How to avoid argument meltdown

Verbal fights drain our energy, damage our relationships, and accomplish more harm than any good that rarely if ever comes out of them. Before you allow yourself to get blown up by these emotional grenades, mentally check off these things:

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• an open mind.
• a few seconds to process.
• permission from yourself to temporarily pull away from the emotion of the moment.

1. Ask the person to wait a minute while you think. If necessary, move yourself away if the person happens to be so upset they can't stop talking. The time you use here will help diffuse the energy anyway.

2. Mentally state in your mind which of your expectations or rules has been broken. Then, on a scale of 1-10, 1 being unimportant like "I prefer it when the cap is put back on the toothpaste" to 10 being along the lines of "I prefer not to be hacked into pieces or violated by strangers." put this person's actions into perspective. Can you let this go? How important is it to hash this out? Think about the most efficient use of your energy. Popping veins and sky-rocketing blood pressure takes a lot out of us, so you need to be sure this is truly worth the effort. (You might also want to think about yourself more deeply if small things are high on the scale and the overwhelming majority of your rules are chart toppers. This will prevent people from being happy most of the time because when of all our rules are vitally important then we are assured they will be broken often.)

3. Having found out how important this infraction is to you, ask yourself have you clearly communicated this to the other person? If you truly feel you have, also ask yourself if they could have misinterpreted the level of importance you place on this? If there is any doubt whatsoever, it's more productive to calmly inform the person what rule they have broken of YOURS and how important it is to YOU.

4. If you've gotten this far, you are doing well and there's a good chance that a lot of the intensity has drained from your side. At this point you should ask yourself honestly if you have the right to hold this person to your expectations. If there is any doubt, you must realize that the more expectations you have of others, the more risk you have of getting disappointed or frustrated. People are people and no one wants to answer to someone else's ideas of right and wrong. Including you.

5. If you truly feel you have a right to expect this person to behave in the way you desire, the next step is to determine and state to yourself mentally which rule of theirs you might be breaking in respect to this argument. You MUST acknowledge them and their feelings before they will be ABLE to open up to your perspective. Literally. You would not want to seriously consider their opinions if you thought they didn't care about yours.

6. Make any and all efforts to focus on the other person's rules and expectations first. Only once they feel heard can you begin to explain your own point of view and have them truly HEAR it. Ask them what their expectations are and what has been broken to make them upset. Repeat it back to them in your own words if you have to, but make them realize in no uncertain terms you have really heard them. Do not think about your side until this is done. Consider if the are valid points to their argument and whether you might be mistaken.

7. Finally, after you ask the probing questions and help them illuminate to you what their side of the issue is (and there are always two sides that should be considered) then you can go about using their own perspective to translate your own point of view back to them. You need to address their concerns while simultaneously clarifying and trying to find answers to your own. That's the win/win scenarios where both can feel validated and benefit.

8. Sometimes there will be times where no resolution can be created other than an honest understanding of the other person's perspective and the respectful disagreement of sides. If that happens, it's still much better than the stressful combat and complete lack of insight and resolution that is spawned from a heated battle.

Resources

• Crash Course in Self Development!

[cheapcindy]

on 12/19/2008 Great suggestions, most of us need to work on better communication skills. I like the idea of taking a moment to stand back and get our thoughts together - I just hope I can remember this when the time comes.