![]() ![]() I won’t stay in the conversation if I’m being sworn at directly. I don’t like it…but I’m willing to be around it as long as the conversation still feels productive. I’m willing to be around raised voices and general swearing. I want to be able to have an honest and difficult conversation with my child. Here's what it might sound like if I applied those three questions to my situation: This is where the practice of Want Want-Willing-Won’t might help as it encourages me to slow down and become more aware about my part of the situation and how I can respond within it. since I can't actually control their mouth! And yet… I know I don’t want to get locked into another argument… The problem is "you can't talk to me like that" isn’t actually accurate… physics, biology, and chemistry clearly allows them to do exactly that. If I take that stance in an argument with my kiddo I might be pulled to say something like, “You can’t talk to me like that!!”. In situations like this, one very understandable but unhelpful temptation is to focus on the other person’s behaviors. Let’s say my child and I have an ongoing pattern of getting into nasty and combative arguments when engaged in difficult conversations. We’ll expand on each of these questions in a moment, but let's take a bird’s eye view first. What is it that I won’t do… or at least I won’t let happen without a response? What am I willing to experience? (I may not want it… but I’m willing for it.) This awareness of what I want, what I am willing for, and what I won't do gives me a compass to navigate a path for moving forward, even if someone else is doing something I really don’t like. Want Willing Won’t is a set of questions that, when asked in any situation, creates clarity by offering contrast between what I am willing to experience and what I’m not willing to experience in order to pursue what I want. And when our boundaries are clearer to us they are much easier to set and maintain. Want Willing Won’t is a tool that helps bridge this gap between knowledge and action by offering a way to find greater clarity. Often boundaries are difficult to figure out and even harder to act on if they’ve been crossed. With new skills, learning the ideas themselves can be easy, but putting that new knowledge to work within our lives? That’s a whole different story!įor me, this is especially true in the work of setting and maintaining boundaries.
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