How to Have *Healthy* Conflict With Amanda Ripley  ## Metadata - Author: [[We Can Do Hard Things]] - Full Title: How to Have *Healthy* Conflict With Amanda Ripley - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/f38977f5-fbc2-4b61-99fe-e46c98a04bad ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Movement Versus Stagnation** - High conflict escalates into us-vs-them, distorts perception, and causes chronic stress. - Good conflict moves you forward with anger and curiosity instead of contempt and stagnation. Transcript: Amanda Ripley So yeah, we need conflict. We probably need more of it than we have, which I know is shocking. We just need a different kind of it. And conflict, like you said, is this push-pull, right? It's this friction, this tension. I like to think of it as resistance, kind of like if you go work out, like you need some resistance or else what are you even doing? Right. And that's how we get challenged. That's how we challenge each other. That's how we get pushed is that resistance, but there's different ways to work out, right? You could work out and destroy your body in 20 minutes or less, maybe a minute. So you want to do it in a way that is actually helping you get stronger. And there's also internal conflict, I just want to add, right? It's not always between you and another person. This is something we're constantly trying to get journalists to remember. It's like internal conflict. It's really interesting. I mean, you all know this. This is like stating the obvious to you, but internal conflict is also a big piece of the equation because that's where it all begins, right? So to answer your question, when I started working on high conflict, I was following people who were trapped in really ugly, dysfunctional conflicts of all kinds all around the world. And I was asking them, how did you get out? And it turned out that's the wrong question because we need conflict. Getting to zero conflict is not the goal, right? The question was, how did you get out of high conflict and into good conflict? So high conflict is a special kind of conflict that becomes conflict for conflict's sake. It escalates. It begins to distort our perception. It's usually an us versus them kind of deal, right? And we start to feel we are morally superior and also quite threatened by the other side, which sometimes we are, sometimes we aren't, but the feeling is very strong and consistent. And in that state, the research is really clear that we just make a ton of mistakes. I mean, we literally lose our peripheral vision and figuratively. So we miss opportunities when they arise. And it's also really hard on your body and mind and your soul. It's just that chronic stress of being in that state. It's characterized by things like contempt, disgust, predictability. You know exactly. It's the same arguments over and over, right? And you're maybe having them in your head. And also a real sense of righteousness and superiority. So those are some of the characteristics of high conflict. ([Time 0:04:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a032b91f-90e5-476d-ab07-3fe920ca693b)) - **A Pause That Changed Their Fight** - Glennon and Abby described a recent fight where a wise pause let Glennon stay soft and Abby speak up. - They credited less shame and self-regulation for transforming their conflict into movement. Transcript: Abby Wambach Are you asking? Yeah. I think we should probably talk about our most recent conflict that was really helpful with the extraordinary wise pause that we took. And I went upstairs, I made some tea and I came downstairs and Glennon, when I came downstairs, the vibe in which it wasn't even necessarily like, hey, so we're going to work towards something Here. It was just the vibe in which she presented her experience. And so what happened in my body, because so often in our prior conflicts, she's fighting for her life. I am now energetically absorbing this fighting for her life, which almost in some ways forces me to counteract and respond in a way that I, too, am now also fighting for my life. And I try to remember and be like, oh, this is we are doing this for something else. With this new energy that was like, hey, I think that we need to be a little bit more direct in the way that we're talking to each other. I was trying to get her attention and teasing her more frequently in the last couple of weeks. And it was something that I was doing for X reason. And she was getting frustrated with me because it wasn't feeling good. And I was missing, we were missing. Glennon Doyle She was trying to get at me In moments of stress, I go internal and get quiet. And that scares her. So she starts coming at me in a lot of different ways. She's trying to get me out, but it makes me shut down more. But I think that moment of conflict, it was the first time in my entire life, which we talked about after, that I didn't immediately think subconsciously. It's not something that I think of. You're my enemy and I have to figure out how to win this, how to make myself seem like I'm right, how to make it clear that I'm not crazy here, that everything that I think is valid. And in order for me to make sure that you don't think that I'm crazy, I have to make you seem crazy. This is zero-sum game, right? And what scares me about conflict getting to a place where we can do it better as a world is that I cannot believe the amount of emotional intelligence, stability, regulation, non-shame. I think that not coming to an argument with shame deep underneath everything is the answer. And I haven't worked that out yet. I just have less shame right now than I've ever had before. And when I enter a conflict with a base of an underlying belief that I'm not good, I'm not capable of maintaining myself, I will fight for my life. And there is no way we're making it anywhere from here. Abby Wambach Both of us goes to our shame responses, right? Like Glennon is like, I'm crazy. And so that's where she's conflicting from. And I go to, I'm not lovable. You're going to leave me. And so that's where I, and so interestingly in our conflicts, that's super triggering for the other. Glennon Doyle But like now we have done so much work on ourselves, right? So it's like, I came to this argument yesterday without I am crazy, without I am bad. So I have to justify all my actions. She came to the argument without the belief that I was going to leave. And just that changed everything. We were able to be curious. I felt like, oh, I remembered, oh, I love this person. She's not my enemy. That was new. I stayed soft. I've never stayed soft in my entire life in a conflict. That was new. Amanda Ripley Wow. Glennon Doyle And you stayed strong. Yeah. I got soft. You got strong. Yeah. Which was different. And so basically, this is a long way of saying, holy shit, it's so hard. Amanda Ripley How do we expect people to do this yeah it takes an emotional giant yeah right i know i mean first of all that's fucking awesome so good on you you know what i mean like some people die most People die and never get there with their partner so yes it is really hard but let's take a moment and be like, wow, what a cool thing. I mean, that must have felt like almost out of body, right? Gone in to be like, I'm okay here. I can stand here. Glennon Doyle It felt like magic. Yeah, it was magic. It felt like magic. ([Time 0:10:35](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2ed1facf-fec8-45a9-bb46-e1944cf1d640)) - **Take A Real Pause** - When you pause, take at least 30 minutes and do something that occupies your brain differently. - Listen to a podcast or watch silly TV to stop rumination and return calmer. Transcript: Amanda Ripley First of all, Abby mentioned that you took a pause and everybody always says that, Oh, take a break. And I'm always like, really? Cause I want to fight this out to the ground, right? Cause you know, that's such a strong, like it's hard to kind of set it aside, but the best advice I got on this was from John and Julie Gottman who study marriage conflict. And they said that you want the break to be at least 30 minutes and you want to do something that occupies your brain differently. Cause I used to like walk around the block, just like ruminating about the conflict and like coming up with like really cutting, really cutting. Wait till he hears this. Yes. Yes. That's not a break. Yeah. No, he in this case, but yeah, it's not a break. So, you know, listen to a podcast. That's one of the suggestions they gave. Uh, watch a silly TV show, like listen to music, like literally give your brain a break, stare at trees, whatever, but that is important. ([Time 0:26:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/372b48dd-d415-4d2c-9bea-fed183b6c57d)) - **Avoid The Four Fire-Starters** - Avoid four fire-starters: humiliation, conflict entrepreneurs, corruption, and false binaries. - Spot and steer clear of these to prevent escalation into high conflict. Transcript: Amanda Ripley Like I call them fire starters, trip wires into high conflict. Okay. So the four fire starters that lead to high conflict that you want to avoid at all costs if you want to sleep at night and stay in relationship on this earth are humiliation, conflict entrepreneurs, Corruption, and false binaries. And now let's go through each one, right? ([Time 0:28:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/eba2f675-2353-441f-b8a5-1616fd6160c3)) - **Humiliation Fuels Escalation** - Humiliation is the emotional nuclear bomb that regenerates violent and poisonous conflict. - Even justified humiliation fuels long-term dangerous escalation. Transcript: Amanda Ripley It is the forced and public degradation of some person or someone in your group, right? This is a guaranteed way to drive poisonous conflict. Every domestic violence, gang violence, war, much of American politics today is all being fueled by this constantly regenerating supply of humiliation. Yes. And you want to be aware of it so that you don't accidentally humiliate someone or that if you do humiliate someone, you're aware of the cost. Right. Or if someone's behaving in a way that doesn't make any sense, you ask yourself, do they feel humiliated? Even if like for sure they shouldn't. So Nelson Mandela said, there's no one more dangerous than one who's been humiliated, even when you humiliate him rightly. Which I love that little add-on. That is so true. But so that's one to think about, especially on social media. And I mean, there's just so many ways to humiliate at scale today. ([Time 0:28:53](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8a606980-9de2-414a-981e-d220199631fe)) - **Gang Leader Turned Interrupter** - Curtis Toler was once a conflict entrepreneur as a gang leader and later became a violence interrupter. - His transformation shows conflict entrepreneurs can change roles and reduce harm. Transcript: Amanda Ripley So just because you were one, like Curtis Toler, who is a former high-ranking gang leader from Chicago, who now interrupts a lot of crazy violent conflict and has taught me a ton about Even political conflict, all different kinds of conflict. He was a conflict entrepreneur by his own telling, right? And he had a lot of pain that he had not dealt with, but he's not one anymore. He's a conflict, I guess, interrupter, right? He's the opposite. So I just want to add that. ([Time 0:32:55](https://share.snipd.com/snip/639a4483-f982-4f67-bab6-e49c4501852c)) - **Use BIF With Escalators** - Use BIF: keep responses Brief, Informative, Friendly, and Firm with conflict entrepreneurs. - Validate a little, then avoid getting dragged into prolonged escalation. Transcript: Amanda Ripley So I'm going to borrow here from, there's a place called the High Conflict Institute that offers all kinds of tips and tricks and classes for dealing with really, really difficult people. So I recommend their website and also their books. But one of their tricks, Bill Eddy is one of the co-founders and he has this, they use this acronym, you know, like all good kind of business eBooks called BIF, which is brief, informative, Friendly, and firm. So this is how you respond to a conflict entrepreneur, maybe in an email or a text or whatever. Brief, informative, friendly, and firm. It's just a way to kind of like, without thinking too much, don't get into the weeds. Just try to like validate them at like 10%. Like you see them, you see them. If you can show them some genuine acknowledgement, do that. But then you get to the brief, informative, friendly, and firm. ([Time 0:34:48](https://share.snipd.com/snip/26130ad8-3032-4fd5-9d59-30f575b5ebc0)) - **Trust Breaks Drive High Conflict** - Perceived corruption and eroding trust in institutions drives people to take matters into their own hands. - Rebuilding trust requires real changes, not just complaints. Transcript: Amanda Ripley Okay? This is a big problem. And I just said this to a group of journalists. I'm like, look, you can spend all night calling foul and being like, that's not fair. We are doing our best. And you're, you know, you're, we've been villainized. Right. And that's some of that's true. But at the end of the day, if your spouse trusted you less than banks, you have got some work to do and you can stay up all night complaining how you've been misunderstood. But if you want to stay in a relationship, you've got to rebuild that relationship, right? Like you've got to really start doing things very differently. Because when there's that level of distrust in our society, as we keep seeing, you can't do anything. You can't solve even the problems that you want to solve. And so journalism is one example where there's a lot of corruption and perceived corruption. ([Time 0:43:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d8a839cd-4c03-4cb7-8c73-82235cbc4e26)) - **Use Looping To Slow Down** - Use looping: repeat what you heard in your own words and ask if you got it right. - Practice this habit to slow nervous-system escalation and make others feel heard. Transcript: Amanda Ripley Can do is looping, which is a tactical listening technique. And there's others out there, right? But you're taking what you heard the person say, distilling it into your own language and playing it back and asking if you got it right. So getting in the habit of doing that all the time, not just when you're in conflict, is really, really helpful to slow down that nervous system response that you're having. Also to force yourself to actually listen to the person, right? So that you're trying to re-engage with that curious part of your brain and prevent that cycle from taking place. And you're really trying to get them in that moment. And so the more you can make that a habit and a routine in your relationships, and it does take practice, let me tell you, then the better it's going to go. Because once people feel heard, their whole posture shifts. You know, literally their shoulders go down. I mean, I've seen it happen a hundred times. Even if you didn't get it right when you tried to play it back in your own language, they're just so grateful someone's trying. I mean, it's almost heartbreaking. And often they don't even know themselves. ([Time 0:48:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1df93763-2f6e-4ae7-81d1-98f4fdb55b3c)) - **The Four Understories** - Most conflicts stem from four understories: respect/recognition, power/control, care/concern, or stress/overwhelm. - Identifying the understory quickly lets you have the right fight instead of wasting energy. Transcript: Amanda Ripley Any kind of conflict, whether it's interpersonal or bigger conflict, right, or with strangers, try to figure out the understory of the conflict for you and for the other person. What is this conflict really about? And it's usually one of just four things. So, you know, you don't have to spend all day on it. I mean, it's like one of four, you know, maybe we should create some kind of like card deck or you spin a wheel because it's one of those and sometimes more than one, but it's limited and It's respect and recognition, power and control, care and concern. This is Abby, like, am I loved? Am I good? And stress and overwhelm. This is why staying up all night fighting is a bad idea, right? Because often the understory of conflict is many of these things stacked, but if people are tired and stressed and overwhelmed and hungry, then that itself is the understory of the Conflict. It's the thing the conflict's really about. And we want to figure out what that is. We want to figure it out quickly for ourselves and for the other person so that then we can have the right fight, right? ([Time 0:50:27](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c8791962-2e46-40bb-ab21-0b527ec8314e)) - **The Crockpot Divorce Fight** - A divorced couple fought over a crockpot that symbolized the wife's childhood and unmet expectations. - The husband's fight was about clinging to possessions because he didn't want the divorce. Transcript: Amanda Ripley Who was going to get the crockpot in the divorce. There's a lot of stories like this, but because they weren't figuring out what the understory was, but it turned out they'd gotten this crockpot as a wedding gift. And the wife's childhood was like, the crockpot was an important part of it. Every Sunday, you know, the house would be filled with the smell of a roast or something. And she had always thought this was the kind of life they would have, but they had never used it even once in real life. Like they'd never use this crock pot. It was brand new. But then why did the husband want it? Well, the husband wanted it because his wife wanted the divorce. He didn't even want the divorce. So by God, he's going to claw back everything he can. Right. So let's at least argue about that, right? Because otherwise we're just going to go endlessly through all the possessions and this will take years and years and millions of dollars. ([Time 0:52:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ad6a96f8-65ce-46d8-bc15-c4dae122497e)) - **Frame Complaints As Stories** - Preface vulnerable complaints by naming them as stories you tell yourself to reduce blame. - Say 'The story I'm telling myself is...' to invite curiosity not accusation. Transcript: Amanda Ripley I think what about if there's a little like sentence starter that we come up with that you use before that, when you say something like, this is going to sound ridiculous. I know. And I know it's irrational. But the story I'm telling myself is that you don't respect our time or whatever. You know, you come up with the words that are right to you. But sometimes the story I'm telling myself can be, for me, a useful... ([Time 0:56:09](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b40f174f-e169-4194-b6b2-4ea6444dc606)) - **Choose Understanding Over Winning** - Enter conflict aiming to understand rather than to be understood or to solve everything. - Understanding the other shifts posture and creates movement even without immediate resolution. Transcript: Glennon Doyle Yes, so good. For me, I think saying it's disrespectful is even a hard language. I know, even as I said it, it felt too jagged. That's not it. Right, because that means this, when you do this, you are full of disrespect. That is not necessarily the story. It's more like I receive this as disrespect. And that has to do with a lot of things that are not necessarily about you. Right. Or maybe even we don't even use the word respect. Like maybe it's about care. Amanda Ripley You know, it's like, it feels like you don't, I know you care about us and the house and everybody, you know, chipping in. And it feels like you don't when I see that. And I'm like, ah, what does it feel like to you? You know, I don't know. Maybe there's some other, because yeah, disrespect is a really. It's tough. Tough word. Glennon Doyle Leave us with one question that we should go into. One time I heard you say, this changed a lot for me. I think when I go into a conflict, I tend to think I have to make sure I'm understood. That's my goal. Less helpful, I think, than a different question I could be asking, which is, I think I heard you say that we just have to say, go into a conflict with the question of, I'm just going to try To understand this person a little bit more. I'm not going to try to have world peace. I'm not going to try to make whatever. I'm not going to try to be understood, but I'm just going to go in and say, my only goal is try to understand this person a little bit more. Is that a thing? That is the gold standard. Amanda Ripley Like if you can get there, right? It's like, and I actually think for journalism too now, when we train journalists, it's like, look, the goal is, can we help people understand themselves, the other person or the problem A little better? And if we can do that, other things will magically follow, right? It's not the end of the story, but it's the beginning. And that's what a good mediation session does. ([Time 0:56:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e11d5cc1-555d-4955-868a-9cbcdfc9ea2c)) - **SCRAP Before You Scrap** - Use SCRAP as a quick checklist: Stress, Care, Respect, And Power before a scrap. - Ask which understory fits to shortcut to the real issue and avoid the wrong fight. Transcript: Amanda Doyle And so he came up with an acronym scrap. When it's before you get into a scrap. I love that. Think about that. Stress and overwhelm. Care and concern. Respect and recognition. Power and control. That's really good. Scrap before you scrap. Amanda Ripley So scrappy. I love that. And also like little catchphrases like my friend John Dickerson, who's a journalist, he and his wife talk about the crockpot all the time. They just because they can shortcut the fight. They'll be like, OK, what's the crockpot? This is a crockpot. This argument over the thermostat is a crockpot. Like, what are we actually fighting about so that you can get more quickly to the understory? ([Time 1:02:01](https://share.snipd.com/snip/bd5a82b8-49a6-4337-9df9-8a5c08e94c08))