Culture Focused Practice

 Hey, hey, Dr. Tara Vossenkemper here, and you're listening to the Culture Focused Practice Podcast. If you are watching this video, by chance, I am sitting on the floor of a local Starbucks local to the area I'm in right now, which is, oh God, I forget, Asheville, North Carolina. Thank you very much. Really cute area for the record.

Anyway, my point is I'm sitting down on the floor. I'm trying to get outta the way of people here, but I desperately wanna get this recorded one, because my time is limited, and two, because it's just a super fucking awesome episode. So I'm ready.

So we have talked about conflict. We've talked about why it's important. We've talked about how you can reframe it. We've talked about the scripts you might use to get it started, wrap it up, stay in it.

Today we're gonna talk about staying in the fire. So specifically how you handle conflict without shutting down and without blowing up. Or any other number of things you might do in the middle of conflict or a hard conversation.

This is episode three of the Hard Conversation miniseries. We have one more episode associated with this. It's gonna be the lab that'll come out after this episode.

This is about staying in the fire. So this is really about what happens in the middle of conflict. You have started the conversation with whatever script you needed to use. You are trying really hard, you're doing your best, you're working your ass off to get through what you need to get through, and then the other person shuts down, starts crying, gets defensive, gets condescending and judgmental and critical, and you all of a sudden are gone, you're sort of spiraling. Like, what, what am I doing? What's happening? Uh, I don't know. You sort of left feeling really untethered potentially. We'll just call that the fire quote, the fire end quote.

We have to say in it. So. Let's talk about how to stay in it. Just a real quick agenda to keep you oriented towards the flow of today's episode. So we'll start with why conflict physically feels so hard. We'll shift into signs you are leaving that fire. We'll talk about how to stay present without overcompensating. We'll get into just a couple regulation tools and then we will close out with some action steps.

Before we go further, just make sure you subscribe so you can follow any episodes that drop, you can go back and binge listen. You can just stay up on anything that's coming out related to EOS, leadership, culture, et cetera. All the shit that I love and hopefully that's relevant for you.

So, alright, agenda item number one, why conflict feels so hard physically. There's three quick things I'll say here quick. Quick is relative right.

There's three things that I'll say here. One is that your body might go into a fight flight freeze response. So it could be that you're in the middle of this discussion, in the middle of this conflict discussion, and you literally have an adrenal response. You have something happen regardless of what it's that's going on, whether it's the topic that you're discussing, that's just, especially, you might be especially sensitive to that topic, whether it's the way in which the other person is saying something. It could be that they remind you of somebody from your own let's say family of Origin or maybe one of your primary attachment figures. It could be that you're just unregulated stepping in because you're super anxious. 'cause conflict has never gone well in your life.

Regardless of what it is, it's not uncommon for people to have some sort of physiological response to conflict and hard conversations. That does not mean that they shouldn't take place. It does mean that you need to recognize, I would urge you to recognize why it can feel so difficult.

We could be having a fight, flight, or freeze response, or even a fawn response. So if we're talking about the four Fs of attachment trauma, typically people will respond with fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, which is something that I think it's really commonly associated with complex PTSD or more prolonged, more prolonged trauma throughout someone's life. Just notice. That can be, that's one reason why you can feel really hard physically.

Another reason is that there's not enough practice that you, whether you're leadership or the owner or whatever, director of something, it might be that you just haven't practiced enough staying physiologically regulated in tough conversations.

This can be difficult because you're trying to engage in dialogue around something, and at the same time, you're trying to stay tuned into what's happening in your body. People have a really hard time doing both of these at the same time. They just do, I, I mean it's, there's no judgment. It's like, uh, two different, probably two different parts of your brain where you're trying to think about something and stay, you know, analytical and logical. And the other is that your brain is kind of hijacked by your limbic system. It's starting to get physiologically aroused about something.

Let's say collectively we need more practice basically learning how to stay engaged and trying to regulate or self-soothe our physiology and continue to engage. So that's another reason, a really common reason, I would say, that conflict can feel very hard physically. It's just a lack of experience doing it in a way where you can regulate at the same time as you're engaging in it.

Um, a third thing is that your nervous system can, can basically take over. I'm laughing like it's funny. It's not. It sucks. Um, I know what this feels like. I know what all these feel like, you know, I think most of us do. Your nervous system just starts to hijack your mouth, basically, where you might start feeling grounded, feeling good, feeling strong, feeling settled in what you're saying and what this conversation is about. Something happens, shit goes sideways, and all of a sudden you're saying all these things that you didn't plan on saying that you don't agree with. You don't know why you're fawning or freezing, or fighting, or trying to leave the room quickly.

So your nervous system absolutely can hijack your mouth. Man, love when that happens. Okay. So those are just three reasons why conflict can feel really hard physically, why it can feel difficult to do.

Something that feels important in all of this is the second agenda item. So signs you're leaving the fire. I think something that we don't talk enough about with practice ownership is how self-aware we need to be, how tuned into our own, um, I'm gonna say physiological, but like physical state of being our internal state, in order to lead and be effective in the higher level roles that we're in.

So here are some signs that you're leaving the fire and think of this as like shutting down or blowing up, although again, there are any number of ways to leave quote the fire.

These are just two ways. One is that this is, think about, call back to your nervous system hijacking your mouth. One is that you might start talking too much or over explaining or apologizing mid feedback. So you call Joe in to have this discussion halfway through, now you're trying to justify and qualify all the things that you were trying to give him feedback on.

You're overexplaining, everything that you're saying. So he's kinda lost in the sauce. And then you start to say, sorry for the discussion that you're trying to have, which is just fucking confusing. Like I would be confused if I was on the receiving end, but also as the, as the sender of the information.

It's confusing because that's not you. That's not grounded you, that's having that discussion- that is overwhelmed you. That is somebody that is very overwhelmed by whatever the topic is or the content is, or the conversation is whatever, for whatever reason, that is your nervous system hijacking your mouth. So it can be talking too much over explaining or apologizing the feedback.

So. Another sign, sign number two that you're leaving the fire is that you start shutting down. So this can look a couple different ways. There's a Gottman concept called stonewalling, and in this version of stonewalling, your body goes into such a physiologically aroused state, specifically with two or more very overwhelming emotions that it goes into DPA or diffuse physiological arousal. Your body just shuts down. Literally, you have no control over this happening.

What it looks like is this person is just gone. Their, their face is totally flat. They're giving nothing away. All they can really say is mm-hmm. Yeah. Um. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. They're just nodding along with whatever it's that you're saying. They're not engaging back with you. That's stonewalling.

For the person that officially stonewalls from a Gottman perspective, they're not coming back for a solid at minimum 20 minutes. I would say even 30, and sometimes even a little bit longer. It can take people that long to get back out of that.

So stonewalling is one thing, just starting to withdraw. People will start, start to, you sort of notice if you ever notice yourself, like turning inward and almost like you're crumbling in on yourself.

You know you've got this, all of a sudden your shoulders are hunching and your head's going down and you're looking at the ground and you're trying to engage in a conversation, but you're withdrawing at the same time.

So those are signs you are leaving the fire that are more about the shutting down piece. The third thematic sign that you're leaving the fire is getting really reactive.

So getting really, um, almost like edgy. Becoming a little bit, um, almost like a mean boss or like you're gonna listen. 'cause I say you're gonna listen like real sort of sharp I think, sharp around around the edges, like very angular in the way you're approaching something or saying something.

And what's important in this is that it didn't start that way. So think about these as all, like you're shifting into something slightly different. So whether that's talking too much over explaining, apologizing, the feedback, whether that's stonewalling, withdrawing, or feeling checked out. Now whether that's getting reactive or edgy or becoming sort of this mean, coercive type boss, those are all signs of you're not grounded. You're not grounded right now in this.

I think ultimately it's just important for you to know which one you might be prone to do. I know which one I might be prone to do. I'm gonna shift into the over explaining, the apologizing, the feedback I'm gonna shift into fawning. Of the four F's, you know, fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.

I'm probably gonna haw if I get some, if I get passive aggressiveness or if I get contempt towards me, I'm gonna shift into fight. I told y'all, I've said this before, I do not appreciate contempt in any form or fashion. That will get me in fight mode. But most things, I'm gonna fall into like a fawn mode, if I don't stay grounded and physiologically self-soothed.

Okay. Third agenda item is how to stay present without overcompensating. So these are just some ways that you can start to attempt to stay engaged with the person in front of you without the overcompensating or the getting reactive or the, uh, shutting down.

One is to almost literally, I actually do mean literally. If you can have this conversation with your shoes off, I would encourage you to do that. Just plant your feet on the floor. It is so effective. Physically put your feet on the floor and feel them on the floor. Do it.

There's a sense of groundedness. I don't like socks. I don't like to wear socks ever. I mean, I do, but I don't like to. I'd rather be barefoot. I think there's something in there about, I like the feel of the ground beneath my feet. It's soothing. Something about it is very stabilizing.

So it could be where you literally plant your feet, take your shoes and socks off, keep your feet on the ground. Another thing, this is, I think this is actually a great hack, just reflect back what's happening. So instead of getting into this, having to respond to what a person is saying, don't respond. Just paraphrase back what you're hearing. That's it.

If Joe says to me, you know, he is. Just completely overwhelmed and he's baffled and he's ramping up his voice and he's getting all, you know, all sorts and he's going a little bit, he's just really like intensifying. I could match that energy and I could start to like get intense and overexplain and over justify, or I could just say, okay Joe, I really am getting the sense this is maybe frustrating, maybe confusing, you are absolutely starting to feel a little bit overwhelmed potentially. Here's what I'm hearing you say.

And then I'm gonna give back what it is that he's saying to me. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to go for that underlying feeling because I know in any sort of discussion like this, that emotional state is what is driving his behavior and what he's saying right then.

So try to just mirror back what's happening. What that can also help you do is to just create a little bit of distance, and that distance is good for your physiology. So instead of getting into this with him, you are saying, Ooh, actually, okay, this is what I'm seeing, and you're slowing down that conversation at the same time.

So that's my other point here about staying present without overcompensating. Slow it down. You don't have to move fast through anything. You just don't. People get so wrapped up in it's conflict. It's bad. I just wanna get through it quick. No, the fuck you don't. You might want to, but you don't need to.

You might not. I would say you shouldn't even, I would say you should take it slow and be intentional and ensure that you are understanding what is being said each step of the way. When you do that, you also double serve yourself and the party, the other person that's engaging with you by helping each of you stay more physiologically grounded, more physiologically regulated, which is gonna serve the conversation and help you be able to have it better.

So if you think, I need to get through this fast, nope, slow it down. That's what reflecting back the emotion and also paraphrasing what somebody says- it effectively slows everything down because you can also check in, you might say something like, I'm hearing you say this. I'm sensing you feel this way. I wanna check in if I'm, if I'm seeing this or if I'm getting this. Am I, am I accurate in my, in my read?

And then you give the person the opportunity to clarify or to say yes. And then you take a breath and you can either ask for more information from them or you can maybe ask, are you good if I speak to some of your points?

So all of it is all that you're doing is slowing down the discussion so that you and the person you're with can stay regulated and stay engaged and think about that. Regulation is for engagement. I. Your job is not to therapize the people around you. Your job is to work really hard to ensure that you all can engage in the relevant discussions.

Okay? And then another thing you can do for the staying present without overcompensating. So we've talked about, well, I didn't say this, but the staying grounded piece. I would also say breathing really intentionally. So these are two simple, simple hacks. Keep your feet on the ground. Make, just breathe big.

They call it. Sometimes you could do diaphragmatic breathing, but I mean really just take deep inhales and try to feel 'em in your belly. That is a physiological hack. Just try that. Paraphrase back what's happening, that's the second thing we covered. Slow down. Just slow down. You think I am slow? Nope. Slow it down.

Even further. Take your time. And the last thing is was I call it holding language use. Holding language. So. If somebody's trying to move through something quick, you might say, Hey, wait a second, this feels really important. Can we just stay here for a minute? Stay another. That's another way for slowing things down, but it's also allowing there to be enough space and time to really sort of massage out whatever the thing is that's going on in that moment.

Okay. Those are associated with the staying present without overcompensating agenda item. So agenda item number four, regulation tools for practice owners. Ooh. These are also, I think of this all as, they're all kind of hacks. You know, they're all kind of cheat codes, if you will, in a good way though, because we're not trying to cheat or game people.

We're trying to have our discussions and do that successfully. And so in order to do that successfully, here's a couple of simple things you can do.

Before the conversation takes place, all you need to do is prep what matters. You don't have to prep the whole script for how this is gonna go, because you're not gonna do that right anyway, so don't. Just key in what are the main points that you need to make? What's the main takeaway? What's the main, like, just list out the very specific. If nothing from this conversation, this one thing has to be understood. That needs to be the, you know, sort of bread and butter and then it might be where you practice those scripts where, okay, I wanna say this for a lead in, and I wanna say this for a close.

And if we start to go fast, I'm gonna say this to slow things down. You just have a couple of key pieces in there, so you're not following a whole script necessarily. You are just sort of like having some emotional markers for yourself as you're going. And also some like content-based markers for yourself. So prep what matters, you don't need to prep the whole script.

During the conversation, and again, you could be doing a lot of other things. You can be slowing things down. Paraphrasing back what you're hearing. You might do a check-in about halfway through. I would also say during, note your own body's cues.

And so I like to think of, there's this concept in therapy called universality, where in an Gottman world, it's called the assumption of similarities. But this notion that whatever you're going through, it's really highly likely that somebody else in the room or the person you're engaged with has a similar experience with their own lens, with their own, you know, twist on it.

Of course. So during, if you're noticing that you're getting overwhelmed, it might also be that the person next to you is as well. And so you can use your body's cues to inform the discussion. You might say, oh my goodness gracious, I am, I'm a little bit overwhelmed right now. Like, why don't we slow this down?

And then you do a quick check-in. So don't, don't be afraid to hide. As a side note, doing something like that can also model vulnerability, which is really great overall for practice culture, if we're thinking of Daniel Coyle's, vulnerability belongingness slash safety and purpose, that's vulnerability really is where you're saying, oh God, this is hard and I'm struggling with it right now, let's just bring it down a notch.

Okay? And then the third thing you can do, and this is after- just debrief with yourself. So you might ask yourself, what went well? What do I feel good about? But also. If I had to do that again, what would I change? What didn't work very well? What was really difficult or what did I not enjoy about this?

Like, not the whole conversation, but about maybe something I said or the way that I took a conversation, and I probably should have taken it another direction. So this is, you know, in the discussion you could do a debrief with the other person where you're talking about takeaways, where you're trying to get a sense for their takeaway, but also how the conversation was for them.

I would say you should do that individually as well. So after they leave, do it for yourself on your own also.

Oh my gosh, that's it. Easy, right? You can do this. It's easy. It's fun. I, it's a puzzle. And really it's just, it's conflict. It's knowing yourself, it's understanding physiology. It's having some hacks. It's practice and repetition to get a felt sense for what it's like to engage in conflict and stay regulated. It's fun in some ways. I think, again, when it goes well and you realize, oh fuck, that's what it feels like. I can do this. It's, it's relieving. It's validating, it's vindicating. It's brings a lot of hope, I think, for future discussions and also I think it brings us some pride in like your belief, in your own abilities then, so it can be a really positive experience.

Okay. I have some action steps for you, so, so there's three action steps here.

One is that I do want you to just check in with your own default conflict response. It's really like that you already know what this is. Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Just know you just need to know what yours is 'cause it's gonna come up. So what is it? And you might have more than one.

It might be this one at first and then it's this. Or like I said, for me it's probably gonna be fawn, but if I'm not with contempt, it's gonna be fight. 'cause I don't like contempt. So know what yours is.

Second, just practice one regulation tool before your next even team meeting. So it could be prep, it could be even during the meeting where you say, hang on a sec. Let's, let me just take a second and check in with myself. Here's how I'm feeling right now. And you just go through the motions. Just do this so that you're, you're getting in the habit of stopping and doing that check-in with yourself and then sharing out loud.

Another thing I want you to do. So there's three action steps you can take and pick if you want to, but these are three that I think are relatively easy to attempt.

The last thing that I want you to do. Is just jot down one of the, like a holding phrase you can use for anything. The next hard conversation you have, the next, even just, um, maybe intense discussion you're having, whether it's a debate or you're talking with leadership or you have to say something hard, write it down, and then just put it on your computer. So just put it on a post-it and tape it or just posted it to the side of your track pad, whether that's.

Whatever the holding phrase might be. Again, it could be something like, can we just stay here for one second or, okay. I, I'm sensing something is happening. I think we need to give it more time, or, wow, this feels big. Let's just pause. I wanna be in this. Anything, anything that just says, let me just expand this space right now. We're not moving beyond this yet.

So those are your action steps. Default conflict response regulation, tool holding phrase, boom. You're gonna be set up for success, man. That's it for today. I, when I tell you I love conflict, I love conflict, so I have a couple asks for you.

One, I already said this, but I'll say it again.

Just subscribe. If you're listening at this point, subscribe. Especially if you love this content, there's just gonna be more of it. And when you subscribe, you're basically sending a message that this is helpful for other group practice owners. So it ends up serving others, which I place high value on being of service to others. I want this to be good for people.

Number two, all of this is theoretical. I'm giving you information, I'm sharing it with you. But what happens is that theory becomes difficult to implement. So where rubber meets road is hard for a lot of people.

And I would also say that's where leadership gets real. Like the, the real act of developing as a leader happens in the application of theoretical principles. If this is hard for you, you realize like, shit, I need to do this and I'm really gonna struggle, join the membership, join the Culture Focus Practice Membership.

You get me twice a month live, one for q and a, one for a training. There's a bunch of shit in the portal, a bunch of trainings and Q and as that have already been recorded, as well as a variety of resources. And you get a private Facebook group.

So join us there. You can find that at www.taravossenkemper.com, hover over work with me. It's in there somewhere. Okay. I think that's it for real. This has been great. I hope this has been helpful for y'all. Again, I love talking about this topic. I think it's so, so needed and so beneficial once you get it, once you get it going, once you do it well.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for making this awesome, and I will see you next time. Bye.