Intimate Conversation with Kim Barnes, RN, MHSAKim Barnes is the founder of Focus-Link providing workshops and personal training in communication strategies. Kim’s workshops have been called “energetic and motivating”. Kim has also written articles on communications and women’s health issues. Kim received her Masters in Health Service Administration from St. Joseph’s College and her Bachelors in Nursing from Hunter College.
Tell us about your new book.
Construct Your Conversations: Strengthening Relationships is a powerful, motivating, easy to read book that magnifies the complex intertwining of interpersonal communications and relationships. Communication and relationships are often treated as separate entities when if fact they are Siamese twins. They are distinct entities joined forever! It is not the words, but the affect of the words on our feelings that determine if relationships are developed or destroyed.
Ella: Finish this sentence for us-I am powerful because...
I am powerful because I have the ability to affect others by just being me.
Why is it important to celebrate Black History 365 days a year?
It is important to celebrate Black History every day of the year because every day of the year Blacks make remarkable achievements in every arena. The media focuses on what make sensational copy, but there are so many more dynamic achievements occurring that does not get the same attention. As a people, we are remarkable 365 days of the year!
I am powerful because I have the ability to affect others by just being me.
Why is it important to celebrate Black History 365 days a year?
It is important to celebrate Black History every day of the year because every day of the year Blacks make remarkable achievements in every arena. The media focuses on what make sensational copy, but there are so many more dynamic achievements occurring that does not get the same attention. As a people, we are remarkable 365 days of the year!
Conversation with Ella Curry and author Kim Barnes, RN, MHSA
Q. How did my writing journey begin?
A. At one point in my tenure as a senior manager, I realized that much of my time was spent on resolving conflicts. After researching and observing, I concluded that it all boiled down to the affect of words on our feelings that often determine our messages and responses. From this came training workshops that expanded to the book because I believed I had something powerful and important to say. From the time we are born, we are part of many relationships and I hope to be able to help someone keep theirs healthy, positive, and strong.
Q. What makes your book stand out and would entice a reader to pick it up?
A. Construct Your Conversations is full of information explaining what happens in emotion filled conversations and provides strategies for deterring negative conversations that can damage or destroy relationships. Absorbing this information and putting it into practice can drastically improve personal and professional relationships.
Q. Ultimately, what do you want readers to gain from the book?
A. I would like readers to understand variables that affect our communication hence our relationships. Variables such as understanding that we are in relationship because they have value to us: love, money, power, or information. Sometimes we do not speak up for fear of losing what we hold valuable so we hold our true feelings in failing to realize there is a negative price to pay for suppressing rather than expressing.
Another variable is anger. If you understand that anger derives from either an expectation not met or something we did not get, then we are able to manage anger because we realize it is not personal. The negative conversations are a displacement of feelings about our expectation not being met. We yell at the waiter because the food is cold. Yelling at the waiter is displacement. We are really upset that the food is cold. We yell at our children for getting a bad grade. It is not the child, but the lack of meeting our expectation which we placed on them to get good grades.
Choosing the best time, tone, and text when needing to address a potential or actual emotion-filled conversation is important in maintaining valuable, important relationships. Knowing how to have a “critical conversation” is key to addressing a situation without destroying the relationship. Developing “rules of engagement” prior to emotion-filled conversations can result in a win-win rather than a win-lose encounter.
Q. What advise would you give a new writer?
A. Three required tenets for a new writer is passion, patience, and perseverance. To be a good writer, you have to be passionate about your subject matter or characters. Lack of passion will be evident in your writing. The more passionate we are as writers, the more we let the reader into our world.
You must be patient with your self and your work. The devil is in the detail. Being impatience can lead to losing the small details that will enhance your subject matter or characters.
Perseverance is necessary when writer’s block sets in, others are negative about your venture, or there seems not to be enough time in your day to get the writing done. Overcoming these deterrents is necessary to becoming a good writer.
Q. What can we expect from you in the future?
A. My plan is to continue to write and about interpersonal communication and relationships; a series of Construct Your Conversations with your teen or your spouse. Each relationship require skills that will strengthen the relationship and save if from destruction.
Kim Barnes, RN, MHSA
kimabarnes@verzion.net
The book can be purchased from:
www.kimabarnes.com
www.amazon.com
Please join in the discussion by leaving comments or congrats below.
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