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Hey, welcome back to the Jason Gattas podcast. I'm your host. What's happening?
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All right. You guys breathing through the intensity of the world right now? Or what?
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OMG. Man. Yeah, it's intense. And some of our homes are intense and I wanted to give you
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a quick reminder, you know, I work with individuals and couples almost every day in my coaching
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business. And I repeatedly see patterns, common issues, and effective solutions, of course.
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When people are doing things well, right? So I want to talk about how to deescalate things
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quickly with anyone, right? And this requires you to keep your ego and defenses in check.
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That fragile part of you that wants to be right and wants to be them to be wrong.
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And I'm going to particularly talk to the men here, but obviously this applies to anyone
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who wants to deescalate. But I see a lot of men in my couples fall down here.
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So they get into a fight and the guy immediately goes off the rails into defensiveness. That's not
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what happened. That's not what I said. Let me explain. That wasn't my intention.
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And all this is really poor form. And it's going to double or triple or 10X the time it takes you
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to work through this. You're going to escalate things, not deescalate things. And I'm in the business
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of helping people deescalate and work through conflict and repair. So your partner comes at you
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with whatever you think is wrong based on what happened an hour ago or yesterday or what's
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happening right now, even. So there's a couple moves that you've got to do to deescalate someone.
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This can also work on a TSA employee customer and your business and just people who are upset.
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So one of the first things you need to do is like take a breath, not let yourself get dysregulated
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and hijacked by the whole thing. You have to stay in your adult and you stay as president's
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possibly. I know it's hard when especially when accusations are coming your way. But this is
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what separates people who can deescalate from people who want to escalate things and just take
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way too long to work through anything. So you want to do some kind of regulatory breathing or
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grounding or something just for even a second. One breath is fine. Then you're going to be like,
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wow, wow, wow. Reflect back the upset. Like, man, you're upset. I hear you. Just do some kind of
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general one word to one sentence reflection, which is, wow, you're upset. Not in a condescending way.
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Like, whoa, you're mad. Got it. In a real respectful way. Like, hey, I see you're upset.
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All right. Then you want to get their world, which basically just means you're going to reflect
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back the core of what they're trying to tell you. And you're always looking for the emotional
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content, not the play by play of what they think happened. You just want to be like, all right,
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you are upset because, and then just reflect it back because I did that thing again,
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or I didn't do the thing you wanted me to do. So you're not arguing realities here. You're just
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entering their world. You're just saying, oh, this is what you're saying. And this requires, again,
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strong ego strength to do this, a strong self maturity. But at the same time, not the kind of
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ego that is so proud and so ashamed that doesn't want to admit you did something wrong, right?
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Not that kind of ego. The ego strength to just be respectful and sit in the fire.
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So reflect back at their world. And then you've got to do two things that are the biggest
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movers in de-escalation. You're going to validate and own, all right. Validate their feelings.
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That's why you listen for feelings. You're going to like, you're an upset. You could say as a
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feeling. So you want to say, it makes sense. You're upset. A lot of people I try to coach want to
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do it their way, which is to say, I understand, which is not the same as it makes sense.
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Don't confuse. I understand your upset with it makes sense your upset. I'm going to play the
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difference here. And you can just notice. So let's say your partner says, I'm upset that you
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talked to your ex because you guys, let's say, hadn't agreement or something.
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You don't say, well, here's the, here's the two versions. I understand.
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You're upset because I talk to my ex. Okay, there's that. Or let's go with validation, which is
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it makes sense. You're upset because I talked to my ex. Notice the difference.
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I understand versus that makes sense. So I'm going to steer you into that makes sense because
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that's validation. Validation is not, I understand because it's like, they're feeling misunderstood
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like you don't get it. So why would you say that? So just say, your feelings make sense to me.
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You're upset. Your sadness, your anger makes sense because, and then you have to own something.
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If you can't own anything, you're not ready for a long-term relationship.
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You're too proud to admit you have something that you did or didn't do, right? That could
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have contributed to the thing. If you get into that thinking, that line of thinking, you're screwed.
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So you want to say it makes sense because, and then I did the thing.
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Because I did talk to my ex. It's that simple. Watch them relax immediately. And they might come
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out with another layer and then you do the same thing. You validate and own and watch them relax
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again. And they might have a big huge resentment that they have ennamed that starts coming out and
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you're like, whoa, this is, this isn't working, Jason. You told me that all I need to do is validate
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and own, but now it's getting worse. It only gets worse if they have an unspoken about
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unworked through resentment with you that you two have been too incapable of dealing with.
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So who's the responsibility is that? Yours. Both of yours, right?
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As you learn this stuff, sometimes it feels like it's getting worse because, finally,
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people are feeling safe enough like, oh my god, we can talk about the hard thing. So I've got this
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pile of hard things we've been avoiding talking about. And here I am. I'm going to bring it all out.
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So don't get discouraged if you think it gets worse. Most of the time it's going to get better
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when you validate and own. Your feelings make sense to me because I did the thing.
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It's that fucking simple, you guys.
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Okay, if you go into your story, that's not what happened.
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And you roll your eyes and you do a big huff. You are making it worse for yourself and your partner.
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And of course, the validation and ownership has to be genuine. It has to be sincere.
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So I'm not telling you to do a technique that you don't mean. Fuck that. You cannot abandon
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yourself and do this. You have to actually have yourself. But trust me when I say validation
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of someone's feelings will help their nervous system chill out. And what's going to move it
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even more is you owning your part. My part is blank. I did the thing. Uh-huh. It doesn't matter
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what your intent was. Stop fucking defending yourself with your, that wasn't my intention.
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Just swallow that because it doesn't help. I've never once seen it wasn't my intention. Help
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someone. I don't see that happen. If your partner is interested and they might say, I know it
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wasn't your intention, but that's different because they're saying it for you because they know
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you're a good person. They see you trying. I know Jason, it wasn't your intention and it's still
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sucked for me. And you say, yeah, make sense because I did the thing. Regardless of my intention.
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Okay. That's how you de-escalate anyone. And I want you to actually do that in the next 24
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hours go de-escalate someone. There's someone upset. We're all fucking upset right now about
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something. Just try to listen to someone. I would just like to be them. But this works super well
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in your most important relationship called your partnership, right? Yeah. Okay. Uh-reminder that
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Ellen and I are doing a couple's retreat if you want to learn how to do this even more live with us.
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September 2nd through the 5th here in Boulder, Colorado. Right below the flat irons, it's so gorgeous.
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We've got folks signing up and you've got to apply and we actually do interview you. We get on
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a Zoom call and make sure it's a fit. You with us and us with you. And you go to relationshipschool.com
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Ford slash retreat if you want to apply. It's three full days with my wife and I. We've never
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done this. It's our first time and it's going to crush because we've been doing couples working
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with couples for 30 years combined. And we've been married 18 years together, 21 and a half.
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And so it's going to be deeply enriching and you're going to find out how do you make your
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partnership a home? How do you like cultivate this thing? You walk in the door and you just feel like,
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oh, God, this feels good. I feel safe and relaxed. And okay, with this person. And that's your
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experience. 80% of the time. Of course, there's going to be fights and all that shit. All right,
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relationshipschool.com. Ford slash retreat. We'll see you there. Thanks for listening guys.