Latest / Silver FM 100.6 / Want more intimacy in your relationships? Conflict could help

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Want more intimacy in your relationships? Conflict could help · Silver FM 100.6

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  Speaker 1: You count on sunscreen to protect your skin, but that
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: SPF rating on the bottle might not be exactly as advertised.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: So you can measure an SPF 50 at one lab
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: and an SPF 30 at another.
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  Speaker 1: On the Sunday Story, is it time to update sunscreen guidance?
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  Speaker 1: Listen now to the Sunday Story from the Up First
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  Speaker 1: podcast on the NPR app.
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  Speaker 3: So I went swimming this weekend for the first time in...
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  Speaker 3: I want to say it was 15 or 20 years. Wow.
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  Speaker 3: And for a lot of reasons, I think I never
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  Speaker 3: really liked pools. I don't like the smell of them.
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  Speaker 3: They kind of grossed me out. But I've been thinking
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  Speaker 3: about parenthood, actually. And I've been thinking I need to
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  Speaker 3: know how to swim if I'm going to have a kid.
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  Speaker 3: So finally, I went to the pool this weekend. And
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  Speaker 3: I was so much better than I thought I would be.
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  Speaker 3: It reminded me that I can do things that are hard.
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  Speaker 3: And like I can learn skills.
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  Speaker 4: And then to also treat swimming not as an identity,
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  Speaker 4: but as a skill.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Right. It's like in Spanish, there's like ser versus a star.
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  Speaker 4: Ser is like a permanent state and a star is
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  Speaker 4: a condition. And like in a way you move swimming
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  Speaker 4: from a ser, like I'm not a swimmer.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: To like in a star, which is like I am
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  Speaker 4: practicing learning to swim.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I am swimming right now.
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  Speaker 4: You're verbing, not noun-ing.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Hey, it's Mariel Cigarra. You're listening to Life Kit from NPR.
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  Speaker 3: And that was author and conflict resolution facilitator Priya Parker.
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  Speaker 3: She has a new book called The Art of Fighting,
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  Speaker 3: and she talks about why we need to be able
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  Speaker 3: to fight with the people we care about. And I
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  Speaker 3: promise this connects back to the swimming thing.
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  Speaker 4: And I've learned, just like you swimming, I've learned that
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  Speaker 4: conflict is a skill.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: And I know this because I grew up hating conflict.
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  Speaker 4: I am conflict averse. Everyone in my family is conflict averse.
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  Speaker 4: And I'm a conflict resolution facilitator who is conflict averse.
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  Speaker 4: And I think one of the reasons those of us
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  Speaker 4: who are relatively effective is because we have such deep
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  Speaker 4: empathy for the people who want to flee right in
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  Speaker 4: the room. And by the way, like swimming, conflict is
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  Speaker 4: actually super physical. Not in the way we think. All
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  Speaker 4: conflict is physical, but within ourselves. Yeah. So when like
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  Speaker 4: the heat rises, right? When you start experiencing potential isolation
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  Speaker 4: or fear or separation, we have physical symptoms. Our hands
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  Speaker 4: get sweaty. Our heart starts to palpitate. Our mouth gets dry.
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  Speaker 4: And so some of the skills for holding conflict and
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  Speaker 4: holding conflict with those we care about is actually just
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  Speaker 4: learning that those things happen and learning how to manage
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  Speaker 4: some of the physical signals that our body is sending
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  Speaker 4: us to flee.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that bit of discomfort. It can feel like that
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  Speaker 3: means this is wrong. That means I shouldn't be doing this.
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  Speaker 4: We assume if heat is rising and we are getting
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  Speaker 4: these warning signals that this must be bad. But actually,
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  Speaker 4: the reframe is, oh, there's something relevant here. I should
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  Speaker 4: pay attention.
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  Speaker 3: Takeaway one, conflict is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact,
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  Speaker 3: Priya argues it's necessary if we want to be in close,
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  Speaker 3: authentic relationships. So when you have a moment of misalignment
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  Speaker 3: with someone, try thinking of it as a signal. There's
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  Speaker 3: something here to talk about. Now, Priya's first book was
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  Speaker 3: called The Art of Gathering, and we've had her on
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  Speaker 3: the show a lot to talk about community and and
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  Speaker 3: gatherings and friendship. So I told her, the last thing
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  Speaker 3: I want to do at a gathering is fight. It's
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  Speaker 3: just that my inclination when I gather with people is
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  Speaker 3: that if people are fighting, this thing has gone off
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  Speaker 3: the rails.
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  Speaker 4: And that may be true. And this is not saying
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  Speaker 4: that fighting is on the rails. I am interested in
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  Speaker 4: group life. I'm interested in what allows us, despite all
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  Speaker 4: of the obstacles in modern life, despite having different schedules
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  Speaker 4: and different beliefs and all of these things, how can
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  Speaker 4: we still meaningfully connect? And gathering is one tool to
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  Speaker 4: help us get better at group life. And conflict is
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  Speaker 4: another tool to help us get better at group life.
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  Speaker 4: And in my 20 years as a conflict resolution facilitator,
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  Speaker 4: I've learned that healthy communities need love, but healthy communities
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  Speaker 4: also need heat.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: You say specifically that healthy community needs healthy conflict. What
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  Speaker 3: is healthy conflict as opposed to unhealthy conflict?
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  Speaker 4: When trouble rises, we often oscillate between these two stances,
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  Speaker 4: which is kind of avoidance, pretending like nothing is in here, folks,
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  Speaker 4: and escalation, kind of burning the house down. There's a
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  Speaker 4: place between what I call unhealthy peace and unhealthy conflict
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  Speaker 4: and which is healthy heat or healthy conflict. And I
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  Speaker 4: think of that space as a place where a group
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  Speaker 4: or a group of people are able to hold tension
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  Speaker 4: with care long enough to be generative or clarifying. And
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  Speaker 4: so when we don't know how to fight well, we
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  Speaker 4: end up either saying nothing at all and then it
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  Speaker 4: implodes or exiting. And so learning how to be what
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  Speaker 4: I call an artful fighter is actually an investment in community.
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  Speaker 3: Takeaway two, healthy conflict can bring structure and clarity to
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  Speaker 3: your relationships. It can help you figure out your priorities
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  Speaker 3: as individuals, as a group, and move forward together or not. Now,
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  Speaker 3: how do we have those conversations?
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  Speaker 7: We'll talk about that.
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  Speaker 8: After the break. This week on Newsmakers, after more than
• 5:56
  Speaker 8: a decade.
• 5:57
  Speaker 9: In comedy, I wasn't sure that we would get here.
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  Speaker 8: Robbie Hoffman is fearless.
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  Speaker 3: I had a small feeling I wasn't sure.
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  Speaker 8: And fully herself.
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  Speaker 7: My landlord. Hello? You can go ahead and flash.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I'm not home now.
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  Speaker 9: I'm doing something.
• 6:13
  Speaker 8: We plunge into comedy and success with Robbie Hoffman on
• 6:16
  Speaker 8: NPR's Newsmakers.
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: How do products end up on big box shelves? Well,
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: we at Planet Money pitch the planet money.
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  Speaker 8: Board game.
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: I'm trying not to think how much of a big
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: deal it is and how much work has gone into.
• 6:29
  Speaker 6: It's really big.
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  Speaker 4: Is it helpful if I remind you how big it is?
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: It's sort of the whole thing.
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: We go inside the minds of the people who decide
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: what goes on store shelves. Listen to Planet Money on
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
• 6:44
  Speaker 7: This is Terry Gross, host of Fresh Air. I interviewed
• 6:47
  Speaker 7: feminist icon Gloria Steinem several times over the years. and
• 6:51
  Speaker 7: we've compiled a special episode to celebrate her life and legacy.
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: Women become ourselves after 50.
• 6:59
  Speaker 7: We drop a lot of baggage and really become much
• 7:01
  Speaker 7: more our true selves. Find it on the NPR app
• 7:05
  Speaker 7: or wherever you listen to Fresh Air.
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  Speaker 3: I understand that conflict is a part of life, but
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  Speaker 3: often I find myself asking, is it worth it with
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  Speaker 3: this person? When do you get into it, and when
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  Speaker 3: do you just pull back or walk away without confronting?
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  Speaker 3: Priya lays out some questions we can ask ourselves in
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  Speaker 3: the book.
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  Speaker 4: Can I continue to engage meaningfully without facing? Do I
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  Speaker 4: care enough about this group to take this on? Do
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  Speaker 4: I still have longing for this group or friendship or relationship?
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  Speaker 4: Is this conflict touching on a core value of mine?
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  Speaker 4: Does the group need to reflect those values for me
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  Speaker 4: to be a part of it? Knowing conflict arises in
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  Speaker 4: every group and relationship, are these the people I want
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  Speaker 4: to be in a mess with? Do I think that
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  Speaker 4: by saying something, I could alter the situation?
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  Speaker 3: Because sometimes we're in situations where we have tried, like
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  Speaker 3: we have had conversations before, or like you said, we
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  Speaker 3: don't really have the power to Or we've known somebody
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  Speaker 3: for a very long time and we've seen how they behave.
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  Speaker 4: And we're like– Can't teach an old dog new tricks. Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: That's just who they are. And I have a section
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  Speaker 4: in there called Seven Reasons Not to Face. And one
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  Speaker 4: of them is it's not a rift. It's a revelation.
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  Speaker 1: Right?
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  Speaker 4: So it's like when people show you who they are,
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  Speaker 4: believe them. It's sort of that old quote. And so
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  Speaker 4: much of what I'm trying to invite the reader to
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  Speaker 4: do is to actually just become curious about. And to
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  Speaker 4: build what I call the skills of group intelligence, which
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  Speaker 4: is to become curious and say, what's actually happening here?
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  Speaker 4: Why is this happening? And in modern life, our bounty
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  Speaker 4: and our tragedy is that we get to choose who
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  Speaker 4: we want to belong to. We get to choose the
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  Speaker 4: groups we're in. And so one of the reasons I
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  Speaker 4: say it's a tragedy is it's also a lot of labor.
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  Speaker 4: It's a lot of work.
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  Speaker 3: And along with all of that, it's so easy to
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  Speaker 3: walk away. from a group or a friend.
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  Speaker 4: It's never been easier to exit, but over the long term,
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  Speaker 4: you keep exiting, right? You're going to end up pretty alone.
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  Speaker 3: Takeaway three, choose your battles. Before you really get into
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  Speaker 3: it with someone, air your grievances, try to work towards
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  Speaker 3: a solution. Do ask yourself questions like, how much do
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  Speaker 3: I care about this person or this group? Can I
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  Speaker 3: continue to meaningfully engage without facing this? And do I
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  Speaker 3: think that by saying something, I could change the situation?
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  Speaker 3: At the same time, don't shy away from a disagreement
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  Speaker 3: just because you're afraid. When we have decided that someone
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  Speaker 3: or some group is worth fighting with, I mean, where
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  Speaker 3: do we begin?
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  Speaker 4: Great question. So a mentor of mine, Rhonda Sleem, she
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  Speaker 4: would say to us, 90% of the success of the room,
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  Speaker 4: of the gathering, of the fight happens before anyone enters.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I fight people in my head all the time.
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  Speaker 4: Exactly.
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  Speaker 6: Exactly.
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  Speaker 4: And so part of it is preparing ourselves. Part of
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  Speaker 4: us is preparing the other person or the group. And
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  Speaker 4: part of us is preparing the room. And so if
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  Speaker 4: a group that you're part of, or a team, or
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  Speaker 4: an association, or a family member, or a wedding, something
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  Speaker 4: happens in a group, and there's a conflict or there's
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  Speaker 4: a reckoning, the first thing to do is to get
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  Speaker 4: curious and just actually ask, what is the need here?
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  Speaker 4: What is this actually about underneath? And be curious and
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  Speaker 4: humble about where that might reach you. So one of
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  Speaker 4: the problems is so many of us are actually, we
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  Speaker 4: often don't have the right fight. We're having the wrong conversation.
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  Speaker 4: And so I'll give a simple example. A friend of mine,
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  Speaker 4: maybe a former friend of mine. I'm not going to
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  Speaker 4: label it. A person I was very close to. She
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  Speaker 4: was somebody who we'd text, we'd joke. Sometimes we'd have
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  Speaker 4: virtual like tease or call, you know, we just like
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  Speaker 4: made an effort. And one day basically it just kind
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  Speaker 4: of went cold turkey. And then I basically didn't hear
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  Speaker 4: much from her for like six months. And I kind
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  Speaker 4: of like First, I was like really mad. Then I
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  Speaker 4: was really hurt. Then I was confused. You know, you
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  Speaker 4: go through this whole cycle. Yeah. And then I was
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  Speaker 4: like mourning the death of my friendship.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: By the way, all in my own head. But still,
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  Speaker 4: like real feelings, real emotions.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: And then one day I get a text from her,
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  Speaker 4: like a chirpy text. And it was like, hey, it's
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  Speaker 4: been a while. Can we catch up?
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  Speaker 3: You're like, where you been?
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  Speaker 4: So part of the art of fighting is– Finding a
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  Speaker 4: way to expand our range of options in that moment.
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  Speaker 4: Do I pretend nothing happened?
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  Speaker 6: Right.
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  Speaker 4: Do I let her lead? Do I say I'm really mad?
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  Speaker 7: What do I say?
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  Speaker 4: It's actually, there's actually an infinite number of possibilities if
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  Speaker 4: we pause. So first of all, I feel my own feelings.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: So then I said, okay, Priya, what's the need here?
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  Speaker 4: I can't remember if she said catch up or debrief.
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  Speaker 4: Like I don't need a debrief. Like this is insulting.
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  Speaker 4: It's also like corporate speak. Yeah. my need wasn't to
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  Speaker 4: like catch up about our lives over the last six
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  Speaker 4: months that I, she didn't, in my mind, I was like,
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  Speaker 4: she didn't get access to that.
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  Speaker 3: It's kind of like when a, an old boyfriend or
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  Speaker 3: lover comes back into your life with a you up text.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly.
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  Speaker 4: Exactly. Like these aren't our agreements.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: And so I pause and I texted back something like,
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  Speaker 4: I don't know about you, but I felt a lot of,
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  Speaker 4: like a huge loss in our friendship and a huge
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  Speaker 4: change over the last six months. I'm not sure a
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  Speaker 4: catch up or a debrief is what we need. I'd
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  Speaker 4: be more interested or up for a clearing, you know,
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: three dots, three dots, three dots. You know, she's responding.
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  Speaker 3: Were you like sweating? Well, she was.
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  Speaker 2: I am.
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  Speaker 6: I'm sweating.
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  Speaker 4: My heart's palpitating. You know, I'm also mad. I also
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  Speaker 4: love her. You know, I'm like, ah, and, um, All
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: the feelings. And then she writes back something like, thanks
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  Speaker 4: for the good language. Like, that's right. I think a
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  Speaker 4: clearing is much better language. I've also experienced a big change.
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  Speaker 4: I'd be up for a clearing. Okay. And so what
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  Speaker 4: I did in that text exchange, what I was trying
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  Speaker 4: to do was ask, is this worth facing? Do I
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  Speaker 4: care about this enough to be honest about it? But
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  Speaker 4: the second thing is I was trying to set up
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  Speaker 4: the right fight. So in my language, I was saying
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  Speaker 4: a clearing versus a debrief. So that we wouldn't be
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  Speaker 4: like coming on the phone or however we chose to
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  Speaker 4: do it and be having two totally different conversations.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: And so part of what I'm doing is I'm trying
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  Speaker 4: to like right the ship so that when we get,
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  Speaker 4: when we're deciding to come together, it's nervous for both
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  Speaker 4: of us. Like neither one of us had this conversation.
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  Speaker 4: Who wants to fight? Who wants to go through this?
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  Speaker 4: We're actually both agreeing. It's almost like setting the terms.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, it's all informal. And so once we actually
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: got on the phone, we both knew what we were
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  Speaker 4: getting on for.
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  Speaker 3: Hey, how did the clearing go?
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  Speaker 4: It went well. As a clearing, it was a very,
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  Speaker 4: I think for me, helpful, effective, cathartic conversation to hear
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  Speaker 4: where she was coming from. And then I got to
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: share where I was coming from. I think like so
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  Speaker 4: many of these clearings or conversations, like it doesn't always
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: mean that you come back together again. The whole thing
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  Speaker 4: became a loosening of the friendship.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: Takeaway four, before a fight, think about what you and
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: the group or you and another person actually need in
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: this moment. Do you need to repair old misunderstandings and hurts?
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: Do you need to understand why a person behaved.
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: The way they did?
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: Do both of you need to state explicitly how you
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: disagree on an issue and feel heard? You want to
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: set the foundation ahead of time so the other person
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: knows what to expect and you end up having the
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: right conversation. After the break, we talk about being direct
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: and scheduling time to fight.
• 15:01
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  Speaker 9: you your perfect match using Palantir, though not affiliated with
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  Speaker 4: They can sue me. I could lose everything, but it
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  Speaker 9: Planet Money on the NPR app or wherever you get
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  Speaker 9: your podcasts.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: You know, I was thinking about this. I would call
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: myself a direct person. Meaning that I'm just likely to
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: mention things that are on my mind or say when
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: I felt that an interaction was weird, try to get
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: to the bottom of it. And sometimes that's well-received and
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: sometimes it is not. So I wonder how we can
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: communicate across this divide if one person is more direct
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: and one person isn't.
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: I read a wonderful article by Raina Cohen in the
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: Atlantic years ago, and she looked at this question, but
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: from the perspective of basically couples who are married to
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  Speaker 4: each other, where one would call themselves direct and the
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: other one wants to flee, right? It's sort of indirect.
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  Speaker 4: And one of the things that she found was that
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  Speaker 4: the couples in which they had totally different conflict styles,
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: because at some level, what you're also talking about is
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: directness versus indirectness. It's culturally... relevant, right? It's also related
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: to age. It's related to gender. It's related to workplace norms.
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: It's related to all sorts of things. So one of
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: the things that she found within couples who one of them,
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: you know, wanted to be direct and just get it
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  Speaker 4: out with all the time. And the other one, like
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: never wanted to have any conversation ever was they scheduled
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: their fights.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Huh?
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: That's sweet.
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: And they described it as the same way as you
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: go to a dentist for dental hygiene. You don't wait
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: to go to cavity, you know, for six months. It's
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: sort of marriage hygiene. And though it might sound literally
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: like getting your tooth taken out, it de-escalates it for
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  Speaker 4: the people who fear conflict. They just know like, oh,
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  Speaker 4: this is just what we do. Like he's not divorcing me.
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: We're just having one of our scheduled meetings. And then
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: for the person who feels like they really want to
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: get stuff off their chest all the time, it allows
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: them to have a container where they're not deeply frustrated.
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: Cause right. If you want to have a fight and something,
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: your person's like not wanting to, then it adds a
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: second layer, which is like, we can't even talk about
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: the things that are important.
• 17:31
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: And so I, even though that's about a couple, part
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: of why the art of fighting is actually about groups
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: and looking at the context of a community is because
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: I think in modern life, we actually need to create
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: our own subcultures.
• 17:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: Friends do this right inside jokes, right? are shorthand for culture, right?
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: The ways you hang out, the things you call yourself
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: are shorthand for culture. And so in these longer term friendships, relationships,
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: family life, it's actually over time finding ways, almost like
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: agreements of like, can we have this conversation?
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: Takeaway five, people have different levels of comfort with confrontation
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: or even mild disagreement. Some of us are more direct.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: Some of us hold things in for longer. One way
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: to bridge the gap is to schedule time to fight.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: Another way to put that is schedule time to check
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: in on what's going well and what's going less well,
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: where you could support each other better, or basically what
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: grievances you have.
• 18:27
  Speaker 6: With each other.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: Then it becomes a practice and it gives everybody an
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: opening to share.
• 18:33
  Speaker 8: By the way, not every fight has to be a
• 18:35
  Speaker 8: big deal.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: When somebody did something that rubbed you the wrong way,
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: it is possible in a healthy scenario for you to
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: tell them and them to say, I'm sorry, and you
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: both to just move on. It's like when you step
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: on somebody's foot, right?
• 18:48
  Speaker 6: They say, ouch.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: And you say, I'm so sorry. I didn't see you there.
• 18:53
  Speaker 8: And that's that.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: You know, I wonder if when we feel the impulse
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: to fight with someone or we feel that a fight
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: is needed, does that always mean that they did something wrong?
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: I can say from my experience as a facilitator, not necessarily.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: I introduced this term, a meter check. And so a
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: meter check is to actually go in and check to
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: see if there's still actually electricity in the lamp. And
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: so if somebody has done something to you and you're
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: not totally sure if I need to go and fight
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: about it, like get a meter check, meaning ask someone
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: else who you respect, who you love, not in a
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: gossipy way to be like, hey, like this happened. What
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: do you think? Yeah.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: I guess what I'm thinking is that I like the
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: idea of creating a space where two people can think
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: different things, be in the world differently. have different levels
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: of sensitivity to something and neither one of them is
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: like a bad person.
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. A wonderful book on this is called Siblings Without Rivalry.
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: And in the prologue of this book, the authors write
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: something like, your job is not to make your children
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: best friends. Your job is to help teach them how
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: to build a bridge between the islands of their different identities.
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: So that even after they leave your home, your house,
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: they know at any point in their life, they always
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: know like the path to each other. And that's, to me,
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: that's all relationships. And in some cases, I may alter
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: you because of what I said, and you may think
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: of something totally different. And in other cases, we may
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: agree to disagree. And then we have to decide, can
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: we still, you know, be in this friendship or be
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: in this relationship. Like closeness is a spectrum. It's not
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: either we're friends or we're not friends, right? A friend
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: of mine has a mentor who always tells her you
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: can be in relationship with anyone at the right distance.
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: And it's your job to figure out what the distance
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: is for that person. So it's not saying everyone's your
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: best friend or everyone's your enemy, right? It's also, this
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: is again, fortunately or unfortunately, these are skills that will
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: help us in modern life.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Priya, thank you so much.
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: Okay, y'all, time for a recap. Takeaway one, conflict, not
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: necessarily a bad thing. Priya argues it's actually necessary if
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: we want to be in close and authentic relationships. When
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: you have a moment of misalignment with someone, think of
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: it as a signal. There's something here to talk about.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: Takeaway two, healthy conflict can bring structure and clarity to
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: your relationships. Takeaway three, choose your battles before you really
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: get into it with someone. Ask yourself questions like, how
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: much do I care about this person or this group?
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: Can I continue to meaningfully engage without facing this? And
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: do I think that by saying something, I could change
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: the situation? At the same time, don't shy away from
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: a disagreement just because you're afraid. Takeaway four, before a fight,
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: think about what you and the group or you and
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: another person actually need at this moment. You want to
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: set the table ahead of time so the other person
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: knows what to expect and you end up having the
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: right conversation. And takeaway five, people have different levels of
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: comfort with confrontation. Some of us are more direct. Some
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: of us hold things in. One way to bridge the
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: gap is to schedule time to fight. Also, remember, just
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: because you're upset with someone or they're upset with you
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: doesn't mean that one of you is a bad person
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: or even that one of you did something wrong. Sometimes
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: that's the case, but sometimes you're just two different people
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: with different ways of being in the world and you
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: get to decide how close you want to be. That's
• 22:32
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  Speaker 3: Download the NPR app today. This episode of LifeKit was
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: produced by Kayla Lattimore. Our digital editor is Malika Garib
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  Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.
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