Tag: resolution
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When You Strongly Disagree with Someone: How to Find Common Ground
“The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.” ~Pema Chodron
I was recently having dinner with a group of friends, and I casually mentioned that I’ve been making more effort in my life to help prevent climate change.
Across the table, someone looked straight at me and said, “You know human-induced climate change isn’t real, right?”
I was shocked because I’ve known this person for years, and we’ve always agreed on important topics in the past. I immediately shot back with, “Umm, yes it is!” and proceeded to tell him exactly why he was so wrong.
I’ll spare you the gory details, but let’s just say the rest of the conversation didn’t go well. It gradually got more and more heated until we were the only two people talking (read: yelling) at each other across the table.
In the end, someone shut the argument down by saying, “You’ll just have to agree to disagree.” We both took the hint, retreated into our corners, and glared at each other for the rest of the evening.
A few days later, I was relating the incident to another friend. In all honesty, I was looking for an ally who would help stoke my righteous indignation. But instead of nodding and agreeing with me, she said, “It sounds a lot like you were trying to force your beliefs on him and got mad when he wouldn’t back down.”
This comment stuck with me, and over time I was forced to admit she was correct. I was so caught up in being right that I had refused to accept anyone could believe differently. Even worse, emotion had completely taken over, and I’d made no effort to find common ground or try and see things from a different perspective.
In hindsight, I’ve realized I was missing the larger truth that we all believe we are seeing the world as it should be. Our entrenched beliefs become part of our identity because they help us make sense of the chaotic world we live in. And when someone holds a radically different view to our own, it shakes the foundation of our own beliefs and makes us feel off balance and insecure.
But the good news is, no matter how differently you see the world from someone else, there’s always a way to find some common ground. Here are six tips I’ve learned to help have productive, respectful conversations and open your mind to different perspectives.
1. Focus on the outcome.
When you get bogged down arguing about specifics, take the argument up as many levels as you need until you find common ground.
For example, in the case of climate change, we could have both easily agreed that the environment is important and we want to leave the world a better place for our kids. We just have different views on how to get there. This is a great way to reset the conversation because you’re focused on discussing the outcome rather than winning the argument.
2. Understand their perspective.
Learning the underlying reason why someone believes something can help you see a different side of the issue. It might not change your mind, but it will help you treat the other person with more empathy and give you fresh ideas to discuss.
For example, someone’s refusal to accept climate change might be caused by concern about the negative effects it will have on their life. Maybe transitioning to renewable energy means they will lose their job or be forced to change their lifestyle in ways they don’t want to accept.
If you can understand these underlying concerns, you’ll be much more likely to find common ground and have a productive discussion.
3. Separate emotion from logic.
A stressful argument can hijack the prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain responsible for critical thinking and decision-making. When this happens, you go into “fight or flight” mode and become more likely to react emotionally, think less creatively, and say things without thinking them through.
The next time you find yourself getting angry or defensive in an argument, take a step back and try to de-escalate your emotions by acknowledging them. Once you’re feeling more logical and calm, you can start to look for common ground again.
4. Practice active listening.
Active listening is a communication technique that involves hearing, paraphrasing, and responding to what the other person is saying. It’s an essential skill for finding common ground because it shows that you’re genuinely interested in understanding their perspective.
The next time you’re in an argument, try repeating back what the other person has said in different words to make sure you’ve understood them correctly. Then, add your perspective to what they’ve said. For example, “I can see why you feel that way, but I also think…”
5. Be mindful of your own biases.
We all have biases—it’s part of being human. We want to win arguments, be right, and be liked, so it’s easy to fall into the trap of only listening to information that supports our point of view.
In this case, I was forced to admit that I haven’t actually read any of the climate change research myself. My beliefs are almost entirely based on existing in a bubble with other like-minded people who reinforce those beliefs.
Exposing yourself to different perspectives—even if you don’t agree with them—can help you think more critically about your own beliefs. It might even help you find common ground where you thought there was none.
6. Remember that differing views are important.
If everyone agreed on everything, the world would be a pretty boring place. But even more importantly, differing ideas help to push society forward. They challenge us to think critically about our own beliefs and come up with new solutions to problems.
So the next time you find yourself in an argument with someone, try to see it as an opportunity to learn and grow rather than a chance to prove your point. You might just be surprised at how much common ground you can find.
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What Your Anger Is Trying to Tell You and How to Hear It
“When we embrace anger and take good care of our anger, we obtain relief. We can look deeply into it and gain many insights.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
It just took a few words from my husband before I felt my body move from calm to a boiling cauldron of rage. My whole being was alight, in flames. Energy felt like it was moving through me and shattering everything inside me.
I hated it. Anger is so intense, and so big, that most of us can’t bear to feel it in our bodies.
I wanted to do a lot of things—shout at him, throw things, scream the house down, offer rageful thoughts to anyone who would listen.
I wanted this anger out of my body. NOW.
In the past I have reacted to these inner sensations and launched arguments that could last hours or even days. I would rarely get anything other than anger back from my husband, and a continuous wrangling over who was wrong and why.
It was painful and corroding to our relationship, feeling like a bomb would go off and we would spend days dealing with the damage.
Until I learned that the source of my anger wasn’t my husband. Or my kids, or that person on Facebook, or politicians or corrupt business people.
The source of my anger wasn’t outside of me, but within. And it was situations that were activating this anger. Until I learned how to deal with the anger, it would keep coming up over and over again, in ways that felt too overwhelming and painful for me.
I was suppressing anger most of the time because I didn’t feel safe letting it out, but when it did come out it felt too strong and too damaging. It felt repulsive, overwhelming, dominating.
Boiling rage. Painful flames of righteous anger tearing through my body. A sensation that the anger was smashing bits inside me.
Anger is a hard emotion for most of us to feel. It’s got so much energy, so much force, so much intensity to it. And as an emotion, if we express anger, we usually get the most negative response back.
Anger is frightening. It’s unbearable to hear, it sends shivers through us if we walk past someone angry and fuming.
But when we suppress anger, when we don’t allow it to come up it gets trapped in our bodies, the energy of it creating havoc inside. For me it felt like it was trapped in my jaw, which was so often sore from clenching and squeezing my muscles.
I didn’t want to feel overwhelmed by anger anymore. I wanted to be a woman who could be with it, feel it, and not explode or fall apart or trap its tension in my body.
I started to become intimate and friendly with my anger. I started to recognize when it was coming up in my body—in small doses sometimes, activating minor annoyances in my life.
“Oh, anger! There you are, I see you lurking there in the shadows.”
And the times when I would feel a huge surge of it in my body, when my kids would say something, or I’d receive an unpleasant email or read something on Facebook.
“Oh, lots of anger here now! Okay, I see your anger. You’re here, I understand.”
And by noticing when it came up inside of me, I began to see how often it was a thread in my life. And by noticing it I started, in a small way, to provide some relief for myself.
The thing that I would then do, which made such a beautiful and healing difference, especially when huge surges of anger came my way—like when my husband said that thing and I wanted to shout shout shout at him—is to give myself time, space, love and support
I stay with myself and don’t react externally.
I don’t blame what I see as the source of my anger, but really isn’t.
I tend to myself with a loving touch of my heart. (When touch on the body lasts over twenty seconds it releases oxytocin, the love hormone.)
I give myself loving words—Di, I see this anger is really painful. It’s so big, so overwhelming.
I ask myself, where is this in my body, how is it feeling?
All of this attention on myself, at my reactions and how I am feeling, gives my body the signal that I am being deeply and lovingly cared for. I am safe to feel this feeling.
I might do some relaxing breathing, giving a short inhale, followed by a long exhale which activates the rest-and-relax mode.
I stay with myself as long as the emotion is there. “I’ve got you, Di! I can be with you through this feeling. I love you, Di.”
And if I need to move and do something to help the energy pass through me, I do. I go for a walk, smash some rocks, squeeze or punch a pillow.
Why this is so very important, why this makes so much of a difference in how we handle our emotions, is that it gives us the chance to let the energy of the emotion pass through. And when we do this repeatedly, we teach our system that emotions like anger are safe to be experienced, that we can hold and support ourselves through what life brings us.
It also doesn’t make the situation worse by exploding at the person who may or may not have said or done something you didn’t like.
If this is a situation that needs to be sorted out, if what was said or done needs discussion, it is infinitely more effective to wait for your anger to move through you until you are out the other side, than to talk to someone when you are in a rage.
That’s because you are highly likely to activate their anger, as anger in others can feel like an attack on ourselves.
And when we are deeply emotional, we can’t truly hear and empathize with other people, so we are just giving a speech, which the other person can’t hear if they’re also emotional!
We risk escalating the situation further by saying and doing things we deeply regret. And, of course, we can also put ourselves in danger.
If we want to be truly heard by someone, and if we want to create change, we have to wait until the emotion has passed. Then we have the best possible chance of coming to a positive agreement with someone else about what we didn’t like or want.
Anger, like all emotions, can give us a unique understanding of what needs we have that aren’t being met. When we see the roots of what has activated the anger, we can see that there are often unmet needs to explore.
For me, after that big rageful explosion, after I moved through the flames of anger and out the other side, I saw that I wanted more private space for myself to work uninterrupted so I could fully concentrate.
It was a need I had been thinking about on and off for a while, but that I hadn’t really realized that it was upsetting me. It gave me the sense that I was last on the priority list as everyone else in the family had a space for private time.
And so seeing that, I could then work on meeting that need, and reducing the chances of anger being activated around that subject again.
Anger, what are you trying to tell me? I asked, and it told me.
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How to Move On When You’re Hurt and Waiting for Closure
“Letting go gives us freedom and freedom is the only condition for happiness.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
Ah, closure. That feeling of vindication, or a sense of completion—it can be very enticing!
There are times when seeking resolution is really important. If we are having an argument with our partner, settling it can help strengthen our relationship. If we are having a disagreement over a contract, determining the outcome may be required to continue with the project at hand.
In these types of situations, seeking resolution is very relevant.
That said, there are loads of situations that occur in life in which we seek closure, even though it does not really serve us. As a matter of fact, this desire can hold us back.
When we feel we’ve been done wrong, we want resolution. The size or type of infraction may not matter. We want to know who is guilty of the offense, or, if we know who the culprit is, we want to know why they did it.
Here’s the catch: It’s pretty common to feel like this resolution is necessary to move forward.
Many moons ago I was in a relationship with a man who turned out to be quite unsavory. Unbeknownst to me, he had gone through my wallet, made note of my credit card info, and was using two of my cards to finance what I can only describe as a shopping addiction.
I was not using the cards at all, so was not expecting to see bills, and since he consistently arrived home before I did, he was able to get the bills from the mailbox before I ever saw them.
I did not learn of his deception until we broke up for other reasons.
Besides dealing with typical breakup emotions, I also had to face the reality of this man’s ability to lie to me and steal from me.
Yes, the relationship went south, but I thought we’d had love and respect between us, and, well, enough integrity to not commit crimes against one another.
I wanted him to account for his behavior; I wanted an apology; I wanted him to explain to me how he could have behaved in such a despicable manner toward anyone, much less me, his girlfriend (at the time).
Unsurprisingly, I didn’t get any of that.
I was rocked by this for quite some time. It took me months to realize that the reason I wasn’t getting over it was because I was still waiting for him to explain, apologize, or something. I realized that if I wanted to let it go, I was also going to have to let go of my desire for him to admit he was a mega jerk.
We want to feel in the right. We want it to be recognized that we were done wrong. If possible, we want an admission of guilt.
However, in looking for this type of closure, we are often giving away our power. We’re saying, “I cannot move past this experience until…”
What we actually desire is an internal, emotional shift. We want to feel better!
We already know we can’t expect the outside world to take care of our feelings. Let’s apply that knowledge to resolution as well.
Here’s how I got over the thieving boyfriend situation, and it’s a formula I continue to remind myself of whenever I begin to feel like I can’t move past an experience until satisfaction is mine.
Acknowledge that something crappy happened.
Yes, it totally sucks when a formerly good friend stops returning our calls and texts. And it can be life-altering when we are let go from a job, despite receiving positive feedback on our performance review.
It’s important not to pretend. Sometimes we rush past the feelings that are present in an attempt to appear uncaring (unhurt, really), or like we have it handled. Getting back on the horse is great and all, but let’s first acknowledge that it hurt when we were knocked off!
Having feelings doesn’t make us less able to handle tough stuff, or to come up with great solutions. It just means we’re human.
Identify all the feelings you do have.
If the situation is minor, it may be one or two feelings. For more intense events, it can take a while to pinpoint all of them.
This is essential, because identification and recognition go hand-in-hand. In doing this, we’re accepting that we are feeling these emotions. This sort of self-acknowledgment is crucial.
By the way, we’re the only ones who get to decide what is major, or minor, for us. We’re all unique, and we’ve all had different experiences that have helped mold who we are. Something that is minor for one may be major for another, and vice versa. That’s okay.
The point is not to compare the experience we are having to how others would react; it’s to self-process and move forward.
Release the need for outside meditation of any sort.
This is not about forgiveness. It’s not about taking the high road, either. Those options both involve the other person. This is about us, and what we want.
It is simply about asserting that we can move forward regardless of what is happening (or what doesn’t happen) in the outside world. We can use affirmations, or meditation, or whatever tools work for us for energy release.
When we are looking for resolution from the outside world, we are also seeking acknowledgement. Learning to self-acknowledge is a wonderful gift to give ourselves.
Whether you use the tips above, or another recipe that works for you, let’s choose to move forward. We are the one who will benefit, and we’re the only ones who will suffer if we don’t.