Encore: The Conversation You Have Been Avoiding for Years: Dr. Rick Hanson

2026-08-14

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Some of us will sit in years of low grade misery rather than have one uncomfortable conversation. Jen will be first to raise her hand. She has put off a confrontation so long that the frustration outlasted the thing she was frustrated about. Saying the quiet thing out loud is not only about the truths we tell ourselves. Sometimes it is the sentence we owe another person, the one we have been rehearsing in the shower for eight months and still have not said.Dr. Rick Hanson is a psychologist, senior fellow at UC...

Dr. Rick Hanson is a psychologist, senior fellow at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, and New York Times bestselling author of Making Great Relationships. He reframes the whole problem in a way that took the air out of Jen’s dread: confrontation is not a personality trait you either have or you do not. It is a skill, which means it can be learned and practiced.

In this episode, Jen and Rick explore:

Why relationships are built out of small back and forth interactions
The difference between what comes at you and what you send back, and where your real power lives
Rick’s five part checklist for wise speech, plus the optional sixth
What to do when a conversation goes sideways, and how to know your own lines
The permission to resize a relationship instead of ending it

If you have been carrying something for months waiting for the right moment, consider this a nudge and a toolkit.

Thought-provoking Quotes:

“Relationships are made from interactions. The gradual weight of interactions, for better or worse, over time shapes the relationship.” (Dr. Rick Hanson)
“What comes over the net is out of our control in the moment. But what we do at that point, how we respond, what we choose, that is under our control.” (Dr. Rick Hanson)
“Most arguments are about the past. They will never see it your way. The best you can get them to do is agree to something different from now on.” (Dr. Rick Hanson)
“I never get free until I identify whatever I was responsible for, which sometimes is zero.” (Dr. Rick Hanson)
“I will walk around with a conflict in my brain and heart and bury it until it comes out sideways. Because it does. It will find a way out.” (Jen Hatmaker)

Resources Mentioned in This Episode: