In this episode, psychotherapist, author, and TEDx speaker, Kerry-Lyn Stanton-Downes, returns to be relational and answer real questions about applying relational capacity to difficult conversations, provide respectful candor in ways that heals not harms, and create emotional co-regulation in the moments that matter most.

In the original conversation, Kerry-Lyn shared the 8 principles of relational capacity and offered to come back to answer audience-provided questions. This is that episode!

Four audience members sent in specific questions and Kerry-Lyn’s responses went deeper than theory. The questions:
➡️ How can leaders use relational capacity to improve emotional co-regulation?
➡️ How do you address someone's dysregulation with compassion?
➡️ How do other cultures develop relational capacity that we can learn from?
➡️ Is the choice between being right and staying in relationship actually a false one?
Thank you, Mark Meadows, Wynne Leon, and April McCormick for the questions!

Her answer to the last question revealed something I didn't expect.

Kerry-Lyn identifies the early warning signal we all recognize but rarely name: the moment "but, but, but" enters your internal dialogue, you've left relational curiosity behind.

The fix isn't trying harder to convince the other person. It's admitting your own defensiveness out loud, what she calls respectful candor. That single move to vulnerability disarms the entire dynamic and invites both people back to what they're really in service of.

Throughout this conversation, from ubuntu and whakapapa, from leader vulnerability to emotional co-regulation, you'll hear her eight principles of relational capacity surface naturally; not because she's reciting a model, but because she's so deeply embedded in the work that it's become how she sees.

If you've ever walked away from a difficult conversation wondering if you could have held your ground and held the relationship, this episode was made for you.

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Resources mentioned in the episode:
➡️ Kerry-Lyn’s Company: https://www.berelational.co.uk/
➡️ Kerry-Lyn’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kerry-lyn-stanton-downes
➡️ Kerry-Lyn’s Substack: https://berelationalnow.substack.com/

Music in this episode by Ian Kastner.

What Do You Know To Be True? is a personal development and leadership podcast for professionals discovering, building, or already living into their purpose and possibilities.

Each episode is a real conversation with a guest who's navigated their own reinvention: from discovering a talent built out of something difficult, to now using their superpower in service of others. Their stories offer new perspective, validate what you already know, and inspire your next move. Wherever you are on that path, these conversations are for you.

Each conversation gives you something real: a guest's honest story, a practice or perspective you can actually use, confirmation you're on the right path, and you're not alone.

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"What Do You Know To Be True?" is hosted by Roger Kastner, is a production of Three Blue Pens, and is recorded on the ancestral lands of the Duwamish and Suquamish people. To discover the ancestral lands of the indigenous people whose land you may be on, go to: https://native-land.ca/

Keywords
#difficultconversations #nervoussystemregulation #coregulation #personaldevelopment #leadershipdevelopment #reinvention #RogerKastner #reinventyourself