Latest / It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People / Holiday Harmony: Keeping The Peace at Family Celebrations
Transcript
- Speaker 1 (00:05): Welcome to, it's All Your Fault On True Story fm, the one and only podcast dedicated to helping you identify and deal with the most challenging human interactions, those with someone who may have a high conflict personality. I'm Megan Hunter, and I'm here with my co-host, bill Eddie. Speaker 2 (00:22): Hi everybody. Speaker 1 (00:23): We are the co-founders of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California where we focus on training, consulting, and educational programs and methods all to do with high conflict. Now in today's episode, the last episode of 2023, we're going to talk about one of the things that happens during the holidays, conflict, those big conversations with people that we haven't seen for a while, and we're going to talk about what to avoid and what to do. And hopefully we can just end on a happy, peaceful note and get us ushered into 2024. First, a couple of notes though. Send your high conflict related questions to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or on our website@highconflictinstitute.com slash podcast where you'll also find all the show notes and links. Speaker 1 (01:18): Okay, bill. So I think it's no surprise to anyone that holiday gatherings or any kind of gatherings at any time of the year when we're around people that we aren't usually around. The families come into town and haven't seen them since last year or five years ago. And a lot of things have happened in the meantime, whether it's political, war, religion, you name it. Any of the world events that people like to talk about, fill in the blanks here, they typically are going to come up at some point, even if everyone has thought to themselves in advance, I'm not going to talk about those things this year. And then they get there and someone makes a comment and it ignites a firestorm often. And if you have high conflict involved, it's probably going to be a problem. And I should say if someone with a high conflict personality is at the Christmas dinner or the Hanukkah dinner, they're probably not going to stop themselves and they may be the one who either brings it up or if there's just one little opening, they're going to come in. What do you think, bill? Speaker 2 (02:35): It's a characteristic of high conflict people that they lack, and especially in public, many of them want attention and by not restraining themselves, they can get attention. And family gatherings can be one of those places. More and more people say they won't visit certain family members because of conflicts and such, and that's really sad. Ideally, we could all restrain ourselves and know what to do and what not to do in different settings. And so I think most people, the statistics seem to be like 80 to 90% of people are reasonable people, meaning they're reasonable. They think it through and they go, I'm not going to respond. But 10 to 20% of people, maybe let's say 10% of people, maybe high conflict people who can't not respond, they can't allow an opinion to go without their opinion coming in. And maybe we've talked about narcissists on this program, and that's a common feature of narcissists. Speaker 2 (03:53): They have to one up everybody well. And so you get 20 people together. If you work with 10%, you got two people that are high conflict and they're going to find each other. So it may be like a magnet. Yeah, it may be a teenager and an aunt or uncle who just have to go at it. They really see the world differently. And whether it's meat or being a vegetarian, I once knew this woman and her daughter, teenage, the woman I knew was very against smoking, but loved to have meat for dinner. Well, her daughter became a smoking vegetarian and they argued about that endlessly. And so this kind of thing where you get people almost, it doesn't matter what the topic is, they're going to jump in and argue about it if you are hosting an event. I have a couple thoughts about this. Speaker 2 (05:02): One is to kind of be prepared for that possibility. And one thing you might do is, and most people don't do this, but it's my fantasy, is that people would post a little note on a wall when you come into the house or the room of the gathering that says something like this, tis the holiday season. Let's avoid hot topics that divide us and focus on discussions we can all enjoy. Thanks for making this a pleasant time for all. And that's all it has to say. And it can be big letters or subtle. Being prepared often helps people know that's like the signs at the airport, no jokes, but thinking ahead. And another thing with that, if you think, let's say Aunt Mary and Uncle Ken are going to get into an argument or something like that, that you might have a sitter, you might pick somebody that will sit right beside them and kind of calm them down, say, that's that's enough on that topic. Let's talk about something. Let's talk about where your vacation last year, where was that you went, and by the way, can you pass the carrots? And so you distract them from their gearing up to a hostile argument. And so sometimes it helps to have kind of a sitter, I call it. I try not to say babysitter, but because it's often people that have got a lot of age since they've been a baby, Speaker 1 (06:44): We could call it a minder. Speaker 2 (06:45): A minder, yeah. But just maybe have somebody say, sister Sue is really good at getting along with everybody. Have Sister Sue, sit next to Uncle Ken. So those are a couple ideas. Speaker 1 (07:02): Yeah, I've been in that role before, bill. I've been that person. I've had to be the minder. Speaker 2 (07:09): Well, you're very good at that. Speaker 1 (07:12): It depends on the day, I guess. But interesting. And I just had a thought while you were talking, bill, I think you called this document maybe before we started the recording, the respectful gathering sign, Speaker 2 (07:25): Right? Respectful Gathering Policy, which is a takeoff from the respectful meeting policy we actually developed for a high tech company that could be posted in a similar way. Speaker 1 (07:38): So I think what we'll do is we'll create that sign. And we'll, for all of you listeners, we're going to put that in the links for this episode. You can download that, print it out and post it in your kitchen, your dining room, the deck, the patio, the living room, the bathroom, wherever you make as many copies as you like. So we'll have that in the show notes and links. That'll be kind of fun. And I think I really like what you say, bill, about being prepared because we go into the holidays and family gatherings and friendship gatherings with an expectation of joy and fun, and we're looking forward to the good food and we're going to bake and cook together in these things. And I don't think we might dread that one person coming, but we don't necessarily plan or prepare for it. And I think the preparation part is key, both for the entire group, like having a respectful gathering policy on hand and letting everyone know about it. But also just personally for yourself. Remember, remind yourself of the things you need to do when that individual, that tends to stir up a little trouble during the gatherings. Remind yourself I need to use some ear statements. I might need to step back and not engage in the way that I want to engage. I feel like engaging, and I may need to set some limits on the conversation, Speaker 2 (09:08): That's the reasonable thing to do. But sometimes we're less reasonable if we're caught by surprise. So that's where think ahead, even think of some conversation topic shifts that you can do. Tell me about that vacation you took or what's happening with that job. You're developing some new project or whatever it is that be ready to redirect the conversation. And one thing I find with high conflict people is they're often redirectable more than the average person. They're used to going emotionally from topic to topic to topic and are more reactive than initiating. And so you may be able to say, Hey, tell me about that. Or Don't you live near that park? Is that park being developed and blah, blah, blah, blah. So have some conversation shifters or starters, Speaker 1 (10:06): And put it on your calendar. I mean, if you have a Google Calendar or something like that, I do that. People may think it sounds ridiculous, but if I know I'm going to have a meeting with someone who typically gets under my skin, I'll just put a reminder on my calendar of what to do and what not to do, what to avoid. And that way it's just on my mind and I won't get attacked, and I honestly don't get as bothered. I don't let it get under my skin because I am prepared for it. And it takes practice. It doesn't all come in one day, but you really get better at it and it's very empowering. Speaker 2 (10:41): Yeah, it just got me thinking. One of the things we teach in our new Ways for Families course is giving yourself encouraging statements and practicing giving yourself those encouraging statements while people are talking to you saying nasty things. And what people have found is they don't hear the nasty things as much because their encouraging statement is what they're hearing in their head. And so you might think of something you can tell yourself when someone's trying to start getting you into an argument. Like, I'm not here to argue about that. Just telling yourself that you can just be silent for a moment. Go, I'm not here to get into an argument. I'm not here to get into an argument. I'm not here to get into an argument and then just change the subject's Speaker 1 (11:36): Good. And say even things like, I can survive anything for 15 minutes. That's good. I can survive anything for a day's a good, although I said that once about a couple of particular guests, I can survive anything for 10 days. It turns out I couldn't. Speaker 2 (11:53): Yeah, that's pushing it. I was Speaker 1 (11:56): Really, really pushing it. But I think if we want to have a positive, joyful time with family, it's possible. It may be a little challenging, but just remind yourself to do it. Put up that respectful gathering policy. And don't feel too badly if someone does bring some awful things up. But you can say, that's probably not the best time of year to be talking about this or whatever will come to your mind like that, to set that limit. Speaker 2 (12:30): And keep in mind that if you really do want to discuss these topics, do it one-to-one without a group of people around, because when there's a group of people around, people tend to pitch to the audience and people split into factions. And what we've learned about polarization is polarization increases when groups talk to themselves and decreases when individuals talk to each other, who have different points of view. So try to save that for a one-to-one conversation. Speaker 1 (13:05): Okay, so Bill's sitting here looking at me, and I was cheering him on as he said that. That's just so brilliant. And it just makes so much sense having those one-to-one conversations. I recall a video, a documentary about two mothers, one Israeli, one Palestinian, and both of their adult children had been killed. And it was just a devastating, devastating thing. And I can't remember all the details, but what I do remember is when they got these two mothers together to talk about it, instead of all of the discourse around it where the polarization of this one side against the other, and it was all the other's fault and just how that goes, it was absolutely stunning and beautiful when they could connect on a human level and on a level of mothers and especially mothers who had lost children. So I think it's so powerful. Speaker 2 (14:00): Yeah, I've seen really touching situations like that. And we need that more today, more than ever, as people to talk one-to-one as human beings rather than in groups talking about objects, which is the other group. And that's just the wrong way to go. And people don't realize that structurally human beings do that. It's part of human nature. You talk to your group about those people, you'll get farther and farther apart. You talk to one-to-one with one of those people, and you'll come closer and closer together Speaker 1 (14:37): With the caveat that if that individual has a high conflict personality, you just have to use some skill with that conversation. Speaker 2 (14:45): Yes, yes. And so I really like thinking of the word reasonable. Love that. And if love that, if you're talking to somebody who doesn't seem reasonable or at least at the time of the conversation, that may be a good time to try the exit strategy we talked about last week. It's like, okay, if you're going to keep talking about this, I'm going to have to end the conversation. Speaker 1 (15:08): And with that Bill, we're going to end this conversation. Speaker 2 (15:13): Well have happy holidays. Just have a great, wonderful time. And I was going to say, I'll see you in the new year. It may still be on Zoom for a little bit. Then we'll see each other in person sooner or later. So have a good one. Have a good one. Speaker 1 (15:29): Yes, you too. Bill, it's been a great year. And to all of you listeners, we're just so grateful to you for listening and supporting us through each of our seasons, and we're constantly surprised by the ever increasing number of listeners we have and the continued growth. So like Bill said, we wish you the happiest of holidays. Wherever you are, however you celebrate, and also just a happy new year, we will see you in 2024 for a brand new season. Do send us questions about anything to do with conflict and high conflict to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or high conflict institute.com/podcast. And again, we wish you a happy holidays and happy New Year. Just keep striving to find the missing piece. It's All Your Fault is a production of True Story FM Engineering by Andy Nelson. Music by Wolf Samuels, John Coggins and Ziv Moran. Find the show notes and transcripts at True Story fm or high conflict institute.com/podcast. If your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.