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Mindfulness Activity

Observe

Imagine that within you is a spiral staircase. Winding down to your very center. Starting at the top, walk very slowly down the staircase, going deeper and deeper within yourself.

Today’s mindfulness activity is an observe activity. You are going to imagine that within you is a spiral staircase which winds down the very center of your being. Starting at the top, walk very slowly down the staircase, going deeper and deeper within yourself. Everyone get into your mindful posture, feet flat on the floor, eyes closed, hands in an open position. Take a deep breath in, and out, and begin.

Developing Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills

Lesson 10

(DeCano & Cook, 2015)

Today we will be talking about things you can actively do to seek out connection and support – this is highly relevant to resilience because healthy attachments and connections is one of the keys to resilience.

Summary of the Previous Lesson

Emotions represent subjective experience that combines bodily and cognitive reactions, are designed to provide us feedback, and motivate specific types of behavior or action

Emotions are functionally adaptive

Negative emotions narrow and positive emotions broaden

To have resilience we must manage intense negative emotions and cultivate positive emotions

To review from last week, emotions represent a complex, subjective experience. Emotions are adaptive and can broaden our attention and resources, but in order to have resilience it’s really important to both learn to manage negative emotions as well as cultivating positive emotions.

Summary of the Previous Lesson

Intense negative emotions can be managed two different ways:

If in a crisis – emotional temperature > 65 – then use crisis survival skills:

TIPP

Distract with ACCEPTS

IMPROVE the Moment

Pro & Cons

If not a crisis < 65 then use:

Check the Facts and then Opposite Action or Problem Solving

Positive self-talk

Mindfulness of current emotion: Wave Skill

When we are trying to manage negative emotions, we have learned options for skills to use when we are in a crisis (over 65 on our emotional thermometer) as well as skills to use when we are not in a crisis (less than 65 on the emotional thermometer).

Learning Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

Understand the need for effective communication in relationships

Know the difference between three key effective communication skills and when you would use each one

Use all three communication skills

Today’s lesson is about developing interpersonal effectiveness. After today, you are going to have a better understanding of the need for effective communication in relationships, and, you’ll know the difference between three key communication skills and when to use each.

Lesson 10: Glossary Terms

Developing Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills
Objective Effectiveness	The interpersonal strategy to effectively ask for the things you want and/or to say “no” to the things you don’t want.
Relationship Effectiveness	The interpersonal strategy that focuses on relationships: building and maintaining relationship while obtaining one’s objective.
Self-Respect Effectiveness	The interpersonal strategy that involves keeping and maintaining your self-respect while obtaining one’s objective.
Validation	Acknowledging the other person’s feelings, behaviors or opinions. *One can validate WHY someone did something without validating WHAT they did.

Don’t review these – students can use this slide to study for the exam, but all of these will be reviewed in detail during the course of the lecture.

Participation Week 10

When was a time you had difficulty communicating what you wanted to with someone you care about?

Big class discussion

Developing and Restoring Relationships

And yet relationships are really hard at times …..……………………

Relationships with teachers…………..

Relationships with parents……………

Relationships with intimate partners.............

Relationships with friends…………….

Relationship with ourselves…………..

How do we skillfully navigate relationships without completely giving up on them?

Interpersonal effectiveness skills are all about developing, maintaining, and repair relationships. Relationships do a lot to contribute to our wellbeing which is why it is so critical that we know how to have health ones. And, Relationships are amazing – they have numerous physical and mental health benefits. AND relationships are also HARD work (another dialectic). They require SKILLS.

How do we often communicate with others?

Are these effective?

If you think about the way we communicate with other people, how often are these effect? What is the message that is communicated in each one of these pictures? Are these effective ways of communicating?

*Instructor Note: “effectiveness” in any situation depends heavily on your goal, so students might say that hiding does help them successfully avoid anxiety or anger does get the other person to back down. If this comes us, explain that while it’s true that these behaviors might get us what we want in the short term, they are often not compatible with our longer-term goals. For example, avoiding doing homework might reduce our anxiety tonight, but it’s not compatible with the goal of passing the class, graduating, etc.

INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION TOOL BOX

DEAR MAN

GIVE

FAST

Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills

There are 3 types of Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills we are going to learn:

Objective Effectiveness Skills – prioritize getting the things you want and saying “no” to the things you don’t want

Relationship Effectiveness Skills – prioritize maintaining positive relationships while helping others feel good about themselves and about you

Self-Respect Effectiveness Skills – prioritize acting in a way that keeps your self-respect

Clarify Priorities & Integrate Skills

HOW IMPORTANT IS:

Getting what you want or saying “no” to the things you don’t want?

Keeping the relationship?

Maintaining your self-respect?

A key step in using interpersonal effectiveness skills is making sure you are clear on what your priorities are in a given situation. Is it your rights and wishes not being respected? Do you want someone to do or change something? Do you need to say no or resist pressure? Do you want your position taken seriously? Improve the relationship? Sometimes, you might have more than one priority, such as wanting to stand up for yourself to someone you really care about. In this case, we can actually combine skill sets to make sure both priorities are attended to!

DEARMAN

GIVE

FAST

Questions to Consider in Prioritizing Your Goal

Question: What do I want? What do I need? How do I get it? How do I effectively say “NO” (if this is your top priority – its DEAR MAN skills)

Question: How do I want the other person to feel about me? (If this is the top priority – its GIVE skills)

Question: How do I want to feel about myself after the interaction? (if this is your top priority – its FAST skills)

Before you can use interpersonal effectiveness skills, you need to figure out what your primary priority is. This slide provides the steps to ask oneself in regarding how to prioritize goals. If the goal is to get what you want or say no, such as asking for a raise or telling someone that you need to stop helping them with their homework so much, you are going to use DEAR MAN skills. If keeping the relationship with the other person or having the other person feel good about you is most important, such as resolving a conflict with your partner, use GIVE skills. If you care more about how you are going to feel about yourself or standing up for yourself, such as when someone is violating your rights, you’ll use FAST skills.

Once you learn each of the skill sets, you can also begin to work on combining them when needed. For example, let’s say you need to say no to your partner’s marriage proposal because you just aren’t ready yet, but you still really love them and want to keep the relationship. You might need to use both DEAR MAN and GIVE skills.

What Gets in the Way of Using Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills

Lack of skill: You actually do not know what to say or how to act

Worry thoughts

Worry about bad consequences

Worry about whether you deserve to get what you want

Worry about being ineffective and calling yourself names

Emotions

Anger, frustration, fear, guilt, sadness)

Not being able to decide – not sure what you really want or not sure how to balance the priorities

Environment

Other people are too powerful

Other people may not like you

Other people won’t get you what you want unless you sacrifice your self-respect

There are also many things that interfere with interpersonal effectiveness that we need to watch out for!

You might have a genuine lack of skill – you might have never been in this situation before and genuinely do not know what to say or how to act, such as the first time you ask for a raise.

You might have worries about what will happen, what the consequences might be, whether you actually deserve to get what you want, or worries that you will be ineffective during the interaction with the other person

The emotions that result from our worry thoughts can also interfere with our effectiveness because they are often associated with action urges that are going to take us farther away, rather than closer to our goals. For example, if you want to ask your roommate to do their fair share of the house cleaning but you are worried that they will be angry at you for asking, you might just stay silent (avoid is an action urge for fear) and continue to do all of the cleaning yourself.

You may also not be able to decide how to balance your priorities. It might be really important to stand up for yourself when asking for that raise or promotion, but also really important for you to keep on good terms with your boss.

Last, the environment can also get in the way. Sometimes other people have a lot more power then you do. Sometimes people don’t like you, which increases the likelihood that they won’t want to give you want you want. And, sometimes you are in situations where you cannot get what you want without sacrificing your own self-respect.

Obtaining your GOAL

Objective Effectiveness

DEAR MAN

What specific results do you want?

What do you want this person to do, stop, or accept?

The first interpersonal effectiveness skill are are going to learn is DEAR MAN – this is an Objectives Effectiveness Skill – it’s for getting the things you want and saying “no” to the things you don’t want

In your mind – identify a situation you had trouble asking someone for something you needed or wanted – maybe it was asking a favor from a friend, or asking a roommate to do something or stop doing something, or a professor for additional support or time, a sibling or a parent for an apology, a partner for something you needed to change in the relationship. These are hard things to ask for sometimes and it takes courage.

DEAR MAN: Asserting what you want

D	Describe	Describe the facts of the situation.
E	Express	Express your feelings with “I” statements.
A	Assert	Ask for what you want or say “no” clearly.
R	Reinforce	Reinforce by explaining what THEY will get out of what you want!
M	Mindful	Keep your focus on what you want (“broken record”)
A	Appear confident	Make eye contact, use confident tone
N	Negotiate	Be willing to GIVE TO GET

Here are the steps to using DEAR MAN. As we go through these together, remember that the DEAR is what you say, and the MAN is how you say it.

First, you are going to describe the facts of situation – be nonjudgmental. It’s important to remember that we often assume that people already know what we are reacting to, but this isn’t always the case. People cannot read your mind! You’ve got to give a brief description of what the situation is first, sticking to the facts. Next, you will express your feelings (e.g., I feel hurt). Third, you will assert yourself by asking for what you want, stating your opinion, or saying no clearly. Finally, you will reinforce – this means that you need to explain to the other person what they will get out of this situation or why it is in their best interest to give you want you want. We often aren’t taught to do this, and, it’s an incredibly effective way of increase people’s motivation to cooperate with us.

So let’s talk through an example. Let’s say that I want to ask my roommate to do a better job of picking up after themselves. I might say something like: I noticed that you left the dishes in the sink last night and your dirty laundry is on the floor in our living room. I feel frustrated and disrespected when you leave a mess in our shared parts of the apartment. I’d like you ask that you please make sure that you keep shared spaces clean. I really like living with you and if you are able to do this for me, I think it will contribute to a nicer space for both of us.

Now that we understand what to say, we need to think about how to say it. It’s important to be mindful of what you want in situations – sometimes people will try to attack you or justify their position which can get you sucked into a totally different conversation than the one you wanted to have. Being mindful means keeping the focus on your goal and being a broken record when necessary (asking, saying no, stating your opinion over and over again, ignoring any distractions). You also need to appear confident in a way that is appropriate to the situation – no apologizing for asking or for having an need/opinion, make appropriate eye contact, use a confident tone of voice, hold your head and body upright, etc. If you struggle with appearing confident, it can be useful to practice your DEAR MAN in front of a mirror so that you can observe your body language to see where you might need to make some adjustments. Last, you should be willing to negotiate when needed. This means being willing to give a little in order to get a little. Negotiating can also mean turning the tables, which is turning over some of the responsibility for finding a solution to the other person by saying things like, “what do you think we should do here? Are there any alternatives you can think of for how we can both get our needs met?”

DEAR MAN Really Does Work!

Hi Raphe,

I hope you had a great weekend away in the mountains! I have a group of students from Neah Bay coming in this week for the culmination of a project with UW undergrads. Our team is facing a couple of logistical bumps we didn’t foresee. I am also working to wrap up my final assignments for the last week of the quarter. I feel worried that I won’t be able to get everything done on time and frustrated that I’m not able to devote as much energy and undivided focus to my paper for your class. I believe I’ve been working very hard on my class presentation for this week, more so because its on a topic I care a great deal about. I am reaching out to ask if it is possible to turn my final paper in on Sunday evening. The few extra days would allow me to make it a stronger paper that could be useful for my research in the future. I understand it is an inconvenience to you to have less time to grade a lengthy paper and I know that if I have the extra time it will be a much more fulfilling read for you. Please let me know if this extension would work for you or if there are any alternative solutions that you think would be better.

Thanks so much,

Meaghan

DEAR MAN really does work and this is why we briefly reviewed it with you on the very first night of class as a skill for email etiquette with us! Here we have a real example of a DEAR MAN from a graduate student who wanted to ask for an extension.

D - is in red

E - is in purple

A – is in tan/brown

R – is in blue

M – Email is totally focused on goal and doesn’t include a bunch of extra information that would obscure the true point

A – Email is confident, doesn’t apologize for asking for help

N – Last line is an invitation to possibly negotiate/turn the tables.

TURN AND TALK - who do you need to ask something from?

Maintain positive RELATIONSHIPS while helping others feel good about themselves and you.

Relationship Effectiveness

GIVE

How do I want the other person to feel about me because of how I handle the interaction?

Next we are going to talk about skills for relationship effectiveness. The GIVE skills are used when the goal is to maintain positive relationships with other people while helping others feel good about themselves and you. The question to consider when thinking about using this skill is, how do I want THE OTHER PERSON to feel about me because of how I handle this interaction?

GIVE: Build and maintain positive relationships

G	(be) Gentle	Be nice and respectful. Don’t attack or use threats or judgments. Watch the tone!
I	(act) Interested	LISTEN and act interested in what the other person is saying. Don’t interrupt + keep eye contact!
V	Validate	Be non-judgmental. Show that you understand the other person’s feelings. “That makes sense, anybody in that situation would feel that way….” “That sounds really difficult.…”
E	(use) Easy Manner	Smile! Use humor and non-threatening body language. Check the attitude.

The G stands for being gentle. This means that even when you are angry, if you want to keep the other person feeling good about you, you should not use attacks, threats or harsh judgments. Watch your tone of voice here too – you want to be gentle in your words and your tone. It can help here to think about how you would want someone to talk to you if the roles were reversed and try to do that.

The I is for act interested. You need to act like you care about what the other person is saying and convey that you are interested in their point of view. Note here that you do not actually have to care, but the most effective strategy is to at least ACT like you do. Don’t interrupt them and make appropriate eye contact – show with your body language that you are paying attention to them and listening.

The V is for validate and this is a really important skill in itself for improving relationships and getting people to like you. Be nonjudgmental and make statements that show that you understand the other person’s feelings or behaviors – the key is that you convey that you UNDERSTAND, not necessarily that you agree. For example, it’s understandable that if you are having a big fight with someone, they might storm out of the room and slam the door, and, that’s probably not the most effective way to end the conversation. So validating in this case might be saying something like, “I get that you were so mad that you felt like you needed to just leave the situation before our fight got any worse.”

Last, the E stands for using an easy manner. This means that you are going to smile and/or use other types of non-threatening body language. Check your attitude and make sure that your manner is consistent with friendliness and caring, since that’s your priority in this situation. Use humor when appropriate, such as making a joke that eases the tension. Don’t make jokes that make the other person feel bad.

Example of GIVE

Supporting a friend who just broke-up with their partner

G – I am sorry to hear the news

I - I know you two were really close.

What can I do to help?

V - I can see you are really sad,

break ups are hard

E - What do you need from me?

Here is a basic example of a GIVE for supporting a friend who just broke up with their partner. We use this type of situation to illustrate that even when you aren’t trying to get something for yourself, these skills can be really helpful for interpersonal effectiveness because they help you be effective in situations where it’s sometimes hard to know what to say or do. Another example would be supporting a person who has just experienced a death in the family, major accident, etc. These are situations where even though the focus isn’t on us, it can be hard to know what the right thing is to say to the other person – the GIVE skills are very useful for these types of situations, as well as any situation where your goal is to keep or improve the relationship with the other person.

Providing validation to a friend

Before showing this clip – ask the students to look for scenes where they see validation. After the clip – ask them where they saw it.

Note: If your online learning platform will not allow you to play this video from the link embedded in the powerpoint, copy the link below and paste in into the chat feature of the platform you are using. Ask your students to use the link to view the video in their own browsers and then discuss as noted above.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

Six Strategies of Validation

Be Present by actively listening. Make eye contact and stay focused.

Be mindful of your verbal and nonverbal reactions.

Observe what the other person is feeling in the moment. Look for any feeling words they use.

Reflect the feeling back without judgment. Communicate that you understand how the other person feels. i.e. “It makes sense that you’re angry.”

Show tolerance! Validate the pieces that make sense not the pieces that don’t.

Thoughtfully respond in a way that shows that you are taking the person seriously.

Because validation is SO important in relationships, here we have six additional strategies you can use to try to provide validating responses. First, be present to the situation and with the other person. Stay focused on them and listen, even if it’s hard to hear what they are saying or there are distractions. Next, be mindful of you verbal and nonverbal reactions – make sure you aren’t making invalidating statements (e.g., don’t feel that way) or sending invalidating signals (e.g., eye rolls, long sighs). Try observe what the other person is feeling by paying attention to their face and body language, and listening for any feeling words they use. Reflect that feeling back to them without judgment, tell them that it makes sense that they feel that way, that most people would feel the same way they do in the same situation, or that their feeling is a normal response.

Show tolerance for the other person. When you are validating, you’ll be validating the pieces of the situation that make sense (being heartbroken after failing a test). You will need to tolerate the pieces that don’t make sense in the moment, but you don’t need to validate or approve of these things (not having studied for the test). Last, try to thoughtfully respond in a way that shows you are taking the other person seriously. Make sure you know what they need before you offer a solution. For example, a lot of times when I am upset I just want to talk the situation out with my husband, but he often interrupts me and starting telling me how to solve the problem. This makes me feel like he’s not listening to me and gets me more upset. Usually, I have to remind him that I didn’t ask for help solving the problem and I just wanted to talk it out. Ask the other person what they feel like they need. Do they need a shoulder to cry on? Do they need help solving the problem? Something else?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgQBPSECgZg

This is another clip from inside-out. Ask the students to watch how Joy approaches the situation versus sadness. Who is more effective? And why? Finally watch at the very end of the clip when Joy knocks over the boxes – why is it important that we can distinguish between the two. Debrief the video and what the students saw and heard.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT6FdhKriB8&t=2s

Validation: Honoring the Dialectic

Part of validation is honoring both sides of the dialectic:

BUT

AND

**Important to note: Validation does not mean approval

Validation is also a way that we can honor both sides of the dialectic in situations. This means taking a Both/And perspective. For example, if I say, “it sucks that you failed but maybe if you studied more” this is not a very validating response. It’s more validating to say, “it really sucks that you failed, and, if you study more next time I am sure things will go better for you”. It’s important to remember that validation does not mean approval – one can validate the emotion without validating the behavior the person did to overcome/address/avoid the emotion

Acting in a way the keeps your SELF RESPECT

Self-Respect Effectiveness

FAST

How do I want to feel about myself because of how I handle the interaction?

Last, we have the FAST skills which are for self-respect effectiveness. The key here is to consider how you want to feel about yourself because of how you handled the situation so that you can keep your self-respect. When we think about self-respect, it can also be really helpful to remember what our core values are since it is almost impossible to respect yourself when you act in a way that violates you own values.

FAST: Maintaining your self-respect

F	(be) Fair	Be fair to yourself AND the other person. BALANCE
A	(no) Apologies	Don’t over-apologize for making a request or being yourself. Don’t under-apologize when you are wrong.
S	Stick to your values	Stick to your own values and opinions; Don’t sell out or cave to try to fit in!
T	(be) Truthful	Don’t lie. Don’t act helpless when you are not; don’t make up excuses or exaggerate.

The F stands for being fair – this means that you need to find a balance of being fair to yourself and the other person. For many of us, being fair to the other person (not abusing them or violating their rights to get our way) helps us feel good about ourselves after the interaction is over. Making sure you are fair to yourself ensure that your own needs are going to be taken serious and prioritized in the interaction.

The A stands for no apologies – If your request is valid, do not over-apologize for making the request or being yourself. On the other hand, if you are wrong, don’t under apologize!

The S is for sticking to your own values and opinions. Don’t sell out or cave just to fit in with the group or because it feels uncomfortable to “agree to disagree.”

The T is for being truthful. Don’t lie to get out of the situation without dealing with it. Don’t act helpless when you are not to try to get the other person to back off. Don’t make up excuses or exaggerate.

Instructor: Give a brief personal example of a FAST from your own life. Here is mine: I was once asked to have a private conversation with someone, about someone else to try and solve a problem that we were all dealing with. I felt uncomfortable with the request which let me know that doing this would be violating my value of honesty and transparency. To handle the situation, I explained that while I understood why this person wanted to speak privately, I didn’t feel it was going to be appropriate to do this without the other person present. I said that I would be happy to talk but that if I had to keep this conversation private, I felt it would be better to just not have it at all. Here, I was fair to myself and I stuck to my values, but I was also being fair to the other person by being clear about what the options were and allowing them to decide how they wanted to proceed given my limits in this situation.

Example of FAST

Drugs

Nonconsensual Sex

Peer Pressure

Big Group Discussion: What examples of FAST skills have you encountered in your life? When have you needed to stand up for your self-respect?

(Make sure students can correctly identify appropriate situations for using FAST skills before concluding the lesson)

Summary of this Lesson

There are 3 Interpersonal Effectiveness skills for helping us with relationships

Objective Effectiveness – DEAR MAN

Relationship Effectiveness – GIVE

Self-Respect Effectiveness - FAST

Determining what Interpersonal skill to use – rank priorities of what you want

Today we learned about three different interpersonal effectiveness skills – DEAR MAN, GIVE, and FAST skills. Remember that when you are trying to use these, a key step is making sure you know what you priorities are in a situation so that you can select the correct skill or combination of skills that is going to fit best with your goals.

Participation Week 10

Which do you want to work on most?

1 – asking for things more effectively

2 – building and maintaining relationships

3 – maintaining self-respect

Big group discussion

Mindfulness Activity

Participate:

Standing on One Leg

Instructions: Our next mindfulness exercise will be a “participate” exercise. We are going to practice mindfully standing on one leg. If you are not physically able to do this, practice by adjusting another part of your body, such holding one arm up in the air. To mindfully stand on one leg, you will need to pay attention to your balance and throw yourself fully into standing on one leg. Everyone please stand up and find a pace on the floor about 5-6 inches in front of you where you can hold your gaze during the exercise. Practice being aware of the position of your body, the sensations in your leg, and any urges that you might have, while focusing on your balancing. If you notice your mind starting to drift to other thoughts, or if you start to have judgments, gently bring yourself back to standing on one leg. If you feel like you are going to fall, go ahead and put your hand onto something to steady yourself. If you have to put your hand or leg down, just notice it without judgement and return to standing on one leg when you are able. Now everyone take a deep breath in….and out…..and begin. (have students do the exercise for one minute and then say “stop”)

Debriefing: You had to be very mindful while maintaining your balance. If your mind were to drift to other thoughts or judgements, you would be out of the present moment of standing on one leg and could potentially lose your balance and fall. That is a key to mindfulness – maintaining your stance in the present moment. What did you observe about this exercise?

Role Play

Interpersonal Effectiveness

Brainstorm different types of arguments you might have with a friend, family member, or significant other

Remember - Identify your primary objective in the argument (objective, relationship, or self-respect)

Have each group member pick one to practice

Take turns role playing the scenario and giving each other feedback about what worked, didn’t work, etc.

After each role play – discuss the following

What was your primary objective and why?

Which parts of the skills felt natural? Which parts felt harder?

Instructor Note: Because practicing these skills is so important for generalizing them into students’ natural environment, you will use the whole practice hour to facilitate role plays among students. Each student should get a turn at being the one using the skill.

Explain: For the remainder of class you are going to be focusing on practicing DEAR MAN, GIVE, and FAST skills in your small groups. First, you will be brainstorming different arguments you might have with someone you care about. Remember that it’s important that you understand what your primary objective in each situation is because that helps you choose which skill set to focus on. Each group member should pick one of the scenarios to practice and every person in the group should get at least one turn at this. After each person practices their skill, the remaining group members should give feedback on how effective the speaker was. You should also discuss the following – what was your primary objective and why, and, which parts of the skills felt natural or harder?

For the last 10 minutes of class, have students share some of the situations they practiced as a large group discussion (if possible), what their primary objective was, and which parts of the skills felt natural, difficult, and why.

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