Welcome back to day nine of ADHD and relationships. And today, we're going to take that last and final step on this process by putting all those things that we've been working on together. And it's communication. Now, this is critical for any relationship ever that you ever have. But with ADHD, it can be even more. So it can be hard when there's emotions, conflicts, social, and everything else in the mixture. However, in order to move past anything, and be in harmony together, in everyday life, communication is key.So I'm going to take you through a module that I really like I use a lot with clients. And it's called collaborative problem solving. And it's by Stuart Ablon, and Pollastri. To solve in any conflict or emotion, or in just any general day to day, coming together and being as one is the way you move forward. With both opinions, both minds both strengths, both challenges, and incorporate that together, to move forward together. So I'm going to take you through five steps of how to problem solve and communicate effectively together. And this can be used in general life, you've got a you've got make a decision on where you're going to go shopping, if you're having a conflict, if you're going to make a decision on what time you're going to go out for dinner. This can be used for absolutely anything.So step one, probably the most important is find the space. Make sure, before you start to communicate, you're in a space, it's calm, neutral, not too distracting, emotions and not heightened, everybody's calm, collected and present. If you're not, that's okay, come back and find a time that is, it's not just about where it's also about when. You know, that's when that pause in and check in with your emotions is really crucial, are the emotions too heightened to have this conversation? You know, maybe if someone's feeling rejected, we might need to do that reframing in order to have the best communication. Basically, a calm space where it's less distracting, and when it's the right time. And if a conflicts happened just before this, maybe that's not the right time. Take a timeout, agree on a time, a space to have that. Someone I used to know they used to meet on a carpet because they thought was neutral. It was a carpet in the middle of the house and they used to come together and sit on the carpet and that's when you would have CPS time, I really liked that.Step two. One at a time each partner has their say, in what has happened or what they want to happen or just their their communication. They say their views, their opinions, and they also can do it in a way that's good for you whether you need to say out loud, whether you need to write it down, whether you need to record a voice note, whether you need to draw pictures to show, you do whatever you need to do to communicate your opinion in your view and your emotions.And the other partner, step three, listens with empathy whilst the other person is talking. You take that step back, you listen with a non judgmental ear. You don't put in, you just listen. And you empathise, you give them time to communicate in their way. And you sit and take it in. And this can be one of the hardest steps. And when you've got that, acknowledge what they're saying. Even if you don't agree. "Yeah, I understand that. It must be really hard for you", "Wow, yeah. Okay. Yeah." just so that the person knows that you're listening. And then step two, and three, obviously, you need to do it twice for each partner. Remember, and that person is communicating. It's that non judgmental ear that we're listening and we want.Then when you both have had your say, step four, and that is when we collaborate and problem solve, we take in both accounts both communications and we come up with a solution together. You can use your strengths, your values, and look at your challenges and incorporate a new way forward, together. And remember, this is about compromise. Because both opinions, both views have been heard. And you bring them together to find the best way forward for yourselves.And when you've got that collaborative problem solving, you've got that idea: step five, you make a plan ahead to take the next steps and move forward. And in with that you can check in with each other along the way to make sure that that's happening. And there are the step five steps to collaborative problem solving. And communication building can be hard, right? It's not one way is easy or how it's a really hard thing, when you've got emotion and you've got an opinion However, when you take the heightened emotions out, your own agendas and opinions, and create a space to really listen and emphasise with each other, then the possibilities are endless. Because you're collaborating, you're moving forward together. And that's what we want here.At the end of the day, life is too short. And we want to have communication and be with each other. ADHD or not, you're here in this relationship. And you want to be here. So take that step to communicate together and move forward. If there is ADHD challenges here, and we're talking about the core problem, problem solving, remember to take that step where you separate the ADHD from the person and you collaborative problem solve to help with the ADHD challenges. To kind of end here, I want to just tell you about a quick story. There was two partners. One was really emotional heightened. One was very, very quiet. Never really thought that he could get a word in edgewise. They created a space once a week, or they sat down and they collaborative problem solved. They came together he was heard for the first time, she heard him. She was heard in a way that wasn't her emotions taking over. They found they worked at their strengths and they found that they could work together. And each week they still have this once a week of collaborative problem solving together. And it's not only helped the person with ADHD, it's helped the non ADHD partner because they're coming together as one to take that next step and live in a happy harmony relationship together.