How to De-Escalate Someone Immediately - Jayson Gaddis - 556

Hey, welcome back to the Jason Gattas podcast. I'm your host. What's happening?

All right. You guys breathing through the intensity of the world right now? Or what?

OMG. Man. Yeah, it's intense. And some of our homes are intense and I wanted to give you

a quick reminder, you know, I work with individuals and couples almost every day in my coaching

business. And I repeatedly see patterns, common issues, and effective solutions, of course.

When people are doing things well, right? So I want to talk about how to deescalate things

quickly with anyone, right? And this requires you to keep your ego and defenses in check.

That fragile part of you that wants to be right and wants to be them to be wrong.

And I'm going to particularly talk to the men here, but obviously this applies to anyone

who wants to deescalate. But I see a lot of men in my couples fall down here.

So they get into a fight and the guy immediately goes off the rails into defensiveness. That's not

what happened. That's not what I said. Let me explain. That wasn't my intention.

And all this is really poor form. And it's going to double or triple or 10X the time it takes you

to work through this. You're going to escalate things, not deescalate things. And I'm in the business

of helping people deescalate and work through conflict and repair. So your partner comes at you

with whatever you think is wrong based on what happened an hour ago or yesterday or what's

happening right now, even. So there's a couple moves that you've got to do to deescalate someone.

This can also work on a TSA employee customer and your business and just people who are upset.

So one of the first things you need to do is like take a breath, not let yourself get dysregulated

and hijacked by the whole thing. You have to stay in your adult and you stay as president's

possibly. I know it's hard when especially when accusations are coming your way. But this is

what separates people who can deescalate from people who want to escalate things and just take

way too long to work through anything. So you want to do some kind of regulatory breathing or

grounding or something just for even a second. One breath is fine. Then you're going to be like,

wow, wow, wow. Reflect back the upset. Like, man, you're upset. I hear you. Just do some kind of

general one word to one sentence reflection, which is, wow, you're upset. Not in a condescending way.

Like, whoa, you're mad. Got it. In a real respectful way. Like, hey, I see you're upset.

All right. Then you want to get their world, which basically just means you're going to reflect

back the core of what they're trying to tell you. And you're always looking for the emotional

content, not the play by play of what they think happened. You just want to be like, all right,

you are upset because, and then just reflect it back because I did that thing again,

or I didn't do the thing you wanted me to do. So you're not arguing realities here. You're just

entering their world. You're just saying, oh, this is what you're saying. And this requires, again,

strong ego strength to do this, a strong self maturity. But at the same time, not the kind of

ego that is so proud and so ashamed that doesn't want to admit you did something wrong, right?

Not that kind of ego. The ego strength to just be respectful and sit in the fire.

So reflect back at their world. And then you've got to do two things that are the biggest

movers in de-escalation. You're going to validate and own, all right. Validate their feelings.

That's why you listen for feelings. You're going to like, you're an upset. You could say as a

feeling. So you want to say, it makes sense. You're upset. A lot of people I try to coach want to

do it their way, which is to say, I understand, which is not the same as it makes sense.

Don't confuse. I understand your upset with it makes sense your upset. I'm going to play the

difference here. And you can just notice. So let's say your partner says, I'm upset that you

talked to your ex because you guys, let's say, hadn't agreement or something.

You don't say, well, here's the, here's the two versions. I understand.

You're upset because I talk to my ex. Okay, there's that. Or let's go with validation, which is

it makes sense. You're upset because I talked to my ex. Notice the difference.

I understand versus that makes sense. So I'm going to steer you into that makes sense because

that's validation. Validation is not, I understand because it's like, they're feeling misunderstood

like you don't get it. So why would you say that? So just say, your feelings make sense to me.

You're upset. Your sadness, your anger makes sense because, and then you have to own something.

If you can't own anything, you're not ready for a long-term relationship.

You're too proud to admit you have something that you did or didn't do, right? That could

have contributed to the thing. If you get into that thinking, that line of thinking, you're screwed.

So you want to say it makes sense because, and then I did the thing.

Because I did talk to my ex. It's that simple. Watch them relax immediately. And they might come

out with another layer and then you do the same thing. You validate and own and watch them relax

again. And they might have a big huge resentment that they have ennamed that starts coming out and

you're like, whoa, this is, this isn't working, Jason. You told me that all I need to do is validate

and own, but now it's getting worse. It only gets worse if they have an unspoken about

unworked through resentment with you that you two have been too incapable of dealing with.

So who's the responsibility is that? Yours. Both of yours, right?

As you learn this stuff, sometimes it feels like it's getting worse because, finally,

people are feeling safe enough like, oh my god, we can talk about the hard thing. So I've got this

pile of hard things we've been avoiding talking about. And here I am. I'm going to bring it all out.

So don't get discouraged if you think it gets worse. Most of the time it's going to get better

when you validate and own. Your feelings make sense to me because I did the thing.

It's that fucking simple, you guys.

Okay, if you go into your story, that's not what happened.

And you roll your eyes and you do a big huff. You are making it worse for yourself and your partner.

And of course, the validation and ownership has to be genuine. It has to be sincere.

So I'm not telling you to do a technique that you don't mean. Fuck that. You cannot abandon

yourself and do this. You have to actually have yourself. But trust me when I say validation

of someone's feelings will help their nervous system chill out. And what's going to move it

even more is you owning your part. My part is blank. I did the thing. Uh-huh. It doesn't matter

what your intent was. Stop fucking defending yourself with your, that wasn't my intention.

Just swallow that because it doesn't help. I've never once seen it wasn't my intention. Help

someone. I don't see that happen. If your partner is interested and they might say, I know it

wasn't your intention, but that's different because they're saying it for you because they know

you're a good person. They see you trying. I know Jason, it wasn't your intention and it's still

sucked for me. And you say, yeah, make sense because I did the thing. Regardless of my intention.

Okay. That's how you de-escalate anyone. And I want you to actually do that in the next 24

hours go de-escalate someone. There's someone upset. We're all fucking upset right now about

something. Just try to listen to someone. I would just like to be them. But this works super well

in your most important relationship called your partnership, right? Yeah. Okay. Uh-reminder that

Ellen and I are doing a couple's retreat if you want to learn how to do this even more live with us.

September 2nd through the 5th here in Boulder, Colorado. Right below the flat irons, it's so gorgeous.

We've got folks signing up and you've got to apply and we actually do interview you. We get on

a Zoom call and make sure it's a fit. You with us and us with you. And you go to relationshipschool.com

Ford slash retreat if you want to apply. It's three full days with my wife and I. We've never

done this. It's our first time and it's going to crush because we've been doing couples working

with couples for 30 years combined. And we've been married 18 years together, 21 and a half.

And so it's going to be deeply enriching and you're going to find out how do you make your

partnership a home? How do you like cultivate this thing? You walk in the door and you just feel like,

oh, God, this feels good. I feel safe and relaxed. And okay, with this person. And that's your

experience. 80% of the time. Of course, there's going to be fights and all that shit. All right,

relationshipschool.com. Ford slash retreat. We'll see you there. Thanks for listening guys.