to respectfully express your perception to serve the openness and honesty within the relationship, great.

  • Find Some Common Ground
In your conversations, listen for the other person to say something you can agree with, or at least validate. You might reflect a statement like this: ‘I can hear your concern about *insert whatever issue* and I’m also concerned about that.’

  • Speak For Yourself
Try to stay away from the “you statements.” You statements are about another person’s thought/behavior/feeling, while “I statements” are about your own thought/behavior/feeling.
Move away from ‘You’re wrong, you made a bad choice, you’re so out of touch’ to ‘I’m disappointed or I’m fearful, I have a hard time understanding, We both agree this issue is a problem, but we disagree on the best solution to this problem.’

  • Look for the Value
Oftentimes our most powerful feelings indicate some essential value is being neglected or dismissed. We only get defensive when we have something to defend. Our character or integrity, our beliefs, our worldview, our safety, our health are all values we might protect by taking a certain stance. Values such as equality, fairness, liberty, justice, independence, or community could be underlying the stance taken.
Be clear about your own essential values (concerns, beliefs, goals) and attempt to identify in your conversations the essential values underneath the stances taken that differ from yours.

I hope these tips give you a starting point for how to communicate with your loved ones about differences in political beliefs and perceptions. These conversations are difficult, uncomfortable and sometimes painful, but with practice can become less so. The only way to become less divided as a culture, less polarized as a people, is to talk and to listen.


- Rae Holliday, LMFT

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