Fight Better: The Art of Caring in Conflict
Kayla came to my office for a brief check-in. In her email before this meeting, she wrote that she wanted to have a conversation about how she was doing. The email was short, not enough detail for me to interpret. It was rare for Kayla to reach out, and I was concerned. I hoped she was okay.
Kayla entered my office with a notebook and pen. “This conversation may not be what you think,” Kayla started. Her volume increased. I wasn’t sure, but she seemed agitated.
I was a little worried. I tried to ensure my body reflected openness, arms uncrossed, a slight smile on my face. “Sure, feel free to share what’s on your mind,” I responded.
“Well,” Kayla paused and let out a deep sigh, “I know you work hard to support all of us, but…”
Pause right there. As soon as Kayla started to say, “but…” I could feel my neck and shoulders stiffen. I started to feel worried. Feel your body on the seat, I reminded myself.
“...I actually feel exploited. To be honest, some of us have been talking, and…”
I stopped listening. I could feel my weight shift from my seat to my shoulders. My slight smile transitioned to a neutral expression, perhaps a frown. Two phrases were already starting to play on loop in my mind: “feel exploited” and “some of us have been talking.” These two phrases caused my amygdala to trigger a response. My default setting—among fight, flight, freeze, or fawn—is to fight. I needed a moment to resettle before the fight instinct kicked in.
“Hmm…” I started. “Can you say more?”
Here’s the truth: I didn’t want her to say more. My defenses were already up. I wanted her to leave. I felt caught off guard and didn’t think I could be kind or supportive.
“Sure, I have some examples.” She opened her notebook. Detailed notes covered the pages. She came with receipts and started to share what she had written.
I’ll come back to that story in a bit, but first, let me tell you the biggest lesson I’ve learned about conflict: to fight well, it helps to care about each other.
From Catfights to Care
I want to underscore the importance of care, yet I also want to be realistic. It’s unlikely that we’ll like everyone we work with all the time, but I believe we can find a way to care about one another so that we can weather conflict well, that we can get to the other side with skill and understanding—and center our shared humanity in the process.
Plenty of folks long before me have written about conflict, provided frameworks for conflict (I’ll share one, too!), and offered protocols for how to engage thoughtfully in conflict. What I’m most interested in is the balance between systems and individuals, between the people directly involved in conflict and all the external forces at play—and how to help people care more about one another while in the throes of a tense situation.
In a moment of amygdala hijack, our brains don’t automatically allow us to care about others; instead, our brains are busy spotting threats and protecting us from harm. That’s what our primal brains historically have been charged to do.
But we can change our brains. We can form new neural pathways and practice with new tools. We can assess situations and choose a different response. That’s the challenge I offer you: to find the opportunity to care, to change your brain, and see how this process might help in conflict.
Here’s why this matters: there is enough ire, vitriol, and polarization in the world. At this point, care during conflict is revolutionary. The following is a process rooted in brain science for how one might level up their approach to conflict, demonstrate more care, and hopefully, fight a little better.
Step 1. Reset the System
In order to cultivate more care, we first need to calm and reset our parasympathetic nervous systems. In the moment of conflict, this may be hard to do; if you are able to remove yourself from the situation, then do some kind of movement (stretching, walking, hydrating) so you can reset your brain and body.
If you are unable to exit the situation, breathing helps. Allowing air in slowly through the nose and exhaling through the mouth can help us regulate the impulse to react and prevent us from saying or doing something regrettable. A process known as 4-7-8 breathing is one such way to calm our systems and give us an entry point to caring. The more practiced we get at breathing to calm our amygdalas in everyday moments, the better we’ll be able to breathe with skill in a moment of conflict.
Step 2. Create a Mantra (or something like it)
During tense moments, not only does our brain switch to self-protection mode, but our capacity to contemplate the other person (or anything else, for that matter) diminishes. That's why having a reminder is beneficial—it helps us stay engaged with the other person, prompts a recall of our humanity and the broader context, and maintains our connection. I created the following mantra to help me in conflict:
It’s not about me
It is about me
It’s not about us
It is about us
Here’s how this mantra helps me:
It’s not about me/It is about me
Even when conflict is directed at me personally, it helps to remember I never actually know what’s going on for someone else. Their words or actions might have deep roots in circumstances and experiences long before I became a part of their world. I conceptualize it like this: our present selves are an amalgamation of every preceding moment in our lives. The individual I was five years ago (or 25 years ago) is not the same as who I am today. The image I get looks a little something like this:
In conflict, I’m not just meeting the person I’m interacting with; I’m also meeting everything that happened long before I met them. The same is true for the other person: they are only experiencing a sliver of who I am, my prior stressors and relationships, traumas and conditioning. Remembering the first half of this mantra—it is not about me and it is about me—helps me pull back from the present moment, recognize the younger and more tender parts of both of us that may have been triggered, and hold lightly to what the other person is saying and doing right now, knowing there might be something more under the surface I have yet to understand or explore.
It’s not about us
There are so many systemic forces at play in a moment of conflict—the role of power (our position or status in an organization) and how we identify (our gender identities, our race/ethnicity, our education level, socioeconomic status, etc.)—that our shape our biases and how we interact with one another. These systems were shaped long before us, but it doesn’t mean we need to perpetuate them.
It can be helpful to remember that some voices in our society/organizations have historically received more priority over others. It also can be helpful to remember each of us holds implicit biases about others. When we can consider the ways we have been socialized and what biases may be present in our interactions, we can take a step back to disrupt our conditioning (and if we hold power, to step even further back) so we don’t further perpetuate further harm or unhelpful stereotypes.
It is about us
When we consider the other person as a complex human with a range of identities and experiences, and when we recognize we are operating in systems that were shaped long before us, then we can make different choices about how we engage, by making the effort to listen, understand where the other person is coming from—and ultimately—what they want. Chances are we want the same things: to be seen, heard, valued, understood. Keeping that in mind enables us to loosen our grip on the ego and expand our perspective of the conflict.
Step 3. Listen Better
In addition to our brains and hearts going on lockdown in conflict, our ability to listen shrinks to a focus on self. In conflict, we’re often doubling down on defending our story, readying our response, or at our worst—getting ready to pounce by saying something we might regret. We may latch onto a word or phrase the other person says, but only to serve our agenda.
It’s important to know how to listen better by expanding our scope and activating both hemispheres of the brain. The left hemisphere focuses on the details—the words someone is saying—which allows us to comprehend the situation. The right hemisphere focuses on the bigger picture—the nonverbals and feelings—so we can have a better sense of their experience. Both hemispheres are operating at the same time, yet it’s helpful to have specifics for ways we might listen better. Better yet, it helps to have specific practices to integrate both hemispheres of our brain. Consider which ways of listening that might work best for you to center more care in conflict:
Left-brain listening practices
Focus on details
Pay attention to specific details, facts, and figures
Practice active listening by summarizing and organizing information in your mind
Use Logical Structures
Organize information logically in your mind.
Make connections between pieces of information to understand the bigger picture.
Take Notes
Writing down key points can engage left-brain functions and aid in information retention.
Get Curious
Engage in structured questioning to understand the logical flow of the conversation or topic.
Right-brain listening practices
Open-mindedness
Embrace a more open and flexible mindset.
Allow yourself to consider possibilities beyond the literal or immediately apparent.
Visualize
Create mental images related to what you're hearing. This can help you remember and understand concepts better
Listen to Tone and Emotion
Pay attention to the speaker's tone, emotions, and non-verbal cues to understand the context and feelings behind the words.
Use Metaphors and Analogies
Think metaphorically. Relate what you're hearing to concepts or experiences that are not directly related but share similarities.
Integrating both hemispheres of our brains
Mindfulness
Practice mindfulness to stay present and fully engage with the speaker.
Be aware of your thoughts and gently guide your focus back to the conversation.
Practice Divergent Thinking
Allow your mind to explore various perspectives and possibilities, combining both analytical and creative thinking.
Balance and Switch
Learn to balance between focused, analytical listening and open, intuitive listening as the situation demands.
Step 4. Practice Being in Conflict
In the process of prioritizing care for the other person, it's essential that we engage in regular practices to reshape our neural pathways. Our brains aren’t able to distinguish real-life situations from imagined scenarios, so consider what you might do to center care in advance of a conflict. Two possible approaches are visualization and role-play.
Visualizing a conflict—how you show up to it, your mindset, what you say—can be helpful so you show up to conflict the way you intend. Role-play is also good practice for the main event. Professional athletes and artists practice all their moves before matches and performances, whether through drills or visualization. When we can have a proactive experience of conflict in safe-enough conditions, we’re more habituated to priortize care when conflict happens.
Back to Kayla
Now, let's return to the Kayla story, applying the steps I shared:
Kayla, reading diligently from her notebook, began listing examples of how she felt exploited. The room felt charged with tension, and I could sense my own defensive reactions rising. It was a pivotal moment where I had a choice between lashing out and being defensive or taking the time to center care:
Step 1: Reset the System. I told Kayla I needed a moment to take in what she was saying. Taking a deep breath, I consciously reset my parasympathetic nervous system. I reminded myself to stay present, grounded, and open. It was challenging, and my neck and shoulders still felt tight, but I focused on maintaining a calm demeanor, knowing that reacting impulsively wouldn't serve either of us.
Step 2: Create a Mantra. As Kayla continued to share her grievances, I mentally recited the mantra, It's not about me, it is about me. It's not about us, it is about us. This helped me step back from the immediate conflict, recognizing the complexity of our individual histories and the broader systemic influences at play. In this situation, I had more positional power. We shared common identity markers, but Kayla was much older than me. I don’t know what it was like for her to step into the office of her younger, less experienced supervisor, but my awareness allowed me to stay cognizant of the fact that I only knew a slice of what Kayla might be experiencing. This awareness allowed me to hold lightly to my interpretations and stay open to other possibilities.
Step 3: Listen Better. Instead of getting defensive or formulating counterarguments, I engaged in active listening, encouraged Kayla to tell me more, and took brief notes as she spoke. I focused on both the details of what she was saying and the emotions underlying her words; I could hear a quiver in her voice and wondered what it was like to share these details with her supervisor. I used left-brain listening practices to comprehend the specifics while employing right-brain listening practices to cultivate compassion for what Kayla shared.
Step 4: Practice Being in Conflict. While I may not have seen this conflict coming, I was able to draw upon the mindfulness tools that supported me before this moment. I also remembered the other times I had been in tense situations and that I was able to get through them when I put down my defenses. These prior experiences helped me respond with more compassion and understanding.
