A New Path to Effective Conflict Resolution

By Jamie Bussin and Tracey Soghrati

In my first career as Vishnu the destroyer, aka a commercial litigator, I did more than my fair share of fighting. But even as a litigator I understood the value of taking my emotions out of the equation, learning about the opposition’s interests and how to work towards settlement. Because most court cases end in settlement. That understanding applies to everyday life.  On Episode #105 of the Tonic Talk Show/Podcast I spoke to psychotherapist, yogi and mindfulness expert Tracey Soghrati about a mindful approach to conflict resolution. This is a digest of that conversation.

According to Tracey, mindfulness is the act of paying attention on purpose to the present moment and approaching that experience with openness, non-judgmentally and with a curious attitude. 

Conflict is a struggle or opposition or an incompatibility between two people or two parties or two nations, for example. 

Resolution is a firm decision to do or to not do something.

If you put all of these definitions together, the intersection really lies at the crossroads, where mindfulness decreases reactivity so much that it allows our brains to function in a more cooperative fashion, so that we’re able to think clearly and act instead of react. 

Keeping your powder dry makes a negotiated resolution easier to attain.

The amygdala is the part of the brain that is responsible for reactions like fear and anger. It is constantly tracking everything that is happening to determine if there is a level of threat.

Conversely, the frontal cortex part of the brain is responsible for your rational logical self. It allows you to think before you act. When you have an emotional, visceral response to a threat your amygdala is in essence hijacking your response mechanism to ignore your rational mind. 

When the amygdala is activated, it searches through your memory to find a similar situation so that you can reply to the current situation in a similar way. 

With a regular mindfulness practice you can train your brain not to be overcome with fear and anger in the moment and come to a rational solution to a conflict.

Michelle McDonald developed a mindfulness practice known as RAIN which can help to calm our nervous system when we’re in conflict – in the middle of a difficult conversation or fight, for example. 

The first step is to Recognize the feelings and emotions that you are experiencing in the moment of conflict. Tracey explains, “So if you’re in the middle of a conflict and you’re feeling insecure, or you’re feeling fearful, first recognize I’m feeling insecure and my sense of self feels like it’s threatened, or I feel really afraid that I’m going to lose this relationship, or I’m going to lose this job, or I’m going to lose status.”

If we don’t internally recognize and name those feelings, we will jump ahead and simply act out on them.

The second step is to allow ourselves to be with the experience and Accept it as it is. I liken it to sort of floating out of yourself, to pause and gain composure. Tracey sees it as an opportunity to give yourself a stern talking to, to convince yourself to simply exist with your feelings.

The third step is to Investigate, both in the moment and after the moment in order to figure out the tone of the experience. And that tone might be positive, negative or neutral. To ask yourself, “what is triggering me?”

“I think the most important thing is to ask yourself what story am I telling myself about these feelings? Because we have all kinds of feelings, but then there’s the story that we tell ourselves about those feelings.” Tracey adds. 

The last step is to go to a place of Non-identification. This is when we acknowledge that we are not our feelings. Understand that the story you’re telling yourself isn’t necessarily true. In fact, it’s often not true.

Finally, you need to have a plan for approaching the whole conflict and resolving it. That involves setting clear intentions of resolution. Tracey explains, “Figure out what you want to communicate and stay open and objective about the other person’s experience, and then really discuss things at the appropriate time. You know, so often we try to resolve things on the fly and that almost never works.”

Ultimately try to find a win-win solution, which means both of you are going to walk away both a little happy and a little unhappy.