Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

There's absolutely no way we can have a course

on relationships and not talk about the most juicy topic

of them all, conflict and the way we manage conflict

in relationships, what do we mean by conflict,

and how it is essential for the well-being of people

in relationships to have a good way,

or as good a way as possible, to deal with conflict.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Sometimes, people say, how can I enter conflict?

And I would say, we don't enter conflict.

We create conflict.

Conflict is the outcome.

The first thing is, why does something

become a conflict is an important question to ask.

For some people, simple disagreements

are experienced like sources of conflict.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Every one of us learned, in our growing up, family,

community, political reality, racial reality--

how to respond to conflict, how to

live in conflictual situations.

And we learned them at home, and we

learned what price we paid when we spoke up,

and what price we paid when we didn't say anything,

or what we gained from not saying anything,

or what we gained from speaking up,

from fighting for something.

And we watched how other people dealt with disagreement,

dealt with power struggles.

This is probably one of the most important things

we learn, watching other people around us--

how did people deal when they were humiliated

or when they were shamed or when they were feeling guilty

or when they were dissed, and what they did with their anger.

Because conflict is directly connected to our experience

of anger, frustration, disappointment, hurt,

conflict is the expression of all these feelings, often when

they are not handled well.

A conflict is basically an ascending curve from something

that is a discord, a disagreement, a challenge,

and it goes all the way to an explosion.

It's an ascending curve.

Conflict, don't think of it as something static.

It moves.

So I want you to see the complexity of conflict,

that it's not just fighting and arguing,

but that conflict is an overall situational ecology

that we have either learned to live with and plunge

into, or often, on the other side,

have learned to avoid like the plague

because it felt so dangerous and so threatening.

And what will be interesting is if you notice

who are the people that are close to you,

and is their experience of conflict similarly as yours?

What you often find in a relationship--

there's only three dances around this.

It's two fighters, two distancers,

or one fighter and one fleer.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Imagine I want to discuss something with you,

and you say, not now.

At my worst, sometimes, I can be the person who

follows you through the house.

You go into the room.

I start knocking at the door.

I follow you in the room.

I am not going to be able to stop this

until we've got this thing figured out and discussed.

Does this work?

No.

It generally doesn't because the more I run after you,

if you are the one who tends to close off

or needs to cool down first or needs

to be able to think and gather your thoughts

and said to me, not now, because I'm overwhelming you

and I'm flooding you, then the more I run after you,

the more I strengthen your need for space for distance

for closing the door.

What you insist on persists.

I am going to make you even more of a withdrawer

by virtue of the way that I pursue you

at this moment of conflict.

What would help me more?

If you say to me, not now, I will say to you,

you have complete legitimate space here to say,

I can't have this discussion right now.

Fair enough.

But then you have to be the one to reengage with it

so that you don't put me in the position now of the one who's

waiting and waiting and waiting because you never come back,

because if you had it your way, we would never

be discussing this thing.

So that is then going to make me become more of a pursuer

again because your reluctance and avoidance is strengthening

my desperation about when are we ever going to talk about this

or address this or whatever the issue is.

So, first of all, understand that in mismanagement

of conflict, each person, by virtue of their stance,

is going to reinforce the position of the other, which

is often the opposite of what they actually want.

So watch what you do.

You won't get the conversation you

want if you can't accept that the other person has to engage

with you when they actually can engage with you

and can actually hear you, which is what

you want in the first place.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The fighter and the fighter who do conflict in the way

that I highly recommend you not to do

are people who often will do what is commonly

called kitchen thinking.

It means we're arguing about this, and within two seconds--

I'll give you 20 seconds--

I've already brought up that and that from two years ago,

10 years ago, 20 years ago.

I am piling up all the dirty dishes in one sink,

and it's everything that you've ever

done that has annoyed me is right there, when, in fact, we

began to talk about why you were late last night.

That's two fighters for you.

They escalate very quickly.

They bring in the stuff.

And if one person ends up saying,

okay, I understand, I accept this, and what about--

because they're not done.

They've got something else to bring in.

And so it becomes very explosive very quickly,

and each one attacking the other and often the other person

then defending themselves and counterattacking.

I don't have to tell you that you can't wash all the dishes

at the same time if they're all piled up

on each other in the sink.

It's a very clear image.

Pick a dish, and stick to it.

And don't start piling up the entire history.

You're destroying your relationship when you do that.

It doesn't matter if it's between friends,

your romantic partner, your family member, or at work.

That attitude is so painful because there is nothing left.

And people sometimes fight as if they have nothing

to lose when, in fact, they have everything to lose.

So this is one of the styles of handling conflict

that is really problematic.

Is there something you want to discuss?

Is there something you're fighting about?

You didn't like the person being late.

You felt dissed and dismissed.

Stick to that.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

So, in this instance, fleer-fleer,

withdrawer-withdrawer, avoider-avoider--

you come in late, and I don't say anything.

And you wait, and I don't say anything.

The other one, you haven't even closed the door,

then I'm already on your back.

This one, I am cold, ice-cold.

I'm waiting.

I'm waiting to see if you're going

to actually say something.

But you're waiting to see if I'm actually

going to say something.

And then I don't talk to you for three days.

Whatever.

We don't talk.

We go quiet.

We cut off.

We distance ourselves.

And there, too, it's the same idea

that I am doing this as if I have nothing

to lose when I have everything to lose,

which is the relationship that matters to me.

So two flee-flee people--

what happens is that days go by, and then, suddenly, someone

says to the other, want to go for lunch,

or makes a little joke.

And so it gets smoothed over, but nothing is ever

really addressed or resolved.

So if you are one of those--

more inclined one of those people,

you may want to ask yourself, how about I don't just

smooth it over, but I say, can we chat about this now,

do we have something that we need to work out,

rather than just letting it simmer.

And then it gets cold, and then it kind of settles into a lump,

and then you move over it.

But the lump never gets removed.

Watch your relationships and see which

is your prime choreography in the management

or in the experience of conflict.

What's your stance?

Do you go toward it, or do you run away from it?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

One of the very important ways to defuse conflict

is to ask about the hurt that lies underneath.

So, in fact, instead of saying, what is this fight about,

you actually ask, what is it that is hurting you

that is evoked for you that is living right

underneath this fight?

There's a particular structure for understanding conflict

that was developed by Howard Markman

that I find very useful that I want to share with you.

Underlying conflict-- there often are three hidden agendas,

meaning what people are fighting about

isn't really what they are fighting about.

They may be fighting about who gets to attend this meeting,

but that's not the fight.

So what are those three things?

The first one is whose priorities matter most.

Who has the power?

Who gets to decide?

It's not who is at the meeting only,

but it evokes in me questions of who is more important than me,

questions of relevance.

That's what we're fighting about.

The second one would be closeness and connection,

questions of trust.

Who has my back?

Can I rely on you?

Do you think of me when I'm not here?

And the third one is respect and recognition.

Do you value me?

Do you value my presence, my opinions?

Am I valued and legitimate?

If you look at your fights, and you don't take them literally,

you ask yourself, what was it that

was really triggered for me--

power and priorities, care and closeness,

or respect and recognition?

Take a common situation.

One person came back late.

Now, you can think that you're fighting about the fact

that they were late.

But if I ask you, what is it that upset you

about their lateness, one of you may answer,

it's the fact that they always get to do what they want.

One of you may answer, it's the fact

that they told me that they would be here at 7:00,

and I can't trust them.

They don't show up reliably.

And one of you may say, it's the fact

that I was here with the food prepared,

and it felt like there is no recognition

for my contribution.

Same conflict-- the fight could look exactly the same.

In the end, we are creatures of meaning.

And what matters to us most is to feel that other people think

of us and that we matter.

And in all three situations, we arrive at the same conclusion.

But the underlying theme is different.

So it looks like we're fighting about your lateness.

But we really are hurting about something else.

Then it depends how you're going to answer.

If you start to justify and counterattack and defend,

we lack the empathic connection.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

There are many different mindsets

that we can have when we enter a conflictual situation.

One of them is I'm going to convince you.

I'm going to change your mind.

I'm going to drill my point of view into you.

And here is the truth about this one.

The more you're going to try to make them change their mind,

the more you are actually contributing

to reinforcing the very position that you're trying to undo,

that's the paradox.

You want to present your point of view

as if you have the truth, and you're arguing from a place

as if there's only one person who has a brain.

You want to invite a conversation that

is more empathic, simply that, why is it easier

for you to fight than to listen?

It's a very good question.

What would happen if you actually

heard what hurt me and could respond to it caringly,

kindly, rather than fight me over it

and pretend that I shouldn't feel this way because I have no

right to feel this way, and then we are fully back

in conflict land?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I wish I could say, when there is conflict,

don't ever say X. Don't ever say something you will regret.

Don't ever say something the person

can never take off their skin afterwards.

Don't say things that are contemptuous,

that are humiliating, that are shame-inducing.

But that is what people who escalate often will do.

And they are so used to it that what happens to me

as a therapist, when I'm sitting with a couple who does this,

is that I experience the pain of the slings.

But they don't even feel it anymore

because they've been so conditioned

to the roughness of the interaction.

I think that I'm going to ask each

of you, what is the one thing that you wish you hadn't said?

Or what is one conflictual situation

that you would love to have an opportunity to do differently?

And then say, I wish I could say,

"Stop it," when somebody goes after me like this.

It's not just what you have said.

It's also what you haven't said.

I wish I would say, "I won't let you talk to me this way."

That is an important thing also in situations of conflict.

It's most important if you can discern

where is the place where the corrective would really

make a big difference for you.

I want you to have a better sense

as to what is your stance, your inclination in relation

to conflict.

And what happens to you in your interaction with others

when they are like you and when they

are on the other side of you?

I also want you to really remember,

underneath conflict lie three dominant themes--

power, trust, and value, three essential

experiences we all have in relationships.