How to Have Stress-Reducing Conversations Podcast Episode

It certainly is, or it certainly reveals a different message than the culture of today is providing and to be able to create that environment through the love of the Lord in us and his Spirit working us, and that we get to then love others with that. And what a, what a different picture than what the world is offering today. 

Welcome everyone to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. Excellent as always, to have you along. My name is Matt Kaufmann. I’ve got three friends and gentlemen in the room here. Brian Sutter. Kaleb Beyer, and who’s that guy? Craig Stickling. 

Good to have all of you here. Yeah. Good to be with you. Yeah. Glad to be here. We’re going to talk about stress-reducing conversations. That’s the mouthful title. Okay. And I’m going to let Kaleb unpack this a little bit because this idea came from some of Kaleb’s teaching that I was privy to. While listening to him talk about stress-reducing conversations my brain kind of exploded in some ways of ah, that’s helpful. And then I thought, hey, why not throw the two of you guys into the mix here to have a complicated conversation so we can raise the stress level. Exactly. And then we’re going to see how well this works. Kaleb, we’re going to see what you can do. 

Yeah. So, Kaleb, stress-reducing conversations. Start with just a definition or how we should think of it. Yeah. So, as the name implies, it’s a particular type of conversation purpose of which is to reduce stress. So, all couples at some level have opportunity to have the how was your day conversation right when you get home or sometimes in the morning but at times, these conversations don’t lead to reducing and relieving stress. They can actually lead to additional stress or more conflict or tension. And so, the idea is how do we both have some structure but intentionality to have a conversation in this case in the context of marriage or a couple where it’s like, you think about, oh that was nice, this release of stress and tension of things that just come up during the day. 

This is a type of conversation that’s helpful. As you mentioned, the purpose of this conversation is stress-reducing. Because I’m not sure I will go into a lot of conversations with an objective or a purpose. Right. Communication is that large umbrella. We’re communicating right now. 

Well, we do that, but to have a specific goal. I’m entering this conversation with this end in mind might be a good place to start. Oh, I think it’s extremely helpful. Yeah. I mean, just thinking about all the different places it can go and if you’ve got all those options on the table, it’s hard to know where to go or where to turn. 

But if it’s like, okay, I’m going to just try to be a peacemaker. I mean, that would be one way to maybe define a stress-reducing conversation. I’m just going to try to be a peacemaker that at leaves gives you a lane to try to stay in, and then you can kind of see where it goes from there, because there’s some conversations where it’s like, okay, I need to maybe learn something. 

Maybe there’s a conversation where I need to direct something. Maybe there’s a conversation that I need to provide some constructive criticism. But we’ve got lots of purposes, right? Right. And how many times do we just respond? We’re really not even thinking about an end goal or a start goal. 

It is just we’re in the moment of something and we’re just responding out of the emotion or the feeling or the thought of the day. Yeah. So, let’s go more to that purpose thing, Kaleb. Stress-reducing. Give us some more ideals to think about this conversation should do the following. 

Yeah. So, certainly, the concepts of just active listening apply here, right? The whole idea of eye contact, presence, asking open-ended questions. In other types of conversations, you might be making a decision or even in conflict resolution, we’re going to achieve resolve in the sense of conflict. But one of the unique things about this is the stress-reducing conversation is about things outside the relationship. So, it’s very intentional about creating an environment where sometimes there’s stress between us in the context of marriage or any relationship, for that matter, but this is not about stress between us. It’s stress that’s happened outside of us that we’re talking about with the other. Right. So, in that way, we kind of get on the same team. Yes, correct, at some level. That’s a pretty important part of the process. It is to say, hey, we’re in this together. 

Okay. So, I think that’s the important mindset that I was asking for or fishing for, like what our purposes are. I think that’s a tangible purpose. Okay, in this type of conversation, stress-reducing conversations, we really team up. Teaming up is really big and what it means to team up. When you have a team, that means you have a common opponent and it’s not your teammate.  

Well, Craig, Kaleb brings a husband-and-wife lens. I can sure try it on in the family in other contexts, right? Yeah. Certainly, our children give us great opportunities to practice some of this, right? And they bring a certain degree of I see, but also their own trying to learn and figure this out as well. 

And the interesting thing I think with children or younger people, anyway, is the sense that when you think of reducing stress and they’re emotionally charged. Yeah. And those two things don’t necessarily play well in the same sentence. Yeah. And so, to be mindful of that if I’m speaking with my child that they’re going to be emotionally operating off their operating system, it’s going to be very emotionally driven and I want to be able to recognize how can I calm, how can I reduce, how can I minimize that emotion so we can actually get to maybe some meaningful content? Well, the other dynamic you have with children is you have a maturity gap, right? There’s a maturity gap that sometimes I find it difficult to be a stress reducer because I want to correct some things. 

Some of that emotion, as you mentioned, Craig, might not be in proportion to the situation. And if I don’t step into that on the same team, I become an opponent. Right. And I begin to react to it. Yes. Which moves down the path of becoming more critical or judgmental versus being in a space of understanding and empathizing. So, Kaleb, you just gave us another really important lens, right? Listening. Empathetic is in this category of stress-reducing and criticism and critical is in this other one. Okay. That’s helpful. Those are things we can tell if we are thinking along those same lines. It’s like you’re trying to understand or give them the sense of I see you, or I’d at least like to see you. If I don’t at this time, I’m open to trying to see where you’re coming from. 

It looks like you’re distressed. I’d be interested in you telling me about that distress. And I’m going to try to just understand rather than try to fix or figure out or problem solve. I just want to be a place that can hold it. Brian, we could try this on for size, right? Oh boy, Brian. I got this coworker that’s driving me nuts. Oh, I can relate. Okay. His name starts with K. 

I think this is getting a little more stressful. Yeah. Okay. Well, let’s play with that actually. As funny as it is. What would it look like to have a stress-reducing response in that type of situation. Because that can be real as you come home at the end of the day, right? Yeah, for sure. Right. You know, I did kid pickup today and this is what happened. Right. Or sometimes we try to step into this and talk about the stress, but it gets amped up instead of reduced.  

So, I want both illustrated. What does it look like to reduce, to step into that stress-reducing? What might it look like if we don’t? I’ll maybe speak into a little bit of what tends to elevate it. If we see it as something we need to speak into or what they could do differently. 

So, for example, my Allison’s telling me about the frustration of picking up kids. Well, you could have done this, or why didn’t you do this? Or, you know, you could have called here. So helpful, right? Exactly. You know what, let me tell you about my day and what was hard. This seems like pretty small deal. 

What was maybe small has now turned into a big deal. Yes, all of those things could be true, but they’re not helpful. Well, let’s just say a little bit about helpful. Yeah. They are helpful in a different conversation. 

Oh, right. They’re not helpful in a stress-reducing purpose conversation. They might be helpful in a critical corrective conversation, right? It’s like a continuum that we as humans tend to move along of either being in protection mode or connection. So, you can move along that spectrum. Protection or connection? Exactly. Okay. Depending on where you’re at, what your stress level is, what the relationship is, you’re going to be somewhere on that continuum. The more you’re at the place of protection, it’s going to be very difficult to be open to feedback, but if we can calm the emotion then you start to be open to connection and then you might be open to some feedback at that point. Yeah.  

Part of the conversation then requires us to learn how to tolerate uncomfortable emotions and sit when my spouse or my child or my coworker is really angry or really afraid, and that’s not always easy for us to just sit here without moving into correction mode or protection mode. Yeah. But focusing on connection when there’s a lot of negative intensity. Yeah. We like to think that we’re trying to calm the other person’s emotions, but the reality is we’re calming our own distress around their distress. Just calm down. Right. Exactly. I’ll show you to calm you and tell me to calm down. 

You haven’t taken it deeper. Exactly. We’re just getting started. Cut that out. Okay. But I do think it is a space to be, because I think for all of us, this is true. We realize we’re at places where sometimes we know we should think differently or we know what the right answer is, but we just need space to vent. 

If I could say it or just release it, I know this is not going to come out well. So, I think some of the stress-reducing conversations are that. I realize this sounds crazy, but here’s where I’m at. So, it really requires a relational intelligence that a person who receives a stress-reducing conversation is able to perceive it. 

So, I’m looking at Craig now because I do find this space with kids to be really challenging. Because they say a lot of crazy things. So, Craig, what would you be looking for? What would be some of your cues to engaging with a child in a stress-reducing purpose conversation? What are you going to need to put on the back burner? And then what are you going to put on the front?  

Yeah. I like trying to remind myself that they’re in practice mode. They’re practicing being an adult. So, what they’re doing and going through, I see that as practice, and not necessarily a finished product. But I see that as practice and they’re going to maybe struggle with some emotion identification. And so, you want to step in to see if they’re able to make that connection. And so, when you speak into it, well, you really sound like you’re frustrated or discouraged. Is that the right word? Or how are you feeling right now when you’re telling me about this? 

And so, you’re very intentional in checking in with that. So, that would be one of the things of the skillset to say, it sounds like you’re very irritated or it sounds like that was hurtful. Yeah. Is that good practice? I am trying to learn here how to do it. That would be good practice. 

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Okay. Because we can see something or think we see something, and that may not be accurate to them. We might say, oh, that’s an anger mode, but they might be in a different perspective. They might say, no, I’m sad and so we’re checking and connecting on that which gives some sense of being on the same team here because I want to know how you’re doing. Yeah. I’m not just going to tell you to stop being so angry or this conversation is over. So, you’re checking in with them to get that understanding. Yeah. It’s almost as if you’re giving them permission to have those emotions. 

Yeah. And you identify them together and work through them together. Yeah. And like you had shared that there’s a solution or maybe there’s a teachable moment to get to, but the door to the teachable moment is to acknowledge how you’re processing. I want to acknowledge what you’re feeling right now. I want you to feel that you’ve been understood and then that works as to, oh, there might be something else to consider, but your point is to connect first. Yeah. Then you’re in a better place to work the protection out.  

Yes, exactly. Or just help them feel safe enough that they can connect. They don’t have to go into protection. I don’t have to go into protection. We can just be here together. Brian, let’s go a little bit further into this. We’ve talked about the family; we’ve talked about the spouse. But this is how we engage with neighbors and the public, right? 

Yeah. Right. I mean, we live in an amped-up stress. Yeah. I mean, this is the only age I’ve ever lived in, so they tell me yes. They tell me it’s stressful out there. Yeah. Right. But I think just knowing that is a helpful thing and how that in general is the message out there. It is stressful and most of us would agree with that, even if we don’t compare it to previous generations. 

So, knowing that going in, again, like where we started, it gives us this category of like, if I can just be a calming presence. If I can help engage in relationships in a way that reduces stress, that’s a good place to go. So, then as I interact with people, hopefully my eyes are open to say, how do they seem like they’re doing? 

I might start with the assumption that they’re probably stressed but then check in and if I notice they seem quieter or they seem like they’re upset. Hey, how’s it going? I think that can be something to think about as we engage our wider world. Yeah, and what a tremendous gift we have to offer people, right? 

Yeah. We are to be a soothing presence. Right. Isn’t that what we’re talking about? Right. For sure. Because I think sometimes the assumption around Christians is that’s not what we do. We come in and we judge. We come in and tell you what you’re doing wrong. And if we can give them a little bit of a different experience of like, yeah, I think there is something that’s true, and maybe we’ll get to a point where I could share that with you, but I’m willing to start with just, hey, how are you doing? 

Yeah. Talk a little bit about that judgment piece. I’m glad you brought that word up because I think it has a place here. Right? Yeah. And we hear that. I think it’s a common phrase, right? Non-judgment space, right? So, let’s just talk about that. And it has a place here in stress-reducing conversations. 

Kaleb, do you want to take a stab at that? Yeah. So, I think part of not judging is to be able to create an environment where someone can be open in a safe way that’s not going to automatically lead to correction or even getting it all right. Because if you think about stress-reducing conversation, the idea is we’re coming in and we use a scale of some sort of high emotion up here and low emotion, whether that’s the red zone or in the green zone. And the idea of the conversation is in order to have a healthy dialogue in any type of relationship; we need to bring the intensity down. And what we find is judgment doesn’t bring the intensity down, right?  

It actually leads to separation, not connection, protection, like Brian was saying, not connection and so, yes, there’s a time for critical thinking. There’s a time to think through how this lines up biblically. Yeah. Right. We want to get there, and of course we want to move in that direction, but there’s a path that’s helpful to move there. And one of those paths is, I’m not judging you. I think that’s the other piece too is that I can think about a topic critically without thinking about a person critically. 

And so, in stress-reducing conversations, creating space where we’re together. I’m with you. But part of it is in the responsibility of the listener, right? To be able to create that space, like has been shared, whether it’s active listening. Would you say then part of what a listener does in a stressful conversation is separate the issue from the person so that they can be with that person, even though they may disagree. 

Yes. Is that what you’re saying? For sure. Absolutely. It’s important, and I think too, trying at least initially maybe to set down is this accurate? If we get caught on accuracy, then that’s going to make it very difficult for the conversation to be able to move from anywhere. Whether we’re having a conversation with our child, a spouse, or a neighbor. 

If we’re fixated on a hundred percent accuracy, that’s a non-starter for a stress-reducing conversation. That leads a little bit to a question I had. What makes this difficult? What is our mindset often or how do we think that maybe we need to change a little bit in order to engage stress-reducing conversations, and maybe being fixated on accuracy is one. Right. Would that be fair? I think so.  

Instead of maybe thinking, okay, right now I’m listening and trying to interact with emotion, and if I can do that, then there’s probably a pathway to being able to speak to the mind and the logic. But if I start there, I’m probably going to lose both. 

Yeah. And this may not just be related to younger people, but I think there’s certainly a degree of efficiency, right? We’re in such, go, go, go, fast, fast, fast, solve, solve, solve. Yeah. I can hear three words of what you’re telling me and now I’ve got a solution. So yeah, I’m now going to give that solution to you and boom, cross that off. Good job, Craig. And then we move on. Yeah. I’m all about stress-reducing conversations. Yes. But I’m going to do it along with a bunch of other conversations right away at the same time. Which I think brings up an interesting point to think about stepping into stress-reducing conversation, as just totally overwhelming. 

Then maybe just start with trying to stick in a conversation for a little bit longer than I would naturally like. We’re just talking about exercising muscles of being able to engage conversations, stay in conversation. And if that’s where you start, that’s great. This here, stress-reducing conversation has a lot more skills involved too. So, just start somewhere. It’s a good thing, I think. Yeah. That’s good.  

Kaleb, you alluded to this and really actually mentioned some do’s and don’ts as it concerns couples. Don’t talk about this thing if you’re going to have a stress-reducing conversation Don’t talk about this. Instead, you talk about some of these other things. As if to say this is something very strategic that couples should do. And so, I want you to speak about this as you recommend. Should couples engage in stress-reducing conversations in intentional ways? And how do you set that up for success?  

Certainly, they should engage. We all should. But for couples, I mean, because if you think about it, it builds that sense of connection, emotional intimacy, a sense of resilience, right? Who else would we want to turn towards when we are experiencing stress than our spouse? Right? And too often we turn to other things. We will find soothing somewhere. 

Oh, for sure. If we can find a way to do this as a couple—even if we start small—it could be very helpful. Beginning with stress-reducing conversations is a practical first step for couples. Stress-reducing conversations are times when couples talk about their day or concerns without trying to solve each other’s problems; instead, they simply listen and offer support. By practicing these conversations, couples can build trust and strengthen their communication. Over time, this can make it easier to address stress that exists between them in a different way as well. Yeah. Because we’re building those muscles of tolerating some of this intense emotion, but it’s not between us.  

Yeah. So, what I’m hearing, and let me check in on this, there don’t have to be topics on the table with stress-reducing conversations as much as you might like to get to the really hard topics between you. You’re going to need quite a bit of practice. Is that accurate? Or would you say there are topics that you just don’t do this with? Yeah, there are topics you don’t do. Okay. So, the way it’s set up is no topics between the two of us. If finances are a conflict between us, that’s not the best conversation. 

Okay. But hey, our kids could be one. Yeah, or something outside the relationship. Okay. But if it’s between us, it’s off the table. And so again, I think the idea is how do we bring down a little bit of the tension while there’s still some negative emotional stress there that we can support. You know that ability to co-regulate, to support each other and what you can be on the same team about is really helpful for me. 

That was an aha. I think there’s a piece of that, Kaleb, that parallels into even when we talk with our kids, it’s like we only talk with them about five subjects. And after a while they’re going to know, oh, here comes mom or dad and their stress is going to go up because it’s going to be one of those five things and I know I’m not going to want to know how this goes. And so in that sense, being able to expand past that and beyond that and create more of a wider breadth of care and insight with our kids can maybe help with the big five that maybe we do talk about from time to time. But if that’s all we talk about, that’s just what they see in us.  

Now a $10,000 question for Craig is how do you get into stress-reducing conversation when the teenager answers with a one-word answer and it’s a grunt and a groan and you can’t quite make it out? Yes. Wow. Let me get my paper to take some notes. There needs to be some verbal exchange, doesn’t there for this to really happen. Yeah. There actually needs to be some conversational skills to do this. I don’t know if it’s true for you brothers, but how often it feels like an inopportune time that they’re at the place. So there may be one word answers after school, but hey, 10 o’clock at night, they end up in the bedroom and they’re starting to talk and it’s like, are you serious? Yes. And so, I think for us, like how do we step into that? Because that’s not comfortable, but we have to meet them when they’re ready to talk and maybe the topics they’re going to be open to discussing are going to be very different than the list that we had in mind. Yes. True.  

And that’s a piece of connection, isn’t it? Knowing that their world top five things may not even be on anything that we could care less about, but it’s really important to them why that one person isn’t sitting with that other person at lunch and that just has them all upset and they want to explode into that. And just to be able to be like, alright, I’m glad to be here. Let’s hear it. Right. Well, something that’s becoming more and more on my radar is AI chatbots. AI companions. Yeah. Widespread. And they’ve got statistics already that three of four teenagers have already played around with AI companions, right? I mean, GPT will do it and you can give it some emotion, give it some personality.  

I mean, you talk about them having a place to ask questions, and as I hear this conversation about stress-reducing conversation, I dare say the AI Companion does this very well. Non-judgment. Empathetic. If you get your settings right, it listens, remembers, lingers. Will stay with you as long as you want to chat. Oh, yeah? Okay. 

If we don’t step into this as human beings, it’s going to get outsourced. Yeah. Am I right? Oh, I think so, yeah. Because all of us want our emotions to be regulated. We don’t like to feel distress. So, you either go to things that are healthy or unhealthy and as humans, what God’s created us to go to is each other. 

That’s how we’re designed and we want to be able to do that. You know historically we’ve gone to substances or other things like that, and now there’s this kind of in-between space that you’re talking about with AI that you kind of have the perception that maybe you’re interacting with a person, but you’re not. 

But it soothes me in all the ways that I’m looking for. Yes, exactly. And it’s going to be able to do this much better than any of us around the table. And if we don’t learn how to tolerate our own emotions, help them learn how to tolerate emotions and the difficulty of being in relationship. And that sometimes your parents, your coworker, whoever is going to really mess it up, and we have graced each other and how do we hang in there with each other? 

There’s a lot that’ll be interesting to see how we help ourselves as well as the next generation grow up in that? Yeah. Back to stress-reducing conversation. It is part of the skill of how we regulate ourselves to be at a place where fear doesn’t drive the conversation or correction doesn’t drive the conversation, but presence does. And even thinking about that, my mind goes to Jesus and the woman at the well. Right? Like he is such a Master in all of these things we ever talk about, but he is able to pick up this that she’s going to be in distress here. I don’t know if he was thinking about this or not but he gave her a different experience than what she thought. 

And so, you get the sense the guard comes down, the stress comes down and at the end of the day they have a conversation where truth is introduced and it’s actually relieving more than just further distressing. It’s just beautiful. And if you read that through this lens, it is like, wow, that’s who I want to be. That’s how I want to interact with people. Yeah. Well, the protection to connection works so well in that story, right? Yes. Even the disciples had a protective mindset like, who are you, what are you doing here? And all of that. Yeah. And she did too. 

Yeah. Christ had that connection that was able to disarm her protection. Which was just so neat. I think some beautiful hope here is as believers, we should be able to step into the stress-reducing conversation as well as anyone, right? 

And what a gift to offer our stressful world. Our neighbors. Our children, our spouses. Right? What an inroad into Truth. Yes, I think it is exciting. Another wrinkle that comes to mind here is just the reality that we’re not saying that you can’t share your opinion or your perspective. I think that’s actually a really important part of a stress-reducing conversation. Because one of the things that tends to increase stress is not knowing what the other person is thinking. So, if we can receive what they’ve said and then share what we’re saying in a way that’s helpful, that actually can be quite stress-reducing, even if it’s different than what they’ve shared. 

So, for example, if I’m in a conversation with another parent at the middle school basketball game and they’re frustrated because we should only be playing the kids that put us in the best position to win. And I say, oh, that’s interesting. I appreciate hearing that. From my perspective, one of my main goals is that my son gets the opportunity to have some character development. And so, I think that is served whether we win or lose. Okay. It’s just a different perspective and that can reduce stress even if it’s not necessarily the same perspective. 

Yeah. That’s helpful. It certainly is, or it certainly reveals a different message than the culture of today is providing and to be able to create that environment through the love of the Lord and us and his Spirit working in us, and that we get to then love others with that and what a different picture than what the world is offering today. 

Thanks, Craig, Kaleb, Brian, this has really been helpful, and I’ve really learned a lot. Going back to the beginning of what’s the purpose here? And I think I need to be more purposeful in my conversations, even the ones that I don’t initiate.  

And I think that’s a little bit the catchiness here, because these stress-reducing conversations, sometimes we didn’t ask for them. They came upon us. Am I wise enough to detect it, recognize my purpose in it regardless of what my frame of mind is. That’s going to be the test right there. 

Right. Yeah. But I think having the purpose is helpful because I think we’re always trying to evaluate what we should say at this moment and what should we do? And did it get it right or was that successful at stress-reducing? I think this is really helpful. And when we have stress-reducing conversations with our loved ones, with our neighbors, with our spouses, we have a better chance of having the next good, healthy conversation. 

Right? Thank you, all of you for being on. God bless you, each one for listening. We hope, trust, and pray that this has been helpful.