By Melinda Burrell
It was a sunny spring day and I was enjoying the mild breeze as I walked home. Waiting at the streetcorner, I checked my phone. Three headlines set me seething and I strode home angrily.
My husband greeted me with a smile. “Hey! I picked up some chicken for dinner.”
“Why didn’t you ask me what I wanted for dinner?” I snapped.
I quickly apologized. I had redirected my political anger towards him, and that wasn’t fair.
Many of us are dealing with a lot these days. The world around us feels uncertain, and we get angry, worried, or fearful. Often, we fall back on bad conflict management patterns. We displace our anger, taking it out on the wrong people. We get passive-aggressive, only indirectly expressing our frustration or resentment rather than tackling issues head on: we go silent, get snarky, or agree to do something and then do it poorly.
We also may do other unhelpful things: change the topic if it gets close to something that’s bothering us, pretend “everything’s fine” when we’re actually angry, or do the opposite and suddenly pile everything that’s bothering us into one download onto someone.
None of this helps any of us. We hurt our relationships, and the conflicts get repeated rather than resolved.
What’s happening is that, in these challenging times, our brains are constantly perceiving some level of threat. Our bodies respond: blood pressure rises, stress hormones flood us. In fact, we’re naturally so sensitive to potential threats that exposure to just 30 milliseconds of anxiety-inducing background tv coverage can literally take points off our IQ.
So, what’s the answer?
Double down on supporting each other, being intentional about how we treat ourselves and others.
First step, we need to get better at identifying when we’re using some of these unhelpful behaviors. Once we see them in ourselves, we can choose a better response to the situation. Telling yourself, “I’m feeling defensive right now, and getting snarky,” re-engages our rational thinking and calms our emotions.
Another step is to relax our own stress response. When you feel yourself getting angry, take a few deep breaths (oxygen to your brain!) or count to 10 (another way of re-engaging rational thinking). Don’t only do this when you’re angry. Deliberately create calm times during your day to downshift from constant alert. Intentionally take a short walk, do some light stretches, or find a video that makes you laugh.
As you’re helping yourself, you will help others as well. Your calm is contagious – both in a heated moment and in general — and can help lower another person’s stress level.
These days I’m leaning into John Gottman’s 5:1 “Magic Ratio.” We naturally focus more on negative things than positive things, so it takes five positive interactions to overcome one negative interaction. Negative interactions happen quickly, like that snippy question to my husband. Happily, the positive interactions also can be quick and easy – a compliment or shared laugh. Those are fun to have.
So what’s the answer? Know when we’re slipping into unhelpful behaviors, be kind to ourselves and others. Simple but profound rules for challenging times.
Melinda Burrell, PhD, syndicated by PeaceVoice, trains and speaks on the neuroscience of communication and conflict, and teaches conflict resolution at George Mason University. Her dissertation was on how liberals and conservatives experience talking across political divides.
