398. Why Your Conversations Keep Going in Circles (And the 2-Step Fix)

Welcome back to the podcast, and this is maybe the most important episode you're ever gonna hear.

How do you like that? I, uh, uh, melodrama much, Abby? Yes, because this is the thing underneath the thing underneath the thing underneath the thing.

This is it.

This is what counselors do when we're effective.

This is how you shift conversations.

Every conversation, and especially every disagreement, has two layers happening at once.

Every single one.

But only one of them usually gets talked about.

The, the, that's the first layer, because it's what everybody's saying.

It's, it's the content, the facts, the evidence, the specific topic you're discussing or arguing about or whatever, right? The second, more important layer is what's underneath that, and it's what we psychologists generally call a process, and I'm gonna explain what that is.

What's underneath the, the content, the, the facts, the, the, the words of what you're saying is what's really going on between you.

The power struggle, the resentment, the anxiety, the jealousy, the insecurity, the fear of not being heard, all of that.

And you're focusing on the content, on the words, on explaining, justifying, explaining again, trying different words.

But it doesn't move the conversation forward [chuckles] and you're just...

You're feeling more and more frustrated, and so is the other person.

Focusing on your words instead of the feelings driving them, I often say is like pulling the battery out when a smoke alarm goes off.

You've stopped the noise, but the, the building is still burning.

The, the...

Your home is still on fire.

Arguing the facts or, um [tsking] you know, getting someone to acquiesce might stop th- the noise in the moment, but it doesn't put out the fire.

So, you know, you have the same fight again, or that person is passive-aggressive later, and it's because the feelings haven't been resolved.

And I'm gonna teach you this today.

Now, the other person w- will usually be upset in some way, and instead of talking about how they're feeling, they, they might go cold or they might agree w- that, you know, to something they don't want to agree to or d- don't mean or something.

Or they, sometimes they make a comment with an edge.

You know that comment, right? And then if you call it out, they deny the edge at all, you know.