“We are on Earth to take care of life. We are on Earth to take care of

each other.”

-Xiye Bastida

Let’s dig a little deeper into a crucial piece of MI: reflections. Part of Assertive Engagement’s OARS practice, or, Open-Ended Questions, Affirmations, Reflections, and Summaries, reflections are closely aligned with the spirit of MI. Both reflections and MI center your conversation partner (or client), their goals, and their motivation for change (Burke & Hohman, 2014).



Reflections are useful in any conversation, but are especially so in motivational interviewing because they accomplish two things really well.

First, reflections show that you are listening. You aren’t distracted or waiting for your turn to respond; you are focused on your conversation partner.

Second, they reflect back to the speaker their own ideas and feelings (Rollnick et al., 2010). In MI, this is particularly important as the client’s ideas and goals are what motivate change (Resnicow et al. 2012). 

To use reflections, dig into your AE toolkit! You can:

1. Use the same language or words as the speaker
2. Restate the speaker’s points in your own words
3. Name the emotions or feelings you hear the speaker sharing

Reflections are great tools to use in MI and conversations with others, but how might you use reflections for yourself? Self-reflection is a necessary process for learning and growth. Without self-reflection, you might lose track of how far you’ve come, what goals you still want to accomplish, and what you need right now. Is it a time for rest? Or is it a time to put your foot on the accelerator? Self-reflection, or reflexivity, means having the capacity to examine yourself, your feelings, and your actions. One effective way to practice self-reflection is through writing (Lew & Schmidt, 2011).

Research has found that reflective writing improves learning outcomes and deepens self-reflective practices over time (Lew & Schmidt, 2011), but it is most useful when consistently practiced as a habit (Bailey & Rehman, 2022).

When practicing reflective writing, check out the University of Edinburgh's Reflection Toolkit (2020). It’s a simple process centered around three main questions: What? So what? Now what? 

• What? Describe what’s happening in the situation you’re writing about, and how you feel. 
• So what? Write about why this situation matters to you and others. 
• Now what? Consider what you should do next based on your reflections on the previous two questions. 

Try keeping a self-reflection journal this month, and drop us a line letting us know how it goes!

Affirmations, praise, and encouragement are all positive statements used to recognize the strengths and capabilities in other people. All good, right? Well, it depends on the purpose, the frequency, and who is being centered.

Affirmations are the A in our Motivational Interviewing OARS. Using affirmations is a way to identify a client's strengths and efforts (Miller and Rollnick 2013). Affirmations can be a reflection of something positive you heard the client say: "You said this is really tough, but you're willing to put in the work." You can also reflect back what you're seeing the client do: "You are persistent in your efforts despite having several setbacks."

What about praise? Praise is a way of expressing approval and admiration. The way praise differs from affirmations is that it comes from you rather than being a reflection of what is coming from the person you're working with. Praise sounds more like: "You got all A's this term, you're so smart!" or "I think it's so awesome how hard you've been working, I'd hire you!" Praise is conditional, based on your perception. Affirmations are reflections of someone's strengths or what someone is doing, things that exist whether you are there or not.

Let's stick with the example of a student in school. Praise is the "A+" and "Nice job!" written on the test, showing they got all the answers correct. Affirmation is the teacher commenting, "Look how much you learned" or, "All of your studying really paid off!"

The emphasis of affirmations is on the process of learning and the effort applied, not the end result of that one test. Their learning is the focus.

Encouragement is recognizing the strengths of the person and acknowledging how they can use their strengths to succeed in the future. Encouragement can be used to keep people motivated when they may be struggling. It could sound like: "You worked so hard to learn fractions, you can use that same persistence to learn division." Like affirmations, encouragement also focuses on strengths and process rather than the result. "Last month you didn't have a resume together and now you have three interviews scheduled, keep going! You're putting in the work and making progress."

We all appreciate a high five when we've done something great, but we also want support along the way. When we offer folks affirmations and encouragement that are unconditional–they can see their strengths in their success as well as in their failure–that will sustain them whether we are there or not.

Just like reflections, affirmations and encouragement are things you can practice with yourself. By engaging in a regular affirmation and encouragement practice, you can change negative self-talk into something more motivational and positive.

“Our lives begin to end the day that we become silent about things that matter."



-Martin Luther King Jr.

Crucial Conversations offers a valuable framework for leaning into conflict that folks at all levels of learning can benefit from. What makes a conversation crucial as opposed to frustrating, frightening, or annoying, is that the outcome of the conversation could have a huge impact on relationships between the parties involved. 

Crucial conversation: A discussion between two or more people in which they hold 

1. opposing opinions about a
2. high-stakes issue and where
3. emotions run strong

I’m sure many of us can think of dozens of examples of crucial conversations. They are an inevitable experience in our daily lives and yet research indicates that the majority of us are avoiding these conversations or handling them poorly, by allowing our emotions to run rogue. 

Here's the good news: the tools to get better at engaging around these challenging conversations are available and involve nothing but yourself and a growth mindset. 

A crucial conversation, similar to our AE toolkit, “starts with heart.” 

This is the book's mantra for acknowledging that the only thing we can control in any conversation is ourselves: “working on me first,” will allow me to have better interactions with others second. Like we’ve been discussing this year, the tenets of unconditional positive regard and self compassion are critical to maintaining a healthy heart set and mindset when having tough conversations with others. 



One way we can check our heart set is by taking a mindfulness moment to reset. Our tools of mindfulness, like breathing, walking, journaling, etc. can be excellent ways to re-center our mindset intentionally and give an honest look at our own actions and behaviors in crucial situations.

“Am I currently reacting with silence (avoidant behaviors) or violence (defensive behaviors)?”

Both silence (avoidant behaviors) or violence (defensive behaviors) are common, yet ineffective in resolving a critical conversation well. The key to a successful crucial conversation is in the dialogue, or the free flow of meaning between people.

“People that are skilled at dialogue do their best to make it safe for everyone to add to the pool of shared meaning. The Pool of Shared Meaning is the birthplace of synergy.” A diverse pool of meaning, one in which all parties are able to contribute their ideas, truths, and perspectives, yields a beautiful solution or outcome that is truly more effective than any of these ideas on their own. 

Over the next several newsletters I’ll highlight more tools and tips from this book on how to engage confidently in crucial conversations. Stay tuned!

Are you Multnomah County staff? You can borrow the book from the AE Library! Email aeinfo@multco.us for more information.

What's your style under stress?

Curious? Take this free online assessment!

I want to take a moment to offer sincere gratitude for your responses to last month’s newsletter. There is one AE practitioner in particular that I’d like to thank for their labor and bravery to uplift something that might have been very challenging. Challenging conversations are perfect opportunities to put some of these Crucial Conversations tools to use.

I’d like to share with readers what our beloved community member uplifted.

They shared, “I absolutely loved the [AE] training and the gentle way you all approached the content. I always read your newsletter, and this month something jumped out at me as perhaps being overly cautious to the point of exclusion.



I’m curious about the section about Women’s History Month and why you all chose to use the phrase “people who identify as women”. If someone “identifies as a woman”, then they are a woman, right? For me, this lands similarly to the outdated idea around “preferred pronouns”.

Notice the intentional effort to be compassionate, yet authentic about the feedback uplifted? This writer also took great care to share their personal experience of having interacted with us in training last year so that it's clear that the question comes from a place of curiosity and grounded in solidarity around the purpose of mutual growth. It's giving advanced-level Crucial Conversations vibes!

As a public-facing initiative, it can be tempting to resort to silence, and allow private conversations to take place and keep the pool of shared meaning between a small group of community members.

Where does that leave the rest of us? Silence doesn’t help other readers who may be struggling with last month’s article; if mutual growth is our shared purpose, that requires transparency to our entire community of newsletter readers. 

I want to acknowledge that though our intention was to encourage the celebration of all women and femmes in March, the impact was that some folks felt excluded in the language we used. Intention behind actions matter, but never more than the felt impact of our actions by others. We apologize for the unintentional harm that was caused and thank you all for your continued compassion and grace as we all learn together.

Spring Things

Celebrate Arab American Heritage Month

Who is Eligible?

All 3- and 4-year-olds with a parent or legal guardian living in Multnomah County are eligible. For the 2024-25 school year, children must be 3 or 4 by September 1, 2024. If you're unsure about your child's eligibility, check if your child qualifies. If your child receives a preschool placement, documentation of age and address will be required at enrollment.

For questions about your application or technical support with the online application, contact Preschool For All's Application and Enrollment Team at pfa.support@multco.us or call 503-988-7818.

When someone is sharing with us and our goal is to listen, we have to watch out for Roadblocks to Listening.

Many of these are helpful in some circumstances, but are not listening.

Which of these Roadblocks do you do

most often?

https://www.multco.us/assertive-engagement