Posts tagged blogs
The normal you wish you were
The normal you wish you were

“It’s hard spending time with people who are the normal you wish you were,” said one of my closest friends. Her husband was struggling with a dependency on alcohol, and he found it painful to hang out with friends who could have a few drinks and call it a night. He would regularly talk himself into thinking he could be “normal” like them and just have a few drinks, but “a few” invariably turned into “too many” for him, and he would end up feeling shame about not being able to control his relationship with alcohol.
 

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Ashley Kirsnernormal, vulnerability, Skip the Small Talk, skip the small talk, small talk, no small talk, vulnerable, authentic, authenticity, weird, odd one out, fit in, want to fit in, I want to fit in, how to fit in, relationships, healthy relationships, isolation, isolated, lonely, alone, I feel alone, nobody gets me, blogs Comment
The fastest compatibility test you've never heard of
The fastest compatibility test you've never heard of

Okay, we’ll run with the title and make this quick. When someone new is entering your life, whether it’s a friend, a coworker, a romantic interest, or someone else you’re still figuring out how and to what extent you’d like to fit them into your life, try asking yourself:

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Ashley Kirsnerromance, romantic, relationships, relationship, relationship advice, compatible, compatibility, skip the small talk, metaconversation, metaconversations, feelings, Valentine's Day, Valentine's, Happy Valentine's Day, happiness, happy, happy relationship, how do I feel, how do I feel when I'm with them, How do I feel when I'm with, How do I feel, how do you feel, advice, love advice, should I stay with him, should I stay with her, should I stay with them, should I break up with, should I break up with my girlfriend, should I break up with my boyfriend, should we break up, breakup, breakups, break-up, break-ups, breaking up, healthy relationships, healthy relationship, unhealthy relationship, unhealthy relationships, blogsComment
How to ask for help
How to ask for help

Asking for help is vulnerable; when we solicit support of any kind, we open ourselves up to the possibility of rejection and all the accompanying feelings and self-judgments. So, it’s understandable that many of us feel anxious about it or have a hard time asking others for much beyond passing the mashed potatoes at dinner-- and even that can raise anxiety.

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Ashley Kirsnerskip the small talk, post, how to ask for help, ask for help, help, ask for support, how to ask for support, vulnerable, vulnerability, mental health, coping skills, say no, make it easy to say no, template, how do I ask for help, how can I ask for help, mental illness, blogsComment
How to write better e-mails
How to write better e-mails

“Tuesday at 3 pm is great. Thanks for your flexibility. Looking forward to chatting then.”


Imagine that the above e-mail pops into your inbox. Do you get the impression that the message’s author is actually looking forward to talking to you? It probably depends on context, of course, but stock language like, “Looking forward to chatting,” or, “Thanks for your patience,” or even, “Sincerely,” are so overused that they’ve mostly lost their meaning. Those phrases and others like them are the “small talk” equivalent of e-mail; they’re polite, they usually don’t offer meaningful content, they don’t require a great deal of thought for either person in the interaction, and they are often the easiest mode of communication for people who don’t know each other well. (We’ll focus on work e-mails in this blogpost, but everything here applies just as much to other types of e-mails or online messages.)
 

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Ashley Kirsnere-mail, email, how to, how to write better e-mail, how to write better e-mails, how to write better email, how to write better emails, better email, better emails, better e-mail, better e-mails, Skip the Small Talk, skip the small talk, work, communication, communication problems, communicate better at work, how to communicate at work, office, small talk, no small talk, develop rapport, build relationships, how to build relationships, how to maintain connections, connections, networking, network, stock phrases, client, employee, clients, employees, internal states, internal state, sound like a robot, warmer, how to sound warmer over e-mail, sound warmer over e-mail, sound warmer over email, how to sound warmer over email, blogsComment
Do you know how to "be yourself?" The question that will help you be authentic even when the stakes are high
Do you know how to "be yourself?" The question that will help you be authentic even when the stakes are high

“Just be yourself!”
“Don’t worry about what other people think of you!”
“Dance like nobody’s watching!”
“To thine own self be true.”


We consume these truisms from the moment our infant brains can understand them and we don’t stop until we’ve seen one too many cliché-littered Pinterest boards. But the reality is, if you’re flailing your limbs on the dance floor without a single thought of who’s watching, or who’s within arm’s reach, you might accidentally smack someone in the face. How do you dance like you’re aware that people are watching, but you know that you’re dancing for yourself, and not for them? How can you think about the space you're taking up on the dance floor without having it affect your self-expression? How soon until we're done with this metaphor? It's important to "be true to yourself," but if you’re not thinking about how others respond to your behavior, you might be missing out on opportunities to connect, and you may even hurt others or yourself in the process.
 

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Ashley KirsnerSkip the Small Talk blog post, Skip the Small Talk blogpost, Skip the Small Talk blog, Skip the Small Talk, skip the small talk, no small talk, be yourself, just be yourself, don't worry, dance like nobody's watching, dance like nobody is watching, to thine own self, to thine own self be true, oversharing, tmi, identity, holidays, Christmas, in-laws, how to talk to in-laws, authenticity, authentic, genuine, genuineness, relationships, relationship, relationship advice, blogs
The conversation hack you've never heard of
The conversation hack you've never heard of

Imagine you’re in an animated conversation with someone. You both laugh at something together, but then your chuckles trail off and you’re left in silence. What now?


Do you say something immediately? Do you wait for the other person to say something, no matter how long that takes? Do you jump in with whatever enters your head? Of course, it likely differs from situation to situation, but you probably average some number of seconds before you say something new if the other person doesn’t say anything, and you probably don’t stray too far from that average too often.

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Ashley Kirsnerconversation, conversation tips, conversation hacks, how to click with anyone, how to make anyone like you, how to make people like you, how to make people like me, conversations, conversation tip, conversational pause, conversational pauses, silence, comfort with silence, how to have healthy relationships, healthy relationship, healthy relationships, conversational space, Skip the Small Talk blog, Skip the Small Talk blog post, Skip the Small Talk blogpost, talking tips, talking, how to get people to like you, get people to like you, get people to hear you, I'm shy, shy, shyness, talk too much, talk too little, conversational control, blogsComment
What to do about anger
What to do about anger

Has your anger ever led to an action you regretted? Maybe you sent a text you didn’t feel great about, maybe some words came out of your mouth more harshly than you’d intended, or maybe your anger came out sideways and you spent some time silently fuming and distracted from your everyday life. Since anger can compel you to take action before thinking, it can be useful to have some tools ready for the next time you’re feeling peeved.

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Ashley KirsnerSkip the Small Talk, Skip the Small Talk blog, Skip the Small Talk blog post, Skip the Small Talk blogpost, anger, angry, feeling angry, how to deal with anger, how to cope with anger, mindful, mindfulness, deep breaths, deep breathing, I'm so angry, I'm angry, express anger, expressing anger, how do I tell someone I'm angry, metaconversation, metaconversations, art, music, calming, calming music, DBT, dialectical behavior therapy, coping, how to cope, how to cope with feelings, feelings, emotions, overwhelming, overwhelming feelings, I'm feeling overwhelmed, feeling overwhelmed, support hotline, hotline, suicide hotline, journal, journaling, free write, freewrite, freewriting, free-writing, free-write, exercise, Maslow's hierarchy, self-care, anger physiology, fight or flight, fight or flight response, rash, rash decision-making, decision-making, problem-solving, how to make a decision, how to solve a problem, how to be angry, healthy relationships, healthy relaitonship, how to have a healthy relationship, how to have a healthy relationships, how to have healthier relationships, how to maintain your relationships, how to maintain your relationship, how to have long-lasting relationships, how to have better relationships, how to make your relationship last, how to make your relationships healthy, how to have healthy relationships, how to make your relationship healthy, deal with feelings, how to deal with feelings, I'm furious, I don't know what to do, what should I do, explosive anger, What to do with anger, what to do about anger, what to do with anger, anger problem, I have an anger problem, I think I have an anger problem, do I have an anger problem, problem with anger, problems with anger, do I have a problem with anger?, vent, just want to vent, just want to talk, blogsComment
Potato chip connections
Potato chip connections

Chances are, you’ve had the experience of binging on potato chips or other junk food when what you really wanted was a meal. You’re famished, so instead of taking the time to cook something, you reach for whatever’s quickest, easiest, or most tempting, but you end up feeling like garbage. Connection can work similarly.

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Ashley Kirsnerconnection, connections, skip the small talk, Skip the Small Talk, Skip the Small Talk blog, potato chip, potato chips, potato chip connections, junk food, loneliness, lonely, how do I stop being lonely, how can I stop feeling lonely, learning, hollow, I feel hollow, I feel hollow inside, vulnerability, vulnerable, hungry for connection, Tinder, Facebook, social media, alone together, lonely in a crowd, alone in a crowd, isolated, isolation, social isolation, socially isolated, feeling lonely, feel lonely, I feel lonely, I feel alone, love, validation, learning process, suicide hotline, just want to talk, social interactions, social interaction, connected, feeling connected, how to feel connected, feel connected, rejection, rejected, social media addiction, social media addict, am I a social media addict, am I a social media addict?, wholesome connections, wholesome connection, potato chip connection, numbing, numb, craving connection, how to connect, how to connect with people, blogsComment