Welcome to HOTY – a blog dedicated to ways to Hold On To Yourself to stay cool in conflict. This blog is inspired by the book I co-wrote with therapist Judy Zehr, also called Hold On To Yourself, where we explore how conflict and stress are connected and how to create more self-regulation to co-regulate. The blog is intended to provide insights, advice, and practical tips to help leaders develop the mindset and skills needed to create healthy work environments for all. HOTY arrives every full moon, bringing you topics to strengthen your resiliency in conflict. At each dark moon, you also receive a second newsletter, more directly dealing with conflict and leadership. This second newsletter is in partnership with the On Conflict Leadership Institute and is entitled “On Conflict”. Enjoy both and please look around the blog – there’s plenty to explore & discover!
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The Power of Perspective: Collaborative Insights from the Johari Window
Starting last October, I’ve been teaching a 3-month program through the On Conflict Leadership Institute, called LEAP for Collaborative Leaders. Its ambition is to equip leaders who are already collaborative with the mindset and tools to build their own conflict...
Can We Shift From Situational Stress to Joy?
There is a phenomenon known as “situational stress.” That’s as it sounds: when something stressful happens in our lives, in our environment or in society, it can cause us stress. Straightforward. Situational stress can be anything and the most stressful are the...
Are You a Tempered Radical?
I’m pretty lit up these days after launching my first-ever LEAP program – Conflict Mastery for Collaborative Leaders. It’s been a dream of mine for years and it's been through the nurturing of the dream, and the good energy of many people, that this dream is alive and...
What is the Key to Happiness?
Health has always been a passion of mine and I love the connections between conflict resolution and health. What is clear to me after so many years in the conflict field is that when we are in conflict, we are stressed. When we are stressed, our health suffers. I...
What’s in an I Statement Anyway?
Many people have heard about “I statements.” As someone said to me recently: “It’s counseling 101.” Yet, I do see many people struggle with expressing I statements, or even having a common understanding of what they are. So, let’s start with the basics: what do we...
If Community Is To Be, It’s Up To Us
During the first week in September, I was helping my daughter move from her home in Amsterdam to take up doing her PhD in Copenhagen. It was a happy, and very full, time. She’d been living in Amsterdam for 5 years, and I too have gotten attached to Amsterdam and its...
What Can Make the Difference For Any Team You’re Part Of?
What if I told you, if you are a member of a team or a group, that holding Circle meetings could up your creativity and innovation? Would you believe me? Let me take you on a journey to show you how I came to that conclusion! Let’s start with a key finding from a...
Let’s Dialogue Citizens!
Traditionally, the July & August issues of this newsletter are my time to replenish - where content is slim & rest time large - to relax & reconnect with a larger meaning & purpose. As an experiment this year, I'm focusing on the theme of conflict...
What Is Human Nature & Why Does That Matter?
A friend asked me recently if I’d heard of Rutger Bregman’s book Humankind: A Hopeful History. I hadn’t, but my curiosity was piqued! So, I dived into reviews and Goodreads and ordered it from the library (still waiting excitedly!). What I did surmise is Bregman makes...
Environment & Conflict: Let’s Find and Focus On Our Common Ground!
In thinking about what I might want to say about the Environment and conflict, I came across a recent environment and conflict study involving 50,000 participants across 60 countries, including Algeria, China, Denmark, Germany, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Peru, and...
Why Bother Having a Can of Worms Conversation?
Why Bother Opening a Can of Worms? As a mediator and conflict connoisseur, a question I get asked a lot, when I am encouraging people to talk with each other, sounds something like: “Why should I even bother having the conversation?” “What’d be the benefit in me even...
What’s at the Centre of Your Wheel?
It's been remarkable these last few months to teach three teams the How to Have Difficult Conversations model. Individuals on these teams have created their own relationship with the material as they worked to make the tools and skills their own. One such person...
What Part Are You?
Last month, I spoke about the importance of being able to see multiple perspectives. In an era of information and misinformation, it’s become futile to convince someone of your point of view. There’s just too much data and it can be massaged in various ways to make it...
Are You the Leader We Need?
Recently, I decided to do a small experiment. I wanted to take what I know to be true about conflict management and how to have difficult conversations and see how it fits into what exemplary leaders do. Kouzes & Posner have studied exemplary leadership for over...
Are You Wanting The One Truth Or Multiple Perspectives?
In this day and age, trying to discern what the truth is can seem impossible. Did someone really do that egregious behaviour or not? Sheryl Sandberg, for example has come out with a new documentary on the sexual violence perpetrated on men and women in the October 7...
Let’s All Calm Down
“We have thought of peace as the passive and war as the active way of living. The opposite is true. War is not the most strenuous life. It is a kind of rest-cure compared to the task of reconciling our differences.” … Mary Parker Follett As I catch snippets and shards...
Who’s Responsible for Conflict Resolution Anyway?
Over this last month, I’ve had the privilege of working with a few high-level leadership teams. Each of these teams are made up of leaders who are responsible for leading their own teams. Together, we've been digging into the 8 step difficult conversations model for...
Shed Tears of Joy With Me
A short news story caught my attention recently. President Biden was seen on his way to Camp David peace talks with Bill Ury’s newest book “Possible” under his arm. Bill Ury is a big name in my world. He co-wrote the book “Getting to Yes” - the primer for...
Discover the Essential Role of Collaboration in Teams
In the last month, I’ve had the privilege of hosting conversations with two different teams in two very different organizations. They are both equally great. Each team is made up of collaborative, creative, savvy leaders. Each leader heads up their own team. Each...
Do We Need Each Other?
Recently, one of my favourite kind of leaders, the savvy kind, decided he wanted to invest in his team by doing my Difficult Conversations course. They talked about doing it together, over a series of weeks, with my support to help with integration and application. As...
How to Apply Creativity to Conflict
When I was about 20 years old, I hand-crafted a business card and wrote the words “Creative Solutions” as a dream business I would own one day. I had no idea what that vision would look like. At the time, I was working for a theatre company that would go on to produce...
I am Mammal
Who do you want to BE in conflict? When someone else does something that hits you as wrong, or challenging, threatening – how do you want to be in response? Do you want to be: Defended? Assertive? Aggressive? Do you want to be: Kind? Forgiving? Accommodating? In the...
Should You Rock the Boat?
My colleague Gordon White and I had a fascinating conversation recently with a leader we really admire. This leader has a collaborative style of communicating. There isn’t anything you can’t explore with this person: they are accepting, encouraging, listen well and...
Can you say: “That’s Incredible!”
Over the last month, I've been teaching about resiliency in two different contexts. Last week, I taught a two-day course on Resiliency for Leaders. Last month, I taught a similar course, based on my book Hold On To Yourself, to a group of employees. I'm saturating in...
Conversations as an Art Form
What’s become obvious to me as I coach many high-powered, heart-centered leaders and teams, is there are some fundamentals that, once mastered, take difficult conversations from stressful and destructive to flowing and constructive. That is, there is an art to...
Cultivate A “Yes!” Brain
Today I finished teaching a course based on Hold On To Yourself, the book I co-authored with Emotional Brain Training Master trainer and therapist Judy Zehr. The course was offered online weekly over three weeks to interested employees at a large organization....
Cultivate Your Being to Change
I recently attended a very stimulating conference, participating digitally while it was going on simultaneously in-person in Stockholm, Sweden. It was called Connecting the Dots – From inner growth to outer change. The conference was put on by a collective which...
Strengthening the Pause
This is the second full moon where HEN has dropped its identity: my old newsletter based on 3 topics every month: Health, the Environment and Negotiation. Instead I am looking to build my voice for you in the area of Health and Conflict. That’s still fairly broad,...
Has Conflict Resolution Gone Out of Style?
Welcome to the 11th edition of On Conflict. In 2021, Gordon White and I (Julia) created 10 articles we sent out each month, from March to November. At that time, we focused on the practical steps of how to face difficult conversations. It is a companion and...
Befriend Your Duck
Welcome to the first issue of HOTY and the 21st year of my newsletter. Today is the first edition of the new focus but really I’ve been writing about Health, the Environment and Negotiation every full moon for 21 years. Today simply marks the day that I focus more...
From HEN to HOTY
Starting the next full moon, September 29, the “H” in HEN: Health, will become the centerpiece and will be called HOTY. HOTY is the acronym for the book Judy and I co-wrote: Hold On To Yourself: How to Stay Cool in Hot Conversations. The theme remains the same:...
From HEN to HOTY
Firstly, I want to thank those of you who took the time to respond to last month’s newsletter where I first mentioned that HEN is going through a metamorphosis. I look forward to sharing the new focus with you, starting the September 29th Full Moon. That’s when the...
The Times They are A-Changin’
This HEN newsletter is going to be quite an unusual one! This is my 21st year writing this newsletter and it’s been quite the ride. There have been many changes in the world, and around me, and in my own life. Yet, through it all, I would have HEN. Each month, I knew...
Two Tips to Get a Collaborative Mindset!
In my How to Have Difficult Conversations course, the first video is about adopting a Collaborative Mindset before entering the conversation. Recently, two tips occurred to me about how to do that that: Tip One: Get Calm Firstly, having a collaborative mindset...
Have a Line in the Sand
I have been reviewing one moral guideline each month from the 6 moral guidelines from this article. In March, I finished the 6th guideline and decided to start them all over again. One moral precept a month. I want to remind myself and each of us, what to...
Havening With Your Hands
Keeping calm when we are triggered is such a key leadership skill and a key skill when navigating difficult conversations. A new technique I’ve come across recently is something called Havening It’s a simple tool that you can do in the moment, as soon as you...
Am I Really Scared of You or Am I Just Scared?
Recently, I had a difficult conversation with a friend. She was getting frustrated because in her mind, she believed she’d asked me for reassurance about some aspect of her life, and I wasn’t getting it. From my perspective, I wasn’t sure what she was asking...
Cultivate Radical Hope
Over the last 7 months, I have been reviewing one moral guideline each month from the 6 moral guidelines from this article. In March, I finished the 6th precept. I decided to start them all over again. One moral precept a month. I want to remind myself and...
I am Creating Joy in my Life
Last month, I wrote about the importance of getting clear on our “why” - the “why” of why we do things. What’s our higher purpose or reasons for doing what we are doing? What is our mission? What outcome do we envision? This exploration is something I’ve been on of...
Think with a Big WHY
A few weeks ago, I did a 4 day zoom live workshop with Tony Robbins. Yes, THE Tony Robbins. Like many others, I’d read his books, listened to some of his cassette tapes, seen him on videos. The man is ubiquitous! But I’d not had the chance to “feel” him – in a more...
The Immensity of the Change in Food Security
Over the last 6 months, I have been reviewing one moral guideline each month from the 6 moral guidelines from this article. Last month, I finished the 6th precept. And you know what? I think they are so important, I have decided to start them again. The more I...
Break Open in Case of Conflict
Mediator in a Box is a product I am absolutely in love with. Recently, a leader who took my short workshop that gives you an experience using the Box, sent this picture together with this comment: "My Mediator in a Box is mounted on the wall next to the fire...
Amygdala Hijacks!
When you feel like the stakes are high for you and you combine that with a feeling of threat from someone towards that which you care about, relationship can get impacted and damaged in a nanosecond. That’s often when someone like me gets called in to help, in the...
Act for the Future
For the last five months, I’ve been referencing an articleabout 6 moral precepts from the field of bio-ethics. The article suggested we hold on to some ways of being together as we enter these times of environmental collapse. The 6 suggested moral...
Who are your Saboteurs?
Lately, I’ve come across a few ways of describing that part of ourselves which seems to want to stop us from having fun, from thriving, from achieving our dreams and goals. Internal Family Systems talk about parts of ourselves which are protectors, distorted in the...