3 Simple Keys for Dissolving Reactivity in Dialogue
When reactivity takes over, the joy of being with someone you care about suddenly disappears. A moment of disconnect can be surprisingly painful. And the longer the reactivity operates without interruption, the longer it takes to come back to that connection you so enjoy with them. Over time, these interactions coming from reactivity may deplete you and your connection, causing you to approach the relationship with less enthusiasm and perhaps even leading you to rethink it.
There are three simple keys that help prevent reactivity in relationships— or at least keep it from escalating:
Discernment
Transparency
Support for the Consciousness of Connection
If you catch those reactive conversations early enough, you can respond with care and skill.
1. Discernment
This refers to discerning the difference between what's a dialogue and what's “practicing reactivity.” A student of mine said recently: “When my mom gets really mad, I'm not sure what to do.” In my mind, the key here is to remember that an interaction based on reactivity will not contribute to either person nor to the relationship and will most likely cause harm. In other words, interrupting the conversation— with mom in this example— is the first step. This might mean calling a pause for a few minutes or a few days. It might mean, If you have a lot of groundedness, dropping the content of the conversation and shifting to empathy or honest expression. But the important thing is not to wait a second more. When you hear the escalated angry tone, immediately find a way to interrupt your participation in the dialogue (in other words, let go of the topic at hand and of sharing your opinion on it for now). This may feel uncomfortable at first, if you sense an urgency to defend or clarify your position on the subject, and because many of us have been trained to think that interrupting is rude. Just remember that you are really doing both of you a favor by interrupting reactivity: you are offering space for both persons to reconnect to themselves and their hearts. Compassion doesn’t mean hanging out in a dialogue when someone has lost track of who they are and what they care about. The expression of anger is a sign that someone has temporarily lost track of who they are and what they value. Anger is an alarm meant to wake us up to something important to us. But we will often have regrets if we speak directly from it. In order to express ourselves in integrity with our values, we want to speak from what's important to us, not directly from our anger.
By interrupting a reactive dialogue immediately, you can maintain connection to your heart and say, for example in the case of a really angry mom, “I love you, Mom, AND, I'm getting off the phone. I will call you tomorrow.”
My dream for the world is that we get more and more subtle at recognizing reactivity at small levels. Reactivity is rarely an explosion. The more common forms of reactivity are judgment, tension, guilt, shame, “shoulds”, and convincing— all of these are subtle ways we push ourselves and others. Whenever you are pressuring yourself or someone else to be or do something in a certain way without trying to understand with curiosity, that’s a form of reactivity. You are imagining that you can meet needs by some form of controlling the situation or the other person. You are not thinking that, of course. It’s just what's been modeled. Implicit requests are much more common that explicit requests. For example, we often hear complaints or indirect requests rather like, '‘I'm wiping up the table where you left your coffee grounds again.” This is followed by a little sideways glance in which you see a flash of a canine tooth or a frown. This is so common that it’s easy to forget that this is actually the least effective strategy for meeting needs. Those little unconsciously expressed irritations create more tension in relationships day by day. When noticing this type of subtle reactivity, you could pause and try to connect with empathy: “Hmmh, it sounds like some frustration comes up for you when there are coffee grounds left on the table? I imagine you really value order and cleanliness?” Or, if you sense yourself becoming defensive, you might say “I’m hearing this is important to you, and I would prefer to speak about it this afternoon when I come home so I can be more present and centered.”
2. Transparency
There is a part of you that knows how to communicate in a way that maintains connection about someone leaving coffee grounds on the kitchen counter, for example. It's just easy to forget. A lot of our lost moments in relationships happen because we forget that we can just say: “When I see coffee grounds on the counter, I feel grumpy because I really love it when our house looks beautiful. Can you help me wipe off the kitchen counters?” That's not a very unusual thing to say. You have said something like that before. It's just that when we have tension we get instant amnesia about the power of transparency in that moment.
Much of reactive communication can be prevented or dissolved by simply saying what you feel and want in the moment and being willing to negotiate with someone regarding that want. Because of your tension about the coffee grounds or whatever it is, you can't think of a request. But once you allow yourself to feel grumpy, for example, about the coffee grounds, and name it, internally or aloud with nothing added, that tension relaxes a little— just enough for you to make a simple request: “Could you wipe the counters before you leave the kitchen this morning?”
Of course, practicing transparency can feel vulnerable at first, because we haven't been trained to communicate in this way. If this feels uncomfortable to you, try it out first with people you feel particularly safe around, or regarding topics and issues that you don't feel much reactivity about. With practice, you will find yourself willing to inch outside of your comfort zone and extend transparency to more relationships or contexts.
3. Support for the Consciousness of Connection
Living from the consciousness of connection— understanding that creating connection is a priority in any interaction— requires reminders, so that you don't get caught up in the tension of the moment nor in the surrounding context of our societies, which mostly live from reactivity. This means saturating your mind with the consciousness you would like to live from. This could include a variety of strategies such as:
Reading something every day that reminds you of some aspect of the consciousness
Journaling about all you want to learn and integrate
Seeking study buddies. When you get together with others who are not in your family or inner circles, you have an opportunity to create a more neutral and safe space for practice.
Setting alarms or using external stimuli (such as red lights when driving) to practice self-connection: checking in with yourself about what you are feeling and wanting in the moment
Naming an intention at the start of the day to practice an aspect of this consciousness throughout the day
Interactions which stem from reactivity can create a lot of damage in the short and long term. Catching those conversations early through discernment, transparency, and remembering that connection is key and can foster more open and fulfilling relationships.
Practice
When in interactions with others, keep an eye out for any tension in your body or in their body language or posture, as well as in the atmosphere. Tension is a sure marker for reactivity. If you notice tension, take a deep breath and call for a pause to decide what would best enable you to respond from a centered place or to interrupt reactivity.
Choose one of the strategies suggested above (or make up your own!) to remind yourself of the consciousness of connection on a regular basis for the next week. At the end of the week, check in with yourself to see if you noticed any difference and if you'd like to continue, or try out another strategy.
