Conflict Management Practice Notes

Calming Techniques

In a previous practice note I suggested that there are two ways we can approach our penchant for reactivity when we are triggered. One seeks to address why it is that we are triggered in the first place, the more deep and long term solution. The other focuses on the moment that we are triggered, and seeks to restore short term balance. It is really the symptomatic response-the band aid-that helps the person in conflict calm down, and release the primal grip of the amygdala so that the cortex can come into play. This practice note focuses on techniques for calming down.

The range of these techniques is informed by our understanding of the physiology and neurobiology of stress and relaxation. When a man or a woman is triggered and experiences stress the sympathetic autonomic nervous system is activated and with it a series of typical physiological reactions: dilation of pupils, inhibition of salivation, constriction of blood vessels, acceleration of heart beat, relaxation of airways and inhibition of indigestion. Our bodies prepare for fight or flight. More recent studies of woman under stress have led to an appreciation of gender differences in the stress response and how women will also exhibit ‘tend’ and ‘befriend’ behaviors.

The autonomic nervous system predates the development of the cortex and is essentially driven by the constellation of inner brain structures referred to as the limbic brain, most importantly the amygdala. From a neurological point of view the danger is that when we are triggered and experience a stressful event, our cortex with its capacity for social restraint, alternative analysis and conscious choice is compromised, and we are literally hijacked by the amygdala. We become stuck in a stressful emotional reaction.

An awareness of the early signs of being triggered is vital to being able to calm down before we are swept away by strong emotions. Ideally we are able to self monitor ourselves, but it is not unusual for friends and partners to provide that vital feedback-“you are going red in the face and your lips are tight”; “you are pale and look like you saw a ghost” or even “I notice tears welling up.” Amazingly the person experiencing any of these three physical reactions may be unaware of their anger, fear or sadness at a conscious level.

Assuming that we do gain conscious insight to our physical reaction-whether through self monitoring or through third party feedback, what are techniques that we can employ to calm down?

Breathing

Of all the techniques, probably the most powerful is our capacity for conscious breathing. When we pay attention to our breathing we can shift our physiological reaction and start to calm down.

Breathing is powerful for a number of reasons. Firstly, we can only breathe in the present. So, when we focus on our breathing our capacity to project to the future (as we do in fear) or to the past (as we do with anger) is limited. Secondly, our inhalations stimulate the sympathetic nervous system, and our exhalations stimulate our parasympathetic nervous system. The latter is referred to as the ‘rest and digest’ response. For the most part it produces the opposite physiological reactions to the sympathetic nervous system. So when we breathe deeply into our diaphragm, and make our exhalation longer than our inhalation, we are in affect shifting the balance toward the parasympathetic and a more relaxed state. A third benefit of deep (diaphragmatic or abdomen breathing) rather than shallow (chest) breathing is the amount of oxygen we inhale. When the brain is well oxygenated it functions better. In addition, chest breathing creates shorter, more restless brain waves, while abdominal breathing creates longer, slower brain waves. Longer and slower brain waves are similar to the ones your brain makes when you are relaxed and calm.

People employ a variety of breathing practices to achieve this. Some count their breaths; others focus on their breathing in a manner that ensures that breathing is a continuous loop, while others focus on the movement of their bellies in and out with each deep and purposeful breath.

Mental Visualization

More than anything, our capacity to focus the attention of our mind on something enables us employ a range of techniques that do not require physical exertion. Mental visualization is an example It is a powerful tool that can easily be demonstrated using biofeedback devises that track your heart rate. If at the point you become aware that you have been triggered you imagine a scene in which you feel comfortable, content and at peace your heart rate will drop and you will relax. Your body is reacting to the imagined scenes as if they were real, rather than to the situation that triggered you. The more vivid detail you focus on the better. It helps to identify the scene you plan to use in advance of being triggered. Examples include a tropical beach, a favorite childhood spot, or a quiet wooded glen.

Meditation

Meditation is another useful calming technique that relies on the power of our mind to focus attention. Numerous scientific studies have established the power of mediation to relax the body and reduce the impact of stress. To meditate, sit in a comfortable place, close your eyes, relax your body, and focus your attention on something for a period of time. A limitation is that it is difficult to employ ‘in the heat of the moment.’ However, it has great utility during breaks-even as short as 5 minutes, and certainly at the end of the day.

Distraction

Both mental visualization and meditation could also be described as distraction techniques. In effect you are distracting your attention from that which is causing the stress reaction to something that has the opposite effect. However, it is also helpful to think of the power of distraction all on its own. When a mother waves a teddy bear in front of her crying baby she is a distracting technique. When a police officer asks an angry citizen to remember the factual details of what happened, he or she is using a distracting technique. When you try and count back in multiples of 23 from 1 000 345 678 the next time you are angry you are using a distracting technique.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Other calming techniques rely on some form of physical exertion. This makes sense when we consider that the fight and flight response is preparing us for some form of physical action. One of the challenges, especially in the modern office environment, is that our opportunity for exercise while we are being triggered is limited. Often we are in meetings, on the telephone, or behind a counter.

Progressive muscle relaxation is a technique that involves the systematic tensing and relaxing of muscle groups This technique is easy to do, even if you are behind a desk or on the phone. Importantly, it can help you calm down by relaxing the major muscle groups in your body.

Next time someone pushes your buttons in a meeting try tensing and relaxing your feet –one at a time, then your legs-one at a time, then your hands-one at a time. Just that will help. For a full ‘treatment’ you would ideally begin with your facial muscles and work down through the shoulders, arms, chest, legs and feet.

Exercise

Any exercise that you can do, at the time of, or soon after you have been triggered will help. This can be achieved by requesting a break-and then using it to take a walk or doing a few press ups in your office. Sometimes you can invite the person you are having the difficult conversation with to take a walk. Not only will the exercise help you, but also them!

Conclusion

We are all triggered from time to time. Unless we are aware that we are being triggered there is not a lot we can do. Fortunately there are a range of techniques available to us to help us calm down and regain our centered, balanced state. Practicing our technique of choice will go a long way to help out in the most difficult of circumstances.

From Reaction to Response: Conflict As A Choice

Once we embrace that conflict is inevitable in social relationships, the question we have to ask is “how do we respond?” Responsibly, we’d hope. Yet, for the most part, when we are in conflict, we are not very responsive, and tend to be reactive. Shifting to a responsive approach to conflict is easier said than done. When we are in conflict situations, we are typically being triggered and reverting to our unconscious conflict handling scripts.

What’s the difference between a responsive and a reactive approach? When we respond to the challenges of life-including our conflict situations-we take responsibility for our role in the situation, we are in tune with what we are feeling and why, and our thoughts, words and behaviors are conscious of the bigger picture. By contrast, when we react, we shift responsibility for the situation to the other through blame; we assume the victim role and are ‘justifiably’ carried away by powerful feelings like anger, fear and grief. We use an unconscious template for reaction that seeks acknowledgement, justice, restoration, and even revenge.

One of the reasons that it is so hard to be responsive is that we experience and are typically exposed to unproductive conflict scripts from the time of our birth. Our earliest lessons come from the approach our parents take to their own conflict, our experience of how our parents deal with us, and as we grow up, through our interactions with siblings, friends, colleagues, teachers and bosses. If we struggle to deal with our differences with the aid of language, try and imagine how hard it was during those early pre-verbal years when we didn’t even have a word to describe conflict.

As a species we have achieved great physical and mental milestones, and yet when we are threatened by another’s behavior-as is typically the case in conflict-we reveal how immature we are emotionally. It is as if we revert to our childhood mentality when we are triggered.

Knowing this at an intellectual level is one thing. Being able to shift our physical and emotional behavior from reaction to responsive choice when we are actually triggered is another. If only, because when we are triggered, we are by definition not in our most conscious state. Our well worn neural pathways take us away from the perspective taking cortex, into the reflexive limbic structures such as the amygdala. We are in a reactive survival mode.

As modern neurologists, such as Antonio Damasio, have helped us understand, emotions are enmeshed in the neural networks of reason. In other words, there is no such thing as a decision free of emotion. Yet in our culture, we continuously hear expressions that extol the virtue of not making emotional decisions. This is one of the great challenges of our time-how to mature emotionally, such that we can make responsible emotional decisions about how to deal with our differences (aka conflict).

There are two ways we can approach our penchant for reactivity. One focuses on the moment that we are triggered, and seeks to restore short term balance. It is really the symptomatic response-the band aid-that helps the person in conflict calm down, and release the primal grip of the amygdala so that the cortex can come into play. There are a variety of calming techniques that help with this. Until the next time we are triggered!

The other is more causal and seeks to transform the trigger mechanism itself. This approach is centered on taking responsibility for our own emotions and learning new templates for our emotional responses. It relies on the inherent plasticity of the brain to rewire its well worn templates.

Stuff happens. We all experience pain and discomfort. The shift is in seeing that when we are triggered, it is not because of something out there that is happening, but rather the interpretation we give to the situation. A blue sky can mean hell for a farmer desperate for rain, and joy for a sunbather at a beach. What triggers one, will not necessarily trigger another. Playing the victim is a choice. And when we do, it feeds into our tendencies to react.

If we can make the shift from victim to navigator of the quality of our own experiences, we can start to work with the energy of the emotion. So often we suppress what it is that we are feeling, or just give our emotions free reign. Both of these reactions are tempting, but do not help shift the trigger mechanism. In fact the unresolved emotional energy continues to seek release and sets in motion the characteristic spiral dynamic of destructive conflict.

Gestalt therapy has a simple suggestion for change-feel what you are feeling. It is only when we are able to experience where we are emotionally that we can move somewhere else. Some find this scary. Imagine, allowing yourself to feel the anger. Almost immediately you tell yourself to be bigger, and to show compassion. Or if you are disappointed at a friend, you chastise yourself for being judgmental. Yet, to change the way we are triggered, we must allow ourselves to feel what it is that we are feeling.

This does not mean that we wallow in our feelings. We use the attention of our mind to focus and clearly identify what it is that we are feeling. If we are able, we trace back in time, other experiences where we were triggered in a similar manner. You have probably heard people asking in exasperation, “why does this keep happening to me?” It is because they are carrying unresolved emotional energy that in all probability will take them back to an incident that occurred in the earliest years of their lives.

Once we have identified the emotional signature that we associate with the trigger, and explored its commonality with other life experiences, we can allow ourselves to feel the emotion, ideally with a mind that is compassionate. In other words, we do not judge ourselves for what we are feeling. When we can do this, the energy of the emotion can move, and not be hijacked by limiting neural structures like the amygdala.

When we allow our feelings, when we start to experience them fully, and to welcome them into the neural hallways of reason, we can start to respond in a more mature way to our life challenges. We are able to take the stock of the bigger perspective and incorporate the significance of what is happening to us right here, right now.

As long as we have unresolved emotional energy, we will always be triggered by this or by that. Each of us discovers through his or her triggers, the areas that seek integration. When we allow these situations to morph into conflict situations, we have choices. One path takes us toward the well worn templates of reaction. Another takes us toward calming techniques, and ways that work with (not against) the energy of the emotion.

This path is not easy, for in the moment of being triggered we are outraged that we are being treated the way we are. The situation in our mind rises to a level that demands a reaction-and when we don’t get the ‘response’ we expect, our ire only increases, and we set in motion the destructive cycles that we ultimately call conflict. A shift that is honest about our proclivity for reaction and which moves us toward-not away- from our emotions increases our chances of a conscious response to the challenges of the inevitable conflict that comes our way.

Being aware of the difference between a reactive and responsive approach is the start. Then the hard work begins. As we uncover the contours of our unconscious conflict handling scripts we can begin to shift. We learn how to calm down, to take responsibility for our reactions, and hopefully to feel what is going in a wholesome manner that doesn’t exclude our most creative problem solving capacities.

Tears In Mediation

It is only a question of time before someone cries during one of your mediations. For a new mediator this can be unsettling. What does it mean and what intervention options are available and indeed advisable?

Someone once said to me that tears on the outside are a sign of healing on the inside. If we remember that when people are stuck in conflict, it’s almost like they are frozen, then tears can also be a sign that they are starting to thaw, and change. Both these frames to look at tears suggest potential, and that as a general rule, tears are a good-not bad-thing.

In my experience, being comfortable with crying (like the exhibition of any strong emotional states) and being able to fully validate what it is that the person who is crying is feeling, can go a long way to facilitating a lasting resolution of the conflict.

Ken Cloke (an insightful thought leader in the field of conflict resolution) has articulated how there are different levels at which we can resolve a conflict. It starts at a physical level when the parties stop fighting. The image that always comes to mind is of two children being pulled apart.

We can settle the issues-as we typically see happening in a court arena. At a cognitive level, there is agreement on what needs to be done. Another good example is the way the dispute between Israel and Lebanon was resolved in 2006. They stopped fighting, and resolved the border dispute. I think we are all know that the conflict is still simmering.

Getting to a lasting resolution requires that we traverse the emotional waters and deal with our pain and discomfort. This is not easy. For the most part our emotional templates were developed when we were young and unless we have worked on increasing our emotional literacy, we and the disputants we encounter in mediations will be unaware of their templates.

If people are to move beyond their anger, grief or fear they must feel it. Suppressing or sedating emotional pain or discomfort doesn’t work over a long period of time. Tears are typically a sign that the emotional pain and discomfort are being addressed –that a thawing or healing is taking place.

The cynics amongst you will correctly point out that tears can also be used to manipulate and deflect responsibility. Even if that is true at times, my view, as a mediator, is that something significantly upsetting is still occurring, and that the tears remain a sign of desperation that should be validated with respect.

Beyond validation-letting the person know that their emotional response is valid from their perspective-we should consider whether to meet with the person who is crying in private. However, beware of sending a message that tears are not a good thing, by ushering the person away.

Given that crying can constitute a loss of face for some, and that they would prefer the opportunity to cry in private, it is wise to check in and get a sense of what is needed. When someone’s tears follow what appears to be an ambush, or where they feel out of control, meeting in private may be a good idea.

Obviously, having handkerchiefs is a good idea, but offering them should not necessarily be the first response. Better to anticipate and have them available. Offering them can imply that the response is inappropriate and worse, take the person away from what they are feeling.

Beyond the more intuitive reasons to value tears, it is interesting to know that from a physiological point of view tears are a way that the body releases stress related hormones like cortisol.

So the next time you notice someone start to tear up during your mediation, see is as an opportunity to address the emotional energy. Be sensitive, and work to validate the emotions associated with the tears. It could be the very thing that helps the parties reach a lasting resolution.

Welcome!

This new blog is the result of feedback I received from readers of my Conflict Managment E-Newsletter. Many indicated that they wanted me to write more, and to share my pracitical insights about the management of conflict through articles, case studes, practice notes, and in the form of tips.

I have created a number of categories that appear in the left hand navigation bar. My intention is to add at least one new entry a month that will address the categories that I have created.

Please feel free to comment and add your thoughts as we go along.

With appreciation for your support,

John Ford