I attend a 12-Step program and sometimes chair meetings. In an ideal meeting, the chairperson opens the meeting, announcements are read, the speaker shares, and then we go around the room and share what “rang a bell” in us re: the speaker’s talk.

The general rule of thumb when going around the room is that the person sharing should keep their comments/insights to 3 minutes. Some meetings actually use a timer for this. Occasionally someone will get long-winded and has to be cut-off by the chairperson. I always feel bad doing cutting people off, but when a family member shared how he does it at his meetings, it became easier to do.

He explained that it’s like a football game (oddly, neither of us are sports people!). Someone else has the ball. Your job is to take hold of the ball and pass it to someone on your team (the next person waiting to share). It’s about redirecting. Cognitive incision is about redirecting.

To me, this works better in a group setting. It’s when I’m confronted one-on-one with compulsive talker that I have problems. I refuse to stay in a relationship where I’m invisible, play no part, and make no connection. I had to give up one friendship because she’s a compulsive talker. I tried to work with it, but I just couldn’t stand it. In another case, a old childhood friend looked me up, stopped by without calling, and held me captive for about 90 minutes with incessant talking. It was clear that I wouldn’t be able to reconnect with her, so I simply didn’t respond to her overtures to rekindle the friendship.

Thanks for a great article. I’m sharing it on my Facebook and PMing it to a friend!