Conversations: an inspirational game

Description

Conversations: an inspirational game  is an extraordinary interactive board game designed to transform your relationships. You get to speak, be heard and have an authentic conversation with every person playing creation real connections for all who play.

Family gatherings often means getting together with the family and blended extended families, in this day and age. Funny how events such as Christmas dictates that we need to share this special festive day, with people we tend to avoid, or are not able to share the rest of the year. Christmas can bring mixed feelings of anticipation and anxiety.

Statistics have been reported that Christmas has the highest rate of stress, separation and even divorce, if not suicide. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics there are at present more than 2,200 suicide deaths annually in Australia. Not a comforting thought.

Relationship conflict is a key precipitant to self-harm, and we need to look at the core issues around this. In the true spirit of Christmas, this next couple of weeks is an important time to let anyone we know who may be struggling that we care about them.

In these days of perfunctory phone text messages and superficial social media blogs, have we lost the art of real communication and connection?

It was such a question, that Barry Auchettl, asked one night before going to sleep. Feeling overwhelmed with work, family and Christmas coming up, Barry dreamt that night, of a physical board game, where people came together, and had authentic conversations with one another.

In this dream, people were talking without being interrupted, and were really listening to one another, and applying what was said to themselves, instead of adopting a judgment stance. As a result, each person playing felt a strong connection to one another and it became apparent how we truly are connected by a cosmic thread, and are more alike, than not.

For the next three days, Barry, put down on paper the cards, the boards and the instructions for playing. Within days following that, he had already started playing with family and friends. The results that followed were truly extraordinary.

“I played the game with my three teenage children, two boys and the youngest a girl. The conversations moved from a few words or even a grunt to one of my sons telling his sister how remarkable she was and how proud he was of her. It then sparked of conversations that enabled each one of us playing to say how we felt about life and more importantly how each one of us could move forward. This ability to communicate authentically has stayed with my children even until today” said Barry.

‘Conversations’ is a simple to play collaborative board game with an innovative and powerful message behind it. That message is that that ultimately relationships are the most important aspects of our lives and need to be nurtured.  ‘Conversations’ build better relationships and allows each person the space to share their story.

Testimonial

 I have been using the Conversations board game for a couple of years with my family for entertainment and for improving communication and also with my work with youth and adults as a transformational coach and trainer. I find that Conversations allows conversation to flow much quicker and easier, and transforms, what could ordinarily be challenging silences, into gentle flows of conversational movement. I find Conversations particularly useful and effective when using the game at home or in the workplace with teenagers. Using the game as a tool to help teenagers to express themselves more fully and honestly is powerful. Conversations has the potential to help us all change the way that we communicate with one another across all generations- globally.

Adrian Hanks