Graham Price explains a powerful process to deal with issues relating to others

I’ve written many articles for this magazine dealing with issues relating to others, but never one that introduces a powerful process that I call ‘The Exchange Process’. Let me start with a few pointers raised in earlier articles.

The Philosophy of Determinism

We live in a determined world. If you haven’t read one of my articles about this, here’s what the philosophy of determinism says. It will probably surprise you. Most people spend their whole lives on ‘auto-pilot’. As a result we’ve always done the only thing we could possibly have done at every moment, given ‘who we were’ at each moment.

‘Who we are’ is primarily made up of our unconscious beliefs (i.e. our ‘auto-pilot’ or ‘mindset’) that drives what we think, feel and do all the time.

The only escape from determinism is exercising free will. Few people know how to do this. We need to be aware of what our auto-pilot is about to get us to do, choose not to do it, and choose something more powerful or productive in its place.

Exercising Free Will

All negative thoughts want something to be different. That makes all negative thoughts ‘wishing for the impossible’. It’s too late to change the past or present and, in the case of ‘worry’, we only ever worry about things we believe, at the time, that we cannot control. A four-step process called ‘Positive Acceptance’ will remove all negative thoughts from your mind: a) notice you’re having a negative thought, b) acknowledge you’re wishing for the impossible, c) drop the thought, d) refocus on anything you can do to gain more control over the future.

Conflict, or other challenges relating to others, is generally driven by a) our reactions to what the other person says or does and b) our perspective of the issue at the time. The best way to avoid, or resolve, conflict, or any other issue, is to a) own our reactions (recognise they’re generally our responsibility, even if they were ‘determined’); b) withhold any negative responses that may arise from our reactions and c) make an effort to understand the other person’s perspective.

The Exchange Process

The Exchange Process is a three-stage process that I give to my clients who are ‘couples in conflict’, though any two people can use it to achieve resolution of any issue they may have. The first two stages involve each person speaking alone. The other person can only listen and cannot interrupt, though they can respond when it’s their turn. In the first stage, each person expresses their perspective on the issue. In the second stage, each person can only speak about what they believe they could do to meet the other person’s perspective. Each share, and each stage if you wish, can have pre-agreed time limits.

The third stage is a discussion about possible compromise or win-win solutions to the issue. The whole process, or parts of it, can be repeated later if you wish, especially if pre-agreed time limits got in the way of achieving resolution.

These tools and many more are expanded in my life-skills training, called Positive Mind Training, comprising six webinars of 20 minutes each. The training is spread over several weeks to give you time to practice the tools. Assistants can see the entire training free. I and my team have a commitment to dramatically change the world by getting this training to one billion people in five years.

The benefits include enhanced motivation, confidence, resilience, ‘work and life’ satisfaction, improved relationships, and eliminating stress, conflict, regret, worry, self-blame and other limiting thoughts and feelings. That’s a total of two hours out of your life, spread over a few weeks, for a very major benefit. To see / hear what business leaders, the press and others have said, see www.aaactt.com/testimonials.

To see the entire training free, highlight and copy the following link into your browser  pj195.isrefer.com/go/org, then click on it. Select the ‘replay’ option to immediately watch a recording, though you can book a later time if you wish. You can ask your own questions during the webinars, but they’ll be answered individually by email after you’ve watched that recording.

Graham W Price is a chartered psychologist, personal and executive coach and development trainer. He’s an accredited member of the British Association of Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) and a leading provider of Acceptance Action Therapy ... (Read More)

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