How To Have More Meaningful Conversations

A good conversation will leave you craving for more. It will keep you satisfied even after the conversation is over. It will make you sit down and let it all sink in before you occupy your mind with practical issues again. A nourishing detox from small talk, as if you are feeding your brain a delicious, yet nutritious meal after having a ridiculously amount of junk food. Having a regular conversation is not particularly difficult, but having a meaningful one? That’s a special skill on its own.

It is especially a tough challenge that you are up against when you are normally not used to having such conversations.

What if it’s something that you lack having with the people around you when it’s precisely one of those things that surely will bring you closer to each other? If you happen to be the one having trouble initiating one – no matter who your conversation partner is – then it can say a lot about your own behavior according in-depth perspectives and what you are used to talking about. In such cases, you already are steps ahead for improvement when you are aware of it. It all starts with awareness towards yourself. If you are able to recognize recurring patterns within your own behavior, then you are surely able to work on your conversational skills as well.

An in-depth conversation requires more than one person to make a success out of it. It helps to bring the conversation to the right direction by staying open-minded towards the one who you are talking with. Sometimes it’s even easier to have a serious talk with a total stranger than with those who are the closest to us because of the fact that we meanwhile unconsciously have developed a way how we communicate with those we are comfortable with. If that way of communication doesn’t involve bonding by having meaningful interactions, it can badly affect the whole relationship in the long term.

Why do some people shrug by the idea of meaningful or deep conversations? Because of the image of pretentiousness that it is giving off, but mostly it’s because it is uncomfortable. Of course it is quite uncomfortable to express about what makes your heart beats faster or what keep you awake during nights. Sure, I get that if people get thrown off by the idea to be transparent. It is scary and not the most pleasant thing to do. But if we only beat around the bush with the people that we claim to care about, then how are we supposed to really care about and for them if we don’t even touch the territories that will put us equally vulnerable towards each other, thus increasing our chances to grow towards each other.

So, the question that comes with that, is: then, how to have more meaningful conversations?

How to stimulate to take each other seriously at moments instead of always joking around when it’s not the right time to play the clown? One thing is sure, it doesn’t happen overnight and it’s a constant process of reflecting and adapting to work on being a conversationalist who can both speak with consciousness and listen with care. What if you already excel in it but your partner isn’t?

Then, it’s up to you to ask the right questions. Don’t underestimate the power behind the right kind of questions. It can unscrew our minds and open an untouched part within us.

Don’t expect to have the same results when you execute with the same actions over and over again. Place yourself with your partner in a new setting when attempting to change the tone of the conversation.

The environment in which we carry out ourselves does influence the things we speak about.

Do you want more high-stimulating thinking conversations but fail to do so? Double check whether you should move the conversation to another place instead of staying comfortable inside your own bubble. Inside our bubbles, we act out mostly on automatic pilot and won’t randomly hold a mirror in front of ourselves to keep an eye on our actions. However, if we throw ourselves in the rabbit hole to confront the lack of meaning behind our conversations, we are exposed and out of the public. We would walk around with mirrors pasted against our faces to be aware of ourselves and our surroundings and act with caution by thinking long and hard enough before we even speak.

Again, we can’t move closer to each other when we don’t allow ourselves to speak about things that matter to us personally.

Clear out some idle chatter if you must.

And start a dialogue.