GRAND Magazine - May/June 2017 - 27

grand life

Even if you've washed off the
patchouli and put away the
love beads, chances are you can
still embrace discussion and
exploration.

Those who lived through the 60s may be familiar
with the work of Erik Erikson on psychosocial development phases. A pioneer in the field, Erikson was
at the dawn of American acceptance of psychology.

He posited that there are 8 stages of development-
of which the seventh stage is "care and generativity
(concern for upcoming generations) vs. stagnation,"
and the eighth stage is "wisdom, ego and integrity vs.
despair."
As older adults, we're moving into the wisdom, ego,
and integrity stage (while hopefully avoiding despair).
Optimistically, we're transitioning into this eighth stage
(which usually begins around age 65) by bringing with
us the care and generativity from stage seven.
We are the elders and the wisest of our tribe. We
can expect and demand respect-which, of course,
we may often feel we don't get from the younger
generations. As elders, we also have great responsibility. We must take our wisdom, care, and generativity
and incorporate it into our interactions. We must rise

above our opinions to listen and engage. We mustn't
try to convince; we must generate and facilitate conversations. It is our responsibility-especially as we
move into this next phase of life-to embrace our role
as elder, without becoming an old know-it-all.

Tools for having difficult
conversations

Everyone can follow a set of basic rules to help facilitate productive conversation and/or conflict. We call
these the Rules of Engagement and we expand on
them in our book The Heart of the Fight.
One of the biggest rules is to accentuate the positive. Now, this doesn't mean "sweep your feelings
under the rug" or "suppress your negative feelings,"
nor does it mean that we pretend everything is rosy.
Quite the contrary, in fact! Part of truly engaging is
embracing conflict and discussion. Accentuating the
positive means that we are open, curious, and willing to dig in. It's okay to talk about things-it's even
healthy! Celebrate that people are passionate enough
to care.

Relationships experts, world-class
coaches, and best-selling authors,
Dr. Judith and Dr. Bob Wright
are co-founders of the Wright
Foundation for the Realization of
Human Potential and The Wright
Graduate University and authors of
The Heart of the Fight
27 GRAND

MAY JUNE 2017

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of GRAND Magazine - May/June 2017