Be compassionate for her situation but do not make the mistake of asking yourself how the situation would affect you if she were your sister, your friend, yourself. Your own sorrows will come in good time; don't be in a hurry for them.’ Instead, focus on listening to the other person. Listen, not to reply, but to understand. It sounds so simple, and yet it is the single most powerful thing you can do. Create a safe space, where the other person feels that they can speak their heart and be really heard.

In the end, human wellbeing is rooted in community and nurrtured by being listened to and understood." Respecting silence can be a challenge if there are several people in the conversation. You may need to be explicit, saying: “Let’s give each other time to think” or “I think we need a moment of quiet now”. Support, don’t ‘fix’ If you are left feeling unsettled by a conversation, remember to treat yourself kindly. Some people take five minutes to walk outdoors or to focus on their breathing. These “mindful moments” help us to recentre ourselves. Confidential debriefing with someone else can also be a helpful practice.

This is one of those books about listening that should be in every school, workplace, every home. It will also give you the confidence in your newly found listening skills to approach friends, family, or even strangers and ask them the three little words that can make such a difference to a person's life: Are you alright? This is a wonderfully practical book, well laid out and easy to read. The language is familiar and conversational, and the illustrations are a nice touch. Like a number of the books on this list, this isn't a title to read in one go and to put aside. It's one to put on the shelf and return to over and over again; as I said earlier, it's a lifelong skill that you have to work on to keep it sharp. Your relationships will be all the better for the work you have put into your listening skills. Throughout a number of poignant anecdotes highlighting good listening skills and different navigational approaches of tender conversations, you are given inspiring yet wholly applicable advice on how to talk about matters we often avoid or circumnavigate into a false positivity. These anecdotes include reflections on times where tender conversations were not navigated as smoothly as hoped, and these serve to remind us that we're not always going to get it right.

The way we listen affects the speaker’s confidence. If we listen as ‘experts’, the speaker may fear exposing their uncertainty, or they may move from useful problem-solving to seeking our advice. If we listen as ‘critics’, to judge or point out errors, they may fear exposing their mistakes. If we listen with a vested interest, they may feel unable to explore negative emotions or hurts.” Kathryn’s uncle would set a place for his wife who had died and talk to her during mealtimes. “He described to me the comfort he got from talking to her and of ritualising her presence in the house,” she states. He knew his wife was gone, and missed her every day, but when he talked to her, he felt her presence.When a doctor examines a tender tummy, he needs to be careful not to make the pain worse. We need to take the same care when approaching someone’s emotional pain, advises Kathryn. Including her own personal stories works so well, even showing us when she hasn’t used the skills herself, most notably on one occasion when she fails to tell a terminally ill woman she is dying. And it was hard not to be moved by the man determined to shave himself, a finally act of dignity before he died. I really liked the analogy of dancing and conversation - there are lots of different components, and the speaker and the listener can fall into step together. By bringing together stories with a lifetime's experience working in medicine and the newest psychology, Mannix offers lessons for how we can better speak our mind and help when others need to. To quote from my review of her first book: “Kathyrn Mannix is not a philosopher who has focused on death and what it means and how to approach it. As a palliative carer her experience has been gained from working on the front line, whether that is in oncology or in other fields for many years. Her wisdom has been honed and perfected, assimilated from colleagues and more importantly from patients and their families.”

I finished this book at the start of the week and have taken a few days to start really digesting it. I am sure, even though it is only March, this is going to be one of the stand out books of the year for me. Instead of “difficult” conversations, I call them “tender” – and that attitude can make all the difference. Invite, don’t insist A big mistake is trying to fix the other person's problems or offer false reassurances: "If you feel 'at least' coming out of your mouth, it doesn't matter what else you're going to say. It's the wrong thing to say," Mannix said. Helping them to look on the bright side is a well-intentioned, but hopeless and potentially hurtful strategy, she said. Avoid phrases like, "At least your wife has a job" or "at least you're young enough to get pregnant again," she said. Many police officers will recall the first ‘death message’ they delivered. In chapter three, ‘Building bridges’, the author recalls running away from a difficult conversation with a patient who asked her if she was going to die. Despite knowing this was very likely, Dr Mannix replied, ‘of course not’, removing the patient’s opportunity to say goodbye to her family. The patient died the following morning.The author, Dr Kathryn Mannix, started her career in cancer care and then moved into palliative care. She is honest and real in this book and give examples of how she got things wrong early in her career when talking to people in traumatic situations. She then explains how those conversations could have been so much better for all concerned. PS. If you find Listen interesting, don't miss her other book With the End in Mind: Dying, Death and Wisdom in an Age of Denial Mannix writes that this masterclass in how to listen shaped her work and this book, which is made up of a series of conversations and Mannix’s commentary on how they went. As a palliative care doctor, Mannix has talked to countless families about the death of a loved one. She realized that the techniques that she's learned are "not just about end of life conversations, but about all those conversations that we feel a bit daunted about."

People sometimes continue to talk to someone they’ve lost as if they are still there. It doesn’t mean they don’t realise they’re dead, or that they’re not processing the loss. It can simply be comforting ritual. We have to keep reminding ourselves that this is not me, this is not my dilemma, this is not my sorrow. If I’m truly empathic I will understand how great the sorrow is for that other person, but it’s still not mine. It’s theirs,” says Kathryn. Right now, there is quite likely to be a conversation you are trying to avoid,” writes Kathryn Mannix in her new book Listen: How to Find the Words for Tender Conversations, a follow-up to With the End in Mind, her moving and bestselling exploration of how to die well. “We all have moments when words fail us,” she explains. “This book is an invitation to notice and expand the skills we all possess.” Her book is a brilliant reflection on how we humans connect. Priceless. You cannot buy this experience, and you cannot buy the results you can achieve by practising what she suggests.I loved reading Crucial Conversations (by Kerry Patterson) a few years ago which talked about the practicalities of communicating well so people understand each other and can work well together. This one is just as brilliant, and focuses more simply on humanity. How do we break the worst kind of news to someone? How do we sit alongside someone who’s going through some tough stuff? How do we encourage our friends and family members to talk about the things that really matter without trying to fix or coerce or diminish what they’re experiencing in that moment? Getting communication right makes the difference that can make people feel heard, to understand themselves better and to encourage positive change for the future. When it comes to listening, I think one of the most integral connections we can have with another person is empathy. Often, we listen to someone else's pain or suffering but we don't know what to do. We want to offer our own experience of the same suffering or tell them what we think they should do to cope, but that isn't what the person is after. Including her own personal stories works so well, even showing us when she hasn’t used the skills herself, most notably on one occasion when she fails to tell a terminally ill woman she is dying. And it was hard not to be moved by the man determined to shave himself, a finally act of dignity before he died.I really liked the analogy of dancing and conversastion - there are lots of different components, and the speaker and the listener can fall into step together.