Clip 6: Moment 1c

Catherine:

What was different? I don't understand what was different?

Allan:

It felt a little bit different. I felt less coerced, and it was ... I felt it was more reasonable for me that second time than it was the first time. The first time I was just doing it because you kind of trapped me a little bit. And I don't know what the difference was; it was quite subtle.

Michael:

I don't know what it was either. But what it might have been was, say, I may have been clearer than you about making sure that you were committing to that agreement, rather than complying with my suggestion. It’s a bit ridiculous to, so I pushed you … You only pushed him twice to make sure; I pushed him three times, and I elevated my voice a bit more each time to see, “Are you really sure about this? This is going to be a serious conversation.”

Catherine:

So it’s the checking out.

Michael:

So you had to bring yourself to it more each time; and each time you bring yourself to it, it’s less being compliant with what I want.

Allan:

And the other thing that you did is you said why it was, that it was significant to you. And so there was that sense that, okay, that’s reasonable for Michael’s benefit to do this, cause he said, “This is something that is quite important for me – cause I consider this an important conversation. And so that is what would work for me, so I'd really like to find a way around it.” And so there were probably greater rationale around why I should.

Catherine:

Is that the “respect yourself” bit of it?

Michael:

So part of that is also making it visible to the other person, by saying, “This is important to me. I don't care at this moment whether it’s important to you or not, it’s important to me. And I only want to have a conversation that’s important to me in ways that reflect that importance. But, simultaneously, I also want a conversation that’s important to you.”