Want more intimacy in your relationships? Conflict could help

exactly as advertised. So you can measure an SPF 50 at one lob and an SPF 30 at another. On the Sunday story, is it time to update sunscreen guidance? Listen now to the Sunday story

from the Up First podcast on the interview you're at. So I went swimming this weekend for the first

“time in, I want to say it was 15 or 20 years. Wow. And for a lot of reasons, I think I never”

really liked pools. I don't like the smell of them. They kind of gross me out. But I've been thinking about parenthood actually. And I've been thinking I need to know how to swim. If I'm going to have a kid. So finally, I went to the pool this weekend. And I was so much better than I thought it would be. It reminded me that I can do things that are hard and like I can learn skills. And then to also treat swimming not as an identity but as a skill. Yeah.

Right. It's like in Spanish. There's like Sarah versus a star. Sarah is like a permanent

state and a star as a condition and like in a way you move swimming from a star. Like I'm not a swimmer.

Yeah. To like an a star which is like I am practicing learning to swim. Yeah. I am swimming right now. You're verbing, not now. Yeah. Hey, it's Mary El Sagarra. You're listening to life kit from NPR. And that was author and conflict resolution facilitator, Priya Parker. She has a new book called The Art of Fighting. And she talks about why we need to be able to fight with the people we care about. And I promise this connects back to the swimming thing.

And I've learned just like you swimming. I've learned that conflict is a skill. Yeah. And I know this because I grew up hating conflict. I am conflict diverse. Everyone in my family is conflict diverse. And I'm a conflict resolution facilitator who is

“conflict diverse. And I think one of the reasons those of us who are are relatively effective is”

because we have such deep empathy for the people who want to flee right in the room. And by the way, like swimming, conflict is actually super physical. Not in the way we think all conflict is physical. But within ourselves. Yeah. So when like the heat rises, right, when people start experiencing potential isolation or fear or separation, we have physical symptoms, our hands get sweaty, our parts start to palpitate, our mouth gets dry. And so some of the skills for holding

conflict and holding conflict with those we care about is actually just learning that those things happen and learning how to manage some of the physical signals that our body is sending us to flee. Yeah. That bit of discomfort. It can feel like that means this is wrong. That means I shouldn't be doing this exactly. We assume if heat is rising and we are getting these warning signals that this must be bad. But actually the reframe is, oh, there's something relevant here.

I should pay attention. Take away one. Conflict is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, Priya argues it's necessary if we want to be in close authentic relationships. So when you have a moment of misalignment with someone, try thinking of it as a signal. There's something here to talk

about. Now Priya's first book was called The Art of Gathering and we've had her on the show a lot

to talk about community and gatherings and friendship. So I told her, the last thing I want to do at a gathering is fight. It's just that my inclination when I gather with people is that if people are fighting, this thing has gone off the rails. And that may be true. And this is a, this is not saying that fighting is on the rails. I am interested in group life. I'm interested in what allows us despite all of the obstacles in modern life, despite having different schedules and different beliefs

and all of these things, how can we still meaningfully connect? And gathering is one tool to help us get better at group life. And conflict is another tool to help us get better at group life. And in my 20 years as a conflict resolution facilitator, I've learned that healthy communities need love, but healthy communities also need heat. Yeah, you say specifically that healthy

“community needs healthy conflict. What is healthy conflict as opposed to unhealthy conflict?”

When trouble rises, we often oscillate between these two stances, which is kind of avoidance pretending like nothing is in your folks and escalation kind of burning the house down. There's a place between what I call unhealthy peace and unhealthy conflict, which is healthy heat

are able to hold tension with care long enough to be generative or clarifying.

“And so when we don't know how to fight well, we end up either saying nothing at all and then it”

implodes or exiting. And so learning how to be what I call an artful fighter is actually an investment in community. Take away to healthy conflict can bring structure and clarity to your relationships. It can help you figure out your priorities as individuals, as a group, and move forward together, or not. Now how do we have those conversations? We'll talk about that after the break. This message comes from the center for U.S. voters abroad foundation. U.S. citizens live,

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Find this and hear more stories from the indicator from planet money on the NPR app. This is Terry Gross, host of fresh air. I interviewed feminist icon glorious dinam several times over the years, and we've compiled a special episode to celebrate her life and legacy. Women become ourselves after 50. We drop a lot of baggage and really become much more at true selves. Find it on the NPR app or wherever you listen to fresh air.

Hey, it's Ray from Cartock. You tied up all the depth and thoughtful care that goes into NPR shows. Want some good old fashion goofing around and stumbling to figure out what's going on? Well, I've been taking occasional car questions again. You can hear them by signing up for NPR plus along with lots of other bonus content. Just go to plus dot NPR dot org. I understand that conflict is a part of life, but often I find myself asking,

is it worth it with this person? When do you get into it and when do you just pull back or walk away without confronting? Priya lays out some questions. We can ask ourselves in the book. Can I continue to engage meaningfully without facing? Do I care enough about this group to take this on? Do I still have longing for this group or friendship or relationship? Is this conflict touching on a core value of mine? Does the group need to reflect those values for me to be a part

of it? Knowing conflict arises in every group and relationship are these the people I want to be

“in a mess with. Do I think that by saying something I could alter the situation?”

Because sometimes we're in situations where we have tried, like we have had conversations before or like you said like we don't really have the power or we've known somebody for a very long time and we've seen how they behave and we're like anti-genoled dog mood tricks. Yeah, it's just who they are. And I have a section in there called seven reasons not to face and one of them is it's not a rift, it's a revelation. Right? So it's like when people show you who they are believe them.

It's a that old quote and so much of what I'm trying to invite the reader to do is to actually just become curious and to build what I call the skills of group intelligence which is to become curious and see what's actually happening here. Why is this happening? And in modern life our bounty and our tragedy is that we get to choose who we want to belong to. We get to choose the groups or in. And so one of the reasons I say is that tragedy is it's also a lot of labor. It's a lot of work

and along with all of that it's so easy to walk away from it is a group or a friend. It's never

been easier to exit but over the long term you keep exiting, right? You're gonna end up pretty alone. Take away three. Choose your battles. Before you really get into it with someone, air your grievances, try to work towards a solution, do ask yourself questions like, how much do I care about this person or this group? Can I continue to meaningfully engage

“without facing this? And do I think that by saying something I could change the situation?”

At the same time, don't shy away from a disagreement just because you're afraid. When we have decided that someone or some group is worth fighting with,

so you would say to us 90% of the success of the room, of the gathering, of the fight, happens before anyone enters. I mean I fight people in my head all the time. Exactly. Exactly. And so part of it is preparing ourselves, part of us is preparing the other person or the group. And part of us is preparing the room. And so if a group that you're part of or a team or an association or a family member or a wedding,

something happens in a group and there's a conflict or there's a reckoning. The first thing

to do is to get curious. And it's just actually asked what is the need here? What is this actually about underneath? And be curious and humble about where that might reach you. So one of the problems is so many of us are actually we often don't have the right fight. We're having the wrong conversation. And so I'll give a simple example, a friend of mine. Maybe a former friend of mine, I'm not going to label it. A person I was very close to. She was somebody who we text, we joke,

sometimes we'd have virtual like teas or call, which is like made an effort. And one day, basically, it just kind of went cold turkey. And then I basically didn't hear much from her for like six months. And I kind of like for us like really mad and I was really hurt and I was confused. You need to go through this whole cycle. Yeah. And then I was like morning the death of my friendship. By the way, all in my own head, but still like real feelings, real emotions. Yeah. And then

one day I get a text from her, like a trippy text. And I was like, hey, it's been a while. Can we catch up? You're like, what were you been? So part of the artifacting is finding a way to expand our range of options in that moment. Do I pretend nothing happened? Right, do I let her lead? Do I say I'm really mad? What do I say? It's actually there's actually an infinite number of possibilities if we pause.

“So first of all, I feel my own feelings. Yeah. So then I said, okay, Priya, what's the need here?”

I can't remember she said catch up or debrief. Like, I don't need a debrief. Like, this is insulting. It's also like corporate speak. Yeah. My need wasn't till like catch up about our lives over the last six months. That I, she didn't, in my mind, I was like, she didn't get access to that. It's kind of like when an old boy friend or lover comes back into your life with a you up text. Like exactly exactly like these are our agreements. Yeah. And so I pause and I check

it back something like, I don't know about you, but I felt a lot of like a huge loss in our friendship and a huge change over the last six months. I'm not sure a catch up or a debrief is what we need. I'd, I'd be more interested or up for a clearing, you know, three dots, three dots, three dots, you know, she's responding. And then you like sweating. Well, she was, I am. I'm sweating. My heart is poppinating, you know, and also mad. I also love her, you know, I'm like,

oh, and all the feelings. And as she writes back something like, thanks for the good language.

“Like, that's what I think a clearing is much better language. I've also experienced a big change.”

I'd be up for a clearing. Okay. And so what I did in that, in that text exchange, what I was trying to do was ask, is this we're facing? Do I care about this enough to be honest about it?

But the second thing is I was trying to set up the right fight. So in my language, I was seeing a

clearing versus a debrief to trust so that we wouldn't be like coming on for the phone or however we chose to do it and be having two totally different conversations. Yeah. And so part of what I'm doing is I'm trying to like write the ship so that when we get, when we're deciding to come together, it's nervous for both of us. Like neither one of us has this conversation who wants to fight, who wants to go through this, we're actually both agreeing. It's almost like setting the terms.

I mean, it's all informal. And so when we actually got on the phone, we both knew what we were getting on for. He how did the clearing go? I went well. As a clearing, it was a very, I think for me, helpful, effective cathartic conversation to hear where she was coming from and then I got a share where I was coming from. I think like so many of these clearings are so conversations,

like it doesn't always mean that you come back together again. The whole thing became a loosening

of the friendship. Take away four. Before a fight, think about what you and the group,

“or you and another person actually need in this moment. Do you need to repair old misunderstandings”

and hurts? Do you need to understand why a person behaved the way they did? To both of you need

ahead of time. So the other person knows what to expect and you end up having the right conversation.

“After the break, we talk about being direct and scheduling time to fight.”

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You know, I was thinking about this, I would call myself a direct person, meaning that I'm just likely to mention things that are on my mind or say when I felt that an interaction was weird, try to get to the bottom of it. And sometimes that's well received and sometimes it is not. So I wonder how we can communicate across this divide. If one person is more

“direct and one person isn't. I read a wonderful article by Raina Cohen in the Atlantic years ago,”

and she looked at this question, but from the perspective of basically couples who are married to each other, where one is would call themselves direct. And the other one, like, wants the free, right, is sort of indirect. And one of the things that she found was that the couples in which they had totally different conflict styles, because some of what you're also talking about is directness, or is indirectness as well. So it's culturally relevant, right? It's also related to age,

just related to gender, it's related to workplace norms, it's related to all sorts of things. So one of the things that she found within couples who want to be direct and just get it out

with all the time and the other one never wanted to have any conversation, never was they scheduled

their fights. That's sweet. And they described it as the same way as you go to a dentist for dental hygiene, you don't wait to go to a cavity every six months. It's sort of marriage hygiene. And though it might sound literally like getting, you know, your tooth taken out, it de-escalates it for the people who feel who fear conflict. They just know like, oh, this is just what we do. Like, he's not divorcing me. Yeah, having one of our, you know, scheduled

meetings. And then for the person who, you know, feels like they, they, they really want to get stuff off their chest all the time. It allows them to have a container where they're not deeply

“frustrated. Because right, if you want to have a fight in something, your person's like not wanting to,”

then it adds a second layer, which is like, we can't even talk about the things that are important.

Yeah. And so I, even though that's about a couple, part of why the artifacting is actually about groups and looking at the context of a community is because I think in modern life, we actually you need to create our own subcultures. Yeah. Friends do this, right? Inside jokes are shorthand for culture, right? The ways you hang out, the things you call yourself are shorthand for culture. And so in these longer-term friendship relationships, family life, it's actually over time

finding ways, I'm almost like agreements of like, can we have this conversation? Take away five, people have different levels of comfort with confrontation, or even mild disagreement. Some of us are more direct. Some of us hold things in for longer. One way to bridge the gap is to schedule time to fight. Another way to put that is schedule time to check in on what's going well, and what's going less well. Where you could support each other better, or basically what grievances

you have with each other. Then it becomes a practice, and it gives everybody an opening to share. By the way, not every fight has to be a big deal. When somebody did something that rubbed you the wrong way, it is possible in a healthy scenario for you to tell them, and then to say, "I'm sorry, and you both to just move on." It's like when you step on somebody's foot, right? They say, "Ouch, and you say, "I'm so sorry. I didn't see you there." And that's that. You know, I wonder if

when we feel the impulse to fight with someone, or we feel that a fight is needed, does that always

mean that they did something wrong? I can say from my experience as a facilitator. Not necessarily, I introduce this term a meter check. A meter check is to actually go in and check to see if there's still actually electricity in the lamp. And so if somebody sends them into you and you're not totally sure if I need to go and fight about it, get a meter check, meaning ask someone else who you respect, who you love, not in a gossipy way, to be like, "Hey, like this happened. What do you think?"

Yeah, I guess what I'm thinking is that. I like the idea of creating a space where two people can think different things, be in the world differently, have different levels of sensitivity

is called "Stiblings Without Rivalry." And in the prologue of this book, the authors write something like, "Your job is not to make your children best friends. Your job is to help teach them how to build a bridge between the islands of their different identities." So that even after they leave your home,

your house, they know at any point in their life, they always know the path to each other. And that's

to me, that's all relationships. And in some cases, I may alter you because of what I said, and you may think of something totally different. And in other cases, we may agree to disagree.

“And then we have to decide, can we still be in this friendship with being in this relationship?”

Like, closeness is a spectrum. It's not either where friends or not friends, right? A friend of mine has a mentor who often tells her, "You can be in relationship with anyone at the right distance." And it's your job to figure out what the distance is for that person.

So it's not saying everyone's your best friend or everyone's your enemy, right?

It's also, this is, again, fortunately or unfortunately, these are skills that will help us in modern life. Priya, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. Okay y'all, time for a recap. Take away one, conflict, not necessarily a bad thing. Priya argues it's actually necessary if we want to be in close and authentic relationships. When you have a moment of misalignment with someone, think of it as a signal. There's something here to talk about. Take away two, healthy conflict,

can bring structure and clarity to your relationships. Take away three, choose your battles

before you really get into it with someone, ask yourself questions like, "How much do I care

about this person or this group? Can I continue to meaningfully engage without facing this?"

“And do I think that by saying something, I could change the situation? At the same time, don't”

shy away from a disagreement just because you're afraid. Take away four, before a fight, think about what you and the group or you and another person actually need at this moment. You want to set the table ahead of time so the other person knows what to expect and you end up having the right conversation. And take away five, people have different levels of comfort with confrontation. Some of us are more direct, some of us hold things in. One way to bridge the gap

is to schedule time to fight. Also, remember, just because you're upset with someone or they're upset with you, doesn't mean that one of you is a bad person or even that one of you did something wrong. Sometimes that's the case, but sometimes you're just two different people with different ways of being in the world. And you get to decide how close you want to be. That's our show.

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