Latest / Voyage Clinics Podcast / When Emotions Run High | How to Communicate Through Conflict

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When Emotions Run High | How to Communicate Through Conflict · Voyage Clinics Podcast

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Hello, welcome to the Voyage Clinics Podcast. I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: John Sanders, family physician and friend of the community. As
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  Speaker 1: you know, our goal and mission of this podcast is
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  Speaker 1: just to bring knowledge and understanding to our communities. And
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  Speaker 1: today we're going to talk about one of my favorite topics.
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  Speaker 1: I'm running solo today, so no guests today, just me.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's one of the most important things that
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  Speaker 1: we can have and that we can learn and that
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  Speaker 1: we can get better at. So with no further ado,
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  Speaker 1: let's talk about it. Communication, conflict resolution, and managing our emotions.
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  Speaker 1: I think that's a good space. So I think we
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  Speaker 1: all have big emotions. I think there are people that
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  Speaker 1: are just a little more subdued, maybe more learned at
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  Speaker 1: subduing their emotions, but we're humans, and humans have big emotions.
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  Speaker 1: It starts when they're toddlers. I just had a beautiful
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  Speaker 1: little child, toddler, running around here. And it's lovely how
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  Speaker 1: pure and beautiful their emotions are. They're big and sometimes
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  Speaker 1: there's lots of joy and then there's lots of fussiness
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  Speaker 1: and you definitely know exactly where you stand with a toddler.
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  Speaker 1: I think as we age, as we grow, we sometimes
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  Speaker 1: get better at maybe controlling some of those emotions or
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  Speaker 1: maybe just appropriatizing them, making them more appropriate. And so
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  Speaker 1: I just wanted to talk about that just a little
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  Speaker 1: bit and that I think it's really healthy for us
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  Speaker 1: to be able to connect with our hearts and our
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  Speaker 1: emotions more. and have practices in our daily lives that,
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  Speaker 1: that lean toward that. And for me, it's like my
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  Speaker 1: walks every morning with my dog and in the evenings,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: and I sand these little pieces of serenity wood and
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  Speaker 1: it gets me out of my head, out of my
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  Speaker 1: thinker brain and into my heart. And I just feel
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  Speaker 1: things and I just, I just have emotions and I
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  Speaker 1: just breathe them through. Sometimes it's a stressful day. Um,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes it's a heavy day. Sometimes it's a beautiful day. And,
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes there's miracles and there's people I'm thinking about and
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  Speaker 1: I'll sometimes hop on a call with them. But I
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  Speaker 1: take a good, like, I don't know, two-mile walk in
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  Speaker 1: the mornings and evenings. And sanding helps me kind of
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  Speaker 1: get out of my head a little bit. There's lots
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  Speaker 1: of practices. It turns out yoga is the answer. It's
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  Speaker 1: always been the answer. I should have been doing yoga
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  Speaker 1: this whole time. I went to a hot yoga class
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  Speaker 1: last week. It was brutally hot and I almost died.
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  Speaker 1: But I also got in tune with my heart. And
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  Speaker 1: I was looking and listening to this yoga instructor. She
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  Speaker 1: was so good. She moved so freely. Nancy breathes so
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  Speaker 1: freely and she felt so openly. And I just think
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  Speaker 1: it's a talent. It's a gift to be given back
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  Speaker 1: to our heart space. We lean a lot toward science
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  Speaker 1: and engineering and, you know, I'm a doctor and so
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  Speaker 1: I poured heavy into the science space for a long time,
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  Speaker 1: but I'm also an artist. I'm also a musician. I
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  Speaker 1: also love to dance. I also have a, you know,
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  Speaker 1: a right brain too. And I think balancing those two
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  Speaker 1: spaces is really helpful to getting us back to our
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  Speaker 1: hearts and into those heart spaces. So it is with
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  Speaker 1: the heart space that I'm going to talk about communication
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  Speaker 1: and conflict resolution. It's something that I think we all
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  Speaker 1: kind of stink at, and it's kind of hard. It's
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  Speaker 1: never easy to go into a conflict situation with someone
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  Speaker 1: and say, hey, we need to talk. You get this
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  Speaker 1: little thing in your throat just saying those words, we
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  Speaker 1: need to talk, right? Because you know you need to
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  Speaker 1: talk about something. But certainly the alternative to that is
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  Speaker 1: not awesome, which would be holding it in, suppressing that
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  Speaker 1: frustration or that anger or that whatever and not talking
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  Speaker 1: about it. Super unhealthy, super, super unhealthy for you and
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  Speaker 1: for them, whoever you have that thing with. So once
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  Speaker 1: upon a time, Voyage Clinics, we had a PhD psychologist
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  Speaker 1: come and talk to us about this because I wanted
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  Speaker 1: everybody in my staff to have reasonable skills in communication
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  Speaker 1: and conflict resolution. And he gave us some really good tools.
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  Speaker 1: I'll say the first one is to allow yourself to
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  Speaker 1: have and feel emotions and breathe through those. That's really,
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  Speaker 1: really important. Give yourself permission to feel. That's okay. And
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  Speaker 1: then give yourself permission to communicate those feelings to someone.
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  Speaker 1: I think Mark Brackett, he was or is the head
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  Speaker 1: of the Yale Center of Emotional Intelligence Association. He talked
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  Speaker 1: about the ruler curriculum, recognize, understand, label, express, and regulate
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  Speaker 1: our emotions. And I think that's really important. I'll emphasize
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  Speaker 1: that throughout this podcast. But I just think, if you
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  Speaker 1: don't want to memorize an acronym, just give yourself permission
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  Speaker 1: to feel and communicate. Understand those feelings is tricky sometimes.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes they're a couple layers deep. What you're feeling is
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  Speaker 1: the primary feeling, but then there's maybe secondary and tertiary feelings.
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  Speaker 1: deeper feelings underneath that. And then in that spirit of
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  Speaker 1: giving yourself permission to feel, take it up with the
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  Speaker 1: person that you need to communicate those feelings to. And
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  Speaker 1: have courage. Have courage to do it. It's hard 100%
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  Speaker 1: of the time. I don't know anybody that's good at
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  Speaker 1: conflict or expressing concern. It's always hard. There's always a
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  Speaker 1: little bit of overcoming some fear there. And I think
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  Speaker 1: if I were to look at that a little bit,
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  Speaker 1: I think it's just a little bit of fear of rejection,
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  Speaker 1: maybe like, I'm scared that this person's going to get
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  Speaker 1: mad and I'm going to get mad and then we're
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  Speaker 1: just going to ruin our relationship and it's going to
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  Speaker 1: be terrible. But that is almost never the case, especially
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  Speaker 1: if you come at it with openness, vulnerability, kindness. I
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  Speaker 1: love dogs. I think we can learn a lot from
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  Speaker 1: animals and dogs are really good at showing their teeth.
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  Speaker 1: They're good at puffing up their chests and growling and
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  Speaker 1: doing all these things, right? And And whenever a dog
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  Speaker 1: wants to submit and get vulnerable, it lays on its back,
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  Speaker 1: shows you its little soft underbelly, and just kind of
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  Speaker 1: looks at you and says, hey, man, I don't want
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  Speaker 1: any trouble here. And so approach the conflict with that
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  Speaker 1: kind of mentality. You don't have to posture in that way,
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  Speaker 1: but definitely have some vulnerability and be willing to be
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  Speaker 1: kind of loose and humble with your thoughts and your
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  Speaker 1: opinions and ideas. before you go to the communication space
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  Speaker 1: it might be requisite or needed to give yourself some
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  Speaker 1: time we all have big feelings and sometimes those feelings
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  Speaker 1: are frustration and fear and anger and anxiety and other
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  Speaker 1: big feelings and sometimes it's less productive to go with
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  Speaker 1: those feelings to that moment of communication so just breathe
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  Speaker 1: for a minute let them come to you let them
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  Speaker 1: pull through and maintain that willingness to express those feelings
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  Speaker 1: But you might give yourself some space from them, time,
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  Speaker 1: and just breathe them through. And then go back with
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  Speaker 1: courage and determination to express that when you're maybe in
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  Speaker 1: less of an emotional state and more of a free state.
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  Speaker 1: One of the first skills that we talk about in
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  Speaker 1: conflict resolution is establishing that One of the party members
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  Speaker 1: is the sender and one of them is the receiver.
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  Speaker 1: So if we understand our job descriptions, I think it
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  Speaker 1: helps us to resolve conflict. So maybe just say, hey,
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  Speaker 1: we need to talk. Great. Okay, cool. Listen, I just
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  Speaker 1: learned these cool new skills from Voyage Clinics podcast. Dr.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: John was talking about this nerdy thing he learned from
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  Speaker 1: some psychologist PhD guy. Dr. Mazzi is awesome. And I
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  Speaker 1: want to tell you about it. And so I'm just
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  Speaker 1: going to send, I'm going to speak, and your job
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  Speaker 1: is to receive and restate. And that's it. I'm the sender,
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  Speaker 1: you're the receiver and the restater. And don't worry. After
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  Speaker 1: several renderings of this, we're going to switch and I
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  Speaker 1: will receive as well. So that way you both have
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  Speaker 1: space to express your thoughts. And I think what happens
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  Speaker 1: sometimes is you show teeth and emotion and then they
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  Speaker 1: show teeth and emotion because there's and then you go
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  Speaker 1: back and forth and then who's got the biggest teeth
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  Speaker 1: wins the argument. And then there you go. And then
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  Speaker 1: you end up at the end of it and you're like, Oh,
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  Speaker 1: nothing happened. And we both feel kind of crappy. So,
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  Speaker 1: so take out the teeth, take them away and, uh,
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  Speaker 1: and come with some open heart, humility space. And I'm
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  Speaker 1: just going to send, and you're going to receive and
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  Speaker 1: your job is to receive, but also restate. A restating
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  Speaker 1: gives you time to pause time for the sender to
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  Speaker 1: pause as well. Sometimes the receiver needs to pause and say, okay, Whoa,
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  Speaker 1: that's enough. I don't think I can remember it. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: much anymore. Let me just restate. And so then the
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  Speaker 1: receiver restates. It's important as the receiver not to manipulate
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  Speaker 1: that restate. So for instance, like a manipulative restate might
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  Speaker 1: sound something like, oh, so what you're saying is, I'm
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  Speaker 1: a jerk and you hate me. When the sender didn't
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  Speaker 1: say any of those words, right? And so you're just
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  Speaker 1: changing them. And so don't do that. That's immature and lame.
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  Speaker 1: It doesn't really, it's improductive. Sorry, it's probably not immature
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  Speaker 1: or lame, but it's just not productive to our getting
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  Speaker 1: to the resolution of this thing. So send and restate.
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  Speaker 1: And then send and then pause and restate. Give time
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  Speaker 1: for the restater. And if you need prompting on either
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  Speaker 1: side of that fence, that's fine. The receiver might say, okay,
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  Speaker 1: I need to restate now. And the sender might say,
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  Speaker 1: will you just please restate because I just need to
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  Speaker 1: pause for a bit. And then the receiver can just restate.
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  Speaker 1: And it's kind of awkward at first. Like my wife
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  Speaker 1: and I do this sometimes. And initially, it's like, wait, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: this is mechanical. But it actually helps. And there's something
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  Speaker 1: magical about restating. The sender feels heard, feels listened to,
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  Speaker 1: feels understood. And the restater also calms down as they
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  Speaker 1: force themselves to restate the other person's opinion and thoughts
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  Speaker 1: and ideas. So do that. Three, four. or five times,
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  Speaker 1: however many times that the sender feels heard and validated
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  Speaker 1: and understood. And then switch roles. And then say, okay,
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  Speaker 1: it's my turn. And again, it's not my turn to
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  Speaker 1: show my teeth to you and get all whatever, but
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  Speaker 1: it is my turn to be earnest with you and
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  Speaker 1: with what I feel and what I'm hearing and feeling.
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  Speaker 1: And so then the sender gets to receive and restate.
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  Speaker 1: And so that's always fun. And there will be moments
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  Speaker 1: where it's hard and you're like, oh, getting upset. But
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  Speaker 1: just hold to the pattern. Just know that it's a pattern.
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  Speaker 1: Let me just keep restating. And as you restate, you
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  Speaker 1: might be frustrated. I don't want to restate that. But
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  Speaker 1: just do it. Just do it. And then at the
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  Speaker 1: end of several sessions of sending and restating, I think
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  Speaker 1: I think both parties now feel reasonably understood, reasonably heard,
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  Speaker 1: reasonably validated. Summarize it. Okay, well, I'm going to summarize
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  Speaker 1: and then I want you to summarize. We'll just both
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  Speaker 1: summarize this thing. So you guys get in there and
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  Speaker 1: summarize it together. This is what's cooking and this is
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  Speaker 1: what we're feeling and this is what I'm hearing. And
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  Speaker 1: then express empathy. Express love. Express, hey, I'm here with you.
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  Speaker 1: I'm here for this, by the way. And this is
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  Speaker 1: safe for you to do with me. And I appreciate it.
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  Speaker 1: And then find a plan to move forward. So how
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  Speaker 1: do we move forward from this space? You've said your opinions.
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  Speaker 1: I've said my opinions. And we still don't really super
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  Speaker 1: agree on this. Maybe just look at it together and
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  Speaker 1: determine what's right and not who's right. And I think
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  Speaker 1: that's helpful. And there's, turns out, there's a lot of
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  Speaker 1: right ways. There's a lot of right ways to do
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  Speaker 1: lots of things. There's a lot of right ways to parent.
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  Speaker 1: There's a lot of right ways to communicate. There's a
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  Speaker 1: lot of right ways to love. There's a lot of
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  Speaker 1: right ways to raise children. There's a lot of right
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  Speaker 1: ways to be a doctor. I used to think, this
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  Speaker 1: is the only right way. This is what I was taught.
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  Speaker 1: This is what it is. But you'll know as you
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: go in your doctor training, each attending, each old gray-haired
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  Speaker 1: doctor that teaches you stuff has a little bit nuanced
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  Speaker 1: difference than the next one. And they're like, wait, well,
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  Speaker 1: then who's right? Well, they're both right. And there's nuance there.
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  Speaker 1: And it's okay. And so that same principle holds true
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  Speaker 1: in life. There's nuance to right So determine what's right
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  Speaker 1: instead of who's right. And be open to, turns out
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  Speaker 1: we're both right. And it's okay. It's okay. And then
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: make a plan together. Hey, I see where I could change.
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  Speaker 1: And I see where I could show up differently. And
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  Speaker 1: by the way, I love you. And this is cool.
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  Speaker 1: And thanks for doing this really awkward communication pattern thing.
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  Speaker 1: Even though it works. It was kind of neat. And
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: then make a plan for your next step. Let's circle
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  Speaker 1: back in a week and follow up on these spaces
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  Speaker 1: and kick around right again. Because it turns out there's
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of renditions of right. Anyway, I think this
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  Speaker 1: pattern of communication is super, super helpful. And I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to end with just a real brief story. Today, one
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  Speaker 1: of my employees came to me and she was just frustrated.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm like, tell me about that. And she's like,
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  Speaker 1: you know, feeling, she just said some, some comments that
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  Speaker 1: made her, she's just off put. She's frustrated. She's feeling
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  Speaker 1: like she's, she's outworking other employees and, and doing things that,
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  Speaker 1: you know, that other people should be doing and, or
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  Speaker 1: at least helping with. And there's all this frustration. And,
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  Speaker 1: and I said, tell me more. So she talks more and,
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  Speaker 1: and I said, oh man, that sounds, that sounds really hard.
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  Speaker 1: And I want to know how you're doing. And she
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  Speaker 1: paused for a minute. She said, well, what does that
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  Speaker 1: have to do with anything? I said, well, I care
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  Speaker 1: about you. I mean, I care about everybody that works
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  Speaker 1: here and I care about this person and I care
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  Speaker 1: about that person. I care about you. And so how
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  Speaker 1: are you doing? And I think that helped kind of
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  Speaker 1: disarm the teeth a little bit. And anyway, we had
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  Speaker 1: just a beautiful, heartfelt conversation and One of the things
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  Speaker 1: we talked about was this pattern. And I said, hey,
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  Speaker 1: I see your frustration and I'm very similar to you.
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  Speaker 1: Because we both get pretty powerfully frustrated when things are
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  Speaker 1: not just so. And I've learned to kind of pull
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  Speaker 1: down on some of those situations. And I want you
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  Speaker 1: to know I see it and it's okay. It's okay
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  Speaker 1: to bring the frustration and the breath of that. It's okay.
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  Speaker 1: And then what do you do with it though? That's
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  Speaker 1: the next step is being able to look at that
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  Speaker 1: and say, I need to express this. I need to recognize,
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  Speaker 1: understand what I'm feeling, label it, express it so that
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  Speaker 1: I can regulate it, right? That's that ruler curriculum. So
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: we kind of went through that with her and together,
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  Speaker 1: not in a boxy way, but in a very fluid, kind,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: loving way. And she was so cool. She's like, wow,
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  Speaker 1: I see where I was feeling all those things. And
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  Speaker 1: I thought I told them, but I didn't really tell them.
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  Speaker 1: And I didn't really express what I was really feeling.
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  Speaker 1: And so we just went through a couple of renditions
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  Speaker 1: of what that might sound or feel like. And it
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: was so cool. She's like, yeah, I could totally, I
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  Speaker 1: need to do that. It's hard. I said, yeah, it
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: is hard. Because nobody likes doing that. It's uncomfortable. Sharing
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  Speaker 1: our hearts and feelings with each other, it's uncomfortable. But
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  Speaker 1: it is what makes us human. And it is super,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: super beautiful. And super, super important. Because it's how we progress.
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  Speaker 1: It's how we grow. It's how we let other people
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  Speaker 1: know what we feel. And they get to respond to
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: that however they want. And Anyway, it's beautiful. So in
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: our resolution, we got on the same side of the
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: fence and I again expressed to her how much I
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: really care about her and my team and I want
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: her to be able to feel comfortable expressing these things
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  Speaker 1: to me anytime. Please. I love it. And I thanked
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: her and I complimented her on expressing those hard spaces
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: and encouraged her to do the same with those folks
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: that she felt conflicted with and to breathe it through
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: and how important that is, yeah. So anyway, that was
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: a really great, that was a really great, fun conversation.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: And an example of this, this send-receive-restate, my wife and
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: I have some really funny examples, but I'll share, I
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: won't share those with you. Shana says that I sometimes overshare.
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  Speaker 1: But it's beautiful and it's really helped us to work
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: through some hard spaces and Yeah, to just give a
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: scaffolding to it. Sometimes I'll try to post the link
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: to this pattern. I have a little graphic on it.
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  Speaker 1: And so I'll post that in the comments from today's
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: thing so you can have it. Yeah, I think that's
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  Speaker 1: enough today. I just really wanted to get into this space,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: having emotions, breathing emotions, creating patterns in your life to
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Allow those emotions to live freely in your heart and mind.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: For me, it's the walks with sanding these pieces of
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: serenity wood. It might be sitting with a warm drink.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: It might be just doing yoga. There's a lot of
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: right ways to do that. And then having the courage
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: to send, receive, restate. Express them. Resolve conflict as needed.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: And be vulnerable. And grow relationships and connections. I hope
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: you learned some cool things today. I know it's always
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: fun for me to kind of go through these spaces.
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  Speaker 1: It reiterates their importance in my life. And it's a
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: skill that I'm working on too. I think we're all
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: kind of working on being better humans. And I hope
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: this helps you. Don't forget to like and subscribe and
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: share and all the things and get outside and breathe. Yeah,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: just breathe.