Tips for Rootedness: Conflict Resolution

In an age of going no-contact, blocking, and unfriending, host Kiran Prasad and her daughter Nikita (Marriage and Family Therapy Trainee) dive into conflict resolution. They unpack the cycle of rupture and repair, share tools for expressing your needs, and even model an ideal apology.

Transcript

Kiran Prasad (00:00)
Information shared is based on personal experiences and not meant to replace medical, psychological or other professional help.

Kiran Prasad (00:09)
Yeah, I'm so glad Nikita. I love that you did mention about repair because one of the best things I think about

us our relationship is that we don't sweep things under the rug. We do work on our relationship because we so value it. You're so important to me.

Nikita (00:27)
Aww, you're so important to me too mom and absolutely not we do not sweep anything under the rug. And actually by the way, that doesn't mean that we don't have conflict in fact it means we do have

Kiran Prasad (00:32)
No.

Hi everyone, welcome to the Uprooted by Unwanted Change podcast about managing life transitions. I'm your host, Kiran Prasad. Thanks for being here today. If you're new to the show, I want you to know that when I don't have a guest on the show, I do a solo episode where you get to hear a bit about my journey through unwanted change.

But today's a bit different because I have Nikita Prasad, my lovely daughter, she's back with me to be my co-host.

Hi Nikita!

Nikita (01:16)
Hi mom.

Kiran Prasad (01:17)
Today's tips for rootedness are for conflict resolution. Relationships in our lives, they can be very grounding. But when those relationships are having issues, they can go from being a source of strength for us to causing upheaval. And that's why we want to talk today about how to find your way back to one another after conflict.

Now this episode goes really well with our past episode we did together on emotional self-regulation. So if you haven't listened to that one yet, please feel free to go back, listen to that and then hop back on again to this one next. So I'll let Nikita introduce how she relates to the topic we'll be covering today and for her to share a little bit about herself. So welcome Nikita!

Nikita (02:09)
Thanks for having me again, mom. As I said last time, I'm such a huge fan of the show. So to be invited to be a guest for season two as well just warms my heart. And as I said last time I was on the show, it's..you're you're not just inviting me on because I'm your daughter, but also because of my professional background and experience. To elaborate on that a little bit, I not only have worked with people in the tech industry for the past decade or so,

but more relevant to today's topic, I study marriage and family therapy. And I am about to graduate in six weeks. so I'm Super excited, yay!

Kiran Prasad (02:47)
Yay! I can't wait

to be at your graduation!

Nikita (02:51)
⁓

thank you. I'm excited to no longer be juggling a full-time job and full-time school, but a portion of my three-year program this last year has involved seeing clients as well. I work as a therapy trainee. I'm pre-licensed, so I always like to emphasize that.

But I will bring in my experience both in the therapy room and in the classroom to this topic.

Actually, mom was over staying at my house a  month or so ago, and we talked about the new topics for season two, and we were discussing what some tips for rootedness could be. And we talked about the topic of conflict resolution, which I think, as mom mentioned, feeds in really nicely from our past topic of emotional regulation. And also the other reason why it popped into my mind is because

it's something that I've been seeing so often in the therapy room. I've noticed that a lot of my clients tend to really have an avoidance of conflict and even a fear of it. things naturally emerge in a relationship and there are feathers ruffled,  people can be afraid to approach or not even know how to do that. So that's something that we are excited to talk about today. But obviously outside of my

professional career, I'm also just a person walking around this earth. And I have had a really interesting journey with  conflict resolution. I will say in terms of the willingness to approach conflict and and resolve it, that's always been a strength for me. I feel like in my personal relationships and romantic relationships, I've often been the one who's more willing to hash things out. I think a big part of that is because mom will talk

speak to this, but she definitely raised me and my brother in a way that was very much you have to talk things out when things happen. Yeah, just being comfortable approaching conflict. But I recognize that not everybody's like that. Where I think I have changed a lot and something that I will speak to later is I used to be such a bad apologizer. I realize now that I used to do all the no-nos of apologies. I would give

reasons and be defensive or the worst defense ever, I'm sorry you feel that way which is something I never say anymore. So we'll talk more about apologies. But becoming better at apologizing has really changed my life for the positive. Those are just a few of the many reasons that I am very passionate about this topic. How about you mom? How come you care about this topic?

Kiran Prasad (05:32)
Thanks, Nikita. And I do remember when you'd say that, you'd say it to me as well. Oh sorry you feel that way. It used to bother me. For me, my upbringing was very different from how I raised you. And that's probably why I raised you that way, to not be conflict avoidant, because that's how I was.

Nikita (05:47)
Mm-hmm.

Kiran Prasad (05:53)
I wasn't raised to talk things out when there was an

Kiran Prasad (05:58)
especially as an Indian

Kiran Prasad (06:00)
definitely not with my parents. It was a very different era of when you just do as you're told. That's it. No discussion, no communication.

Kiran Prasad (06:13)
A lot of people can relate to that, the way we were raised.

I was, became a people pleaser.

I couldn't speak up, I didn't like conflict. I would avoid conflict. I didn't like to rock the boat, just like I said, always be trying to please.

And I've come a really long way from there.

Kiran Prasad (06:32)
We were raised with very strong family values that family comes first, the family togetherness and disagreements, they weren't tolerated. They, they mustn't linger. That we needed to quickly apologize.

And often it was a matter of respect your elders and I was one of the youngest kids told to do that.

Kiran Prasad (06:55)
My father, I remember particularly, he would not let us remain that way. He would say, we're not gonna have not talking to each other. And so I don't know if you remember Nikita, when you were younger, how I would insist on the two of you because you and Vinnie, you get on so well now, but as kids, I thought you'd be

Nikita (07:08)
yeah.

Kiran Prasad (07:16)
killing it, not physically

Nikita (07:16)
You

Kiran Prasad (07:17)
killing each other, but like constantly at each other as young kids are, I don't know, especially seven, seven and nine or something. And I would make you go in the other room in the other extra lounge. And I would say, sit on those, on that couch. You're not getting up. You're not getting out of this room until you talk about it. You talk it out and you make amends. I don't know if you can remember doing that.

Nikita (07:45)
Of

Oh of course, I still remember the detailed texture of those couches because initially it would be a bit of a stalemate and we'd both just be staring at the couch. Eventually we would come to an agreement. We wanna go play Nintendo, so we gotta work this out.

Kiran Prasad (07:50)
You

Yeah,yeah I know, I used to use screen time. one thing I didn't know that now I've taken on board is that before you can even do that and resolve the conflict, you need to be in an emotionally regulated place yourself. So I believe now in pause pause till you more in your window of tolerance or the some of the things we talked about in the other episode.

I was often misunderstood. I wasn't able to stand up for myself or express my needs. So

communication to me has been vital

for understanding other people and for being understood ourselves. That's something I really lacked. But yeah, I'm glad I gave that, encouraged that for you.

Nikita (08:48)
Absolutely, me too. I really appreciate it because as I said, I've noticed the difference with myself, with my clients, friends  of if you weren't raised with that as you understand you weren't necessarily raised to be the most open to conflict initially and you changed that about yourself. It's it's such a an important skill and the reason for that is because one of the core concepts that we wanted to introduce was that the the cycle of

rupture and repair, which is the conflict cycle, is so normal and not only normal, but necessary in relationships. And I think for some reason we've reached this place in our society where we see a couple or a family that fights and we think of that as a negative thing. And it's absolutely not. In fact, some of the hardest places to move forward from in the therapy room for me is when no one's talking about what's wrong.

And so if we have conflict, we can work on how to make that more constructive. But if we don't have any, it's a difficult place to start from. So when I say rupture and repair, what I mean is the idea that rupture is is when an incident happens. It's not always in both people's awareness. There's ruptures that are really obvious to both parties, like

a big fight or things like that, but some ruptures are just inside of one person. They're having your feelings hurt. So an incident occurs and then critically  repair comes next. And that is the attempt to understand each other, to express what's hurting, to nurture the other person for what's hurting. And  most importantly, not just address the conflict itself,

but those feelings that came along with the conflict and really be able to validate that and tend to one another's emotional needs. So my biggest first headline is conflict is necessary. Conflict is organizing as long as repair comes along after it.  What is the alternative to repair after a conflict? Well,

Well, that is what is referred to sometimes in my industry as a cutoff or it can be a blocking, a no contact. There's so many words for it, right?  But one of the most interesting things I've learned in my schoolwork so far is the notion that cutoffs don't fix any of the distress that goes on within an individual. individual.

So there is this foundational psychologist named Dr. Murray Bowen of Bowenian Family Systems, which is foundational. And basically his institute studies healthy families and what constitutes dysfunctional and what constitutes functional. And with cutoffs, what they find is if you have a big blow up with someone and you say, you know what, I'm just not going to talk to that person anymore, that

typically keeps the same levels of anxiety, the same levels of discontent, the same levels of anguish within that person as if they were still in contact with the person. And it keeps you frozen in time, essentially, in the distress of that conflict. What they also find is that it's highly limiting to your development in sort of emotional maturity, like some of the most important things for an individual to be able to experience,

that growth is stilted by having too many cutoffs in one's life. I get concerned about the cancel culture. And I know that you do too, mom, or the cutoff culture. And so we'll talk about that more. But one thing we want to stress during this episode is we understand that there are valid reasons to cut someone out of your life. So when we're talking about this research, that it can be damaging, we are talking about maybe those cases that don't need to be a cutoff, but

you know, we reach for that. There are absolutely cases such as in abuse where we understand the need to completely cut off and would support that. So it's interesting though, mom, when we were talking about all of this, you were kind of expressing this different viewpoint with regards to cut off where it doesn't really have to be all or nothing. It can be a little bit more of a spectrum. Tell us more about that?

Kiran Prasad (13:15)
Yeah, yes. And I love what you said about the by Dr. what was it, Bowen, yeah and the research on that and being frozen in time in conflict. That was so interesting. For me, I do feel it's like on a kind of spectrum to me, I see it as.  So at one end, at one extreme end, you could be maybe so close, maybe inseperable. inseparable.

Nikita (13:22)
Mm-hmm.



Kiran Prasad (13:42)
And then at the other end, it's no contact, which is like you said, last resort, where there may be abuse, you know, I agree with Nikita on that. And then along the way, on the spectrum you could have where it's healthy relationship, the closeness, or, at the other end before you get to no contact, or maybe going from no contact, you could go back to like a lower contact

or a cordial relationship, if these are relationships that you either value or you can't avoid in your life. Certain people that you know you're gonna see them around, maybe they're part of the family or something, or a friend group that you're gonna see around at certain places. I'm sure a lot of us can relate to that. And so what that looks like, in person or online, if you do that, going no contact.

To give you an example, when I moved to California, in the beginning, you know I'm trying to make friends, new friends, and then gradually realized some of these people were really not healthy for me to be around, especially because of all the healing I'd done. There were certain people I just could not be around. Then I did have to and move away gradually from some of them.

In extreme cases, for me it is extreme if I do something like that. Somebody has got to really push my buttons, really push, push, push, push hard for me to block anyone on social media or even in person.  I don't think I've really done that, like block anyone by email or phone. But I think like a lot of us, when politically things were getting charged politically online, there were certain people like I could not have,

it just became too,  can't think of the word. Heated. More than heated, yeah. We all have that in our lives, so I understand that. And everyone's situation is unique and only the person themselves, they know the relationship, they know the person that they're dealing with. And so I don't think it's anyone's place to

Nikita (15:30)
Heated.

Kiran Prasad (15:51)
to judge somebody on But as long as like you're in a safe space, safety is paramount, I believe. for me.

Nikita (16:01)
Absolutely.

Yep, absolutely. I completely agree and I love what you said about how there can be those degrees of closeness essentially. And so something I'm curious about is, let's say it's not one of those very few people in your life that you've decided to completely cut off and it's someone that instead maybe you're keeping close but you're being a bit cautious with or you can't remove them from your life or don't want to. How do you manage that today?

Kiran Prasad (16:31)
Okay, so that's a good question. Well, I'm a very typically very forgiving person, maybe sometimes to a fault. So I do give people grace. I give them the benefit of the doubt. Like we would want that for ourselves as well. I always look, I always think of, you know I don't know what circumstances are in this person's life or even what their mental health, their state of health is like, or what's causing this behavior.

I always try to give the benefit of the doubt.  I think I only used to give grace, but now I feel it's important to give grace and space, like I mentioned earlier, about the pause. For myself as well, pausing maybe before I attempt to try and speak to that person about the conflict and let them step away as well. We both can cool down or whatever, self-regulate, give them the space first.

first. And because it's tough to try and deal with conflict if we're not self-regulated. Also if we want to go from no contact with a person to at least a bit of low contact, reintroduce someone back into our lives, it's really hard to do that if we're not self in a place of self-regulation. And who knows with grace and space that might help

 repair the relationship.

Nikita (17:56)
Yeah, I love, I love your nuanced viewpoint of this. And when we talked about this concept, when we were brainstorming for this episode, we, I gave you an analogy of keeping the door open to remaining in contact with that person instead of shutting it completely.

Kiran Prasad (18:15)
Exactly, exactly. Because at least one person needs to do that. I know ego can get in the way. Because if both people shut that door tightly shut, that can be such a tragedy, especially if that person means a lot to us.

Nikita (18:31)
Totally, totally. And something we talked about with that keeping the door open is as long as one, you're regulated enough to have that door open to have that invitation, right? So maybe you just crack it while you're taking the space that you need. And then once you open it, you're also not standing there by that door begging the other person to come in. It really has to be a two-person decision. So you can kind of keep going about your life, do what you need to do, heal, grow.

But make it clear that there's an invitation there and if and when they feel ready, they can walk through that door. That is so important and beautiful because it's becoming so prevalent almost to the point of like, it's everywhere. This idea of having no contact. People slamming the door, shutting it and locking it forever. And you're right, that can be such a tragedy. I think you were saying that you've seen a lot of media about this.

Kiran Prasad (19:29)
Absolutely Nikita, yeah. The blocking, the cancel culture, no contact. I've heard a few podcasts as well. There's been a lot of debate on this topic. It's very controversial these days. Oprah ⁓ and Mel Robbins are two of the ones I've come across. There's strong debate on There's not, neither of us feel that there's a right answer, do we Nikita?

Nikita (19:54)
No, no, we don't want to be prescriptive with anyone. And that's especially important to me as a budding clinician is we don't tell people what to do. We help them explore how they feel about the situation and only you know the reality of your relationship. And there are relationships that look very different from the outside than they feel on the inside. And so only you can decide and kind of triage where this person is going to be in terms of whether you want to keep contact,

how much contact you want to keep. And so we really hope that we can talk about how to kind of maintain those relationships if they do stay.

Kiran Prasad (20:35)
Yeah, I'm so glad Nikita. I love that you did mention about repair because one of the best things I think about

us our relationship is that we don't sweep things under the rug. We do work on our relationship because we so value it. You're so important to me.

Nikita (20:52)
Aww, you're so important to me too mom and absolutely not we do not sweep anything under the rug. And actually by the way, that doesn't mean that we don't have conflict in fact it means we do have conflict. And I feel like in the past, maybe that conflict has been a little bit more explosive and part of what we've really improved upon I'd say in our relationship is

Kiran Prasad (20:58)
No.

Nikita (21:16)
our first episode, plugging it again, that self-regulation, both of us knowing how to kind of go our separate ways and get to a place where repair is gonna be productive. Then the second part that I think we've gotten a lot better at is this idea of  really wanting to make repair attempts and also being specific about how we make those repair attempts, right, mom?

Kiran Prasad (21:40)
Yes, so true. Yep. It's a testament to our relationship. It really is. So much so that we've created, we actually created some conflict guidelines during a time when we weren't actively in conflict, when we were self-regulated.

Nikita (21:58)
Totally, like examples of what some of these things are is make sure that we kind of pre-schedule it, being clear that we have something to talk about, but picking a time that works for both people. Making sure we only raise one issue at a time, which is really key in conflict. So we'll touch on some of those more later, but just because you make guidelines doesn't mean you always follow them. We are all only human, ⁓ even trained therapists

like myself. And so I have a recent situation that mom and I wanted to share because we don't want to feel like you're listening to this podcast and we're preaching to you about how perfect our conflict resolution is and setting some golden standard. Absolutely not. The point of conflict is that it's it's it's inevitable, it's often messy, and that's okay. No matter how messy it gets, we just want you to get to a place of repair. The situation was that

mom was texting me about something. She had also missed an email that I had sent. So there was all this confusion and I was sitting there thinking oh my God, I can't believe she's being so cold to me over text. Which again, text is we've talked about this mom, text is gnarly for miscommunications. So I was upset and it was just sitting with me.

Kiran Prasad (23:10)
Mm-hmm.

Nikita (23:20)
And I was like, you know what, I'm gonna call her. And I didn't text her, I didn't say oh can we chat? To be clear, that came from a place of not wanting there to be tension in our relationship. Like, all right, let's not sweep this under the rug, let's just get this dealt with. And so I call her, I tell her how I feel, but she wasn't prepared for the conversation. I hadn't emotionally settled yet. Understandably, it got

Kiran Prasad (23:24)
Yeah.

Nikita (23:46)
pretty heated, wouldn't you say, mom?

Kiran Prasad (23:48)
Yep, yep.

Yep, maybe an understatement. Both of us, well, we both ended up dysregulated while we were on the phone. I took my pause afterwards. I did take my pause afterwards. And then when I paused, my response back to her, it really showed my healthier, assertive self. I have been working on my healing and on my assertiveness.

I'm so glad I did. And Nikita, when I reminded you of our agreement, that that how there was no pause and there was no suitable time picked, as you mentioned, and some of the other things. We didn't have the bandwidth at that time. You certainly didn't! Both of us didn't.

Nikita (24:29)
No,

No, I mean, even literally, I was like between meetings. Again, I don't know what I was thinking. And we're not perfect. I just rushed into wanting to solve the conflict right away. So that's another perfect example of how we do need pause. But critically, mom, something that was really important to me is that the conflict happened. It didn't happen perfectly. It rarely does happen perfectly. But once

Kiran Prasad (24:37)
and

Nikita (24:56)
we were both even more upset afterwards, the way that you reached out to me and reminded me about our agreements, it was with love, with care, with validation. Really, you also led by validating my feelings that I had raised on the phone, which is so important, and we'll get to that when we talk about the apology sandwich. So, sorry, the need sandwich, rather. But so you, we do.

Kiran Prasad (25:20)
We have a sandwich analogy again, you're making me hungry.

Nikita (25:24)
I know

last time we did what was it even? Hypo arousal and hyper arousal, I think so, we talked... And then your regulated space, your window of tolerance being that nice space in between. So I have another sandwich for you. But anyhow, we'll get to that. But I really appreciated that you you gently reminded me. You said,

Kiran Prasad (25:34)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nikita (25:46)
we both need to work on this. So it didn't come across to me as you were like trying to win the fight, which I think can sometimes be mistakes people make in repair. We'll talk about that a little bit more later. But mom, in the future, once someone is in a regulated enough place to kind of share how they're feeling, if we could go back in time and have that situation again, how would be a good way to state my needs, for example?

Kiran Prasad (26:16)
That was actually, this is something that I made sure I had it listed in the guidelines that we were gonna follow when we resolve a conflict, to use the Three-Step Assertiveness model, which I've spoken about in the people pleasing episode in more detail. But it's so worked for me. Basically the three steps are that you first of all, state the facts.

And with all of these, you just use I statements and not you statements because you can, people can become more defensive when they hear the word you. This is what happened. So state the facts. Secondly, how you felt about what happened, how you felt about the facts. Next is what you'd like to see change. What change would you like?

Now there's also a fourth step which I try not to use or we want to try not to use if we don't have to and what will you do if it doesn't happen, if they don't make that change. Nikita could you share a bit more about that as well?

Nikita (27:21)
Absolutely. Yeah, I think it was interesting when we were chatting this over especially with my clinician hat on I was thinking about how there's that fourth step we wanna be pretty careful with and there's very specific situations you would wannna use it. I'd say if it's a first or second offense I don't think we need to go there right because we want to also give grace to the person who we're communicating our needs to, assuming that they will want to

do those things to make us feel better because they care about the relationship. And I think sometimes when you get to the, this is what will happen if you don't do it, it, it can feel a bit more threatening in a way. And so you don't wanna do it if you feel like it's not gonna feel safe to communicate that. You don't wanna do it if there's no reason, but I could see this coming up if you've

asked for the same thing over and over again and you're not seeing anything change. That's when I could see the fourth step being appropriate. But I love that model mom. I love it is so common to jump to you did this, you did that, when we're talking about feeling hurt. So I really like this model. I think it's so important and it nests really, really well into what I wanted to talk about next. Which is how to properly apologize,

the needs sandwich like we mentioned.

Kiran Prasad (28:39)
⁓

Nikita (28:40)
Yeah, absolutely mom. We're gonna talk about sandwiches again. It wouldn't be us if we weren't talking about sandwiches right before lunchtime. But I haven't even shared this with mom yet because I wanted to get your real-time reaction to this because it is so different than the way that 99 % of us naturally approach apologies. So this method comes directly from

Matthias Barker, he is a psychotherapist and the CEO and founder of the Trauma Institute. He's amazing. Go check out his videos and stuff like that if you'd like more information on this specific topic. But I took a parenting workshop with him. And this method was originally taught about how parents can nurture their children's needs, but it works universally. It works in any relationships, okay? And, and so... 

sandwich. The thing about the sandwich is that in this analogy, the bread is actually the most important part. And so both the first and the last second pieces of bread are going to focus on the person who is hurt and their needs. And the middle of the sandwich is actually optional. That is gonna be optional context. So let me give you an example. Okay? Let's say that I had a friend,

and they had a really important event that was coming up. And actually, mom, I think it could be fun to do a little bit of like a role play if you're open to it. And we're gonna make up a situation that has never happened between the two of us. But mom had an amazing hula dancing performance and I was so proud of her. I hope it's okay that I share that mom.

Kiran Prasad (30:20)
Yeah, I'm very proud of it, thank you. Yes,

Nikita (30:22)
Yes,

you should be. So it was her first big stage performance ever and I could not wait to go. And I showed up nice and early with one of my mom's best friends. Because mom had told me you wanna get there early, it fills up. You wanna get a seat. And we did. And we were front row and we got to see mom. So that was actually amazing. But mom, let's change the situation a little bit. Let's say I actually was late and didn't even end up getting a seat,

was standing in the back, didn't really get, let's pretend that we were in that situation, okay mom? And so how the needs sandwich works is the very first thing I would wanna ask knowing that mom is upset is how was that for you and what did you need from me in that moment, mom?

Kiran Prasad (31:12)
So if you've come in late, and I know they were very strict about lateness as well.  I would be upset. What I would need from you because I always give people the benefit of the doubt, the grace, like we mentioned, I would want an explanation. First of all, that there must be a reason, because I know how enthusiastic you are to...

Nikita (31:14)
Yep, and.

Okay, okay.

Kiran Prasad (31:35)
to be there and be there on time. I mean you had an exam that day as well, a final exam. I was amazed how you left work, part of the day, took part of the day off and came all that way. I would suspect there's got to be a good reason.

Nikita (31:38)
Mm-hmm. I did

Hmm. That's very generous of you, mom. I wonder, I wonder what it would be like to just be hurt in that moment. So if, if we're talking about this later and you're just so disappointed that this has happened, I might ask you in this sandwich model, mom, I know you're, you're really bummed about what happened yesterday. How did you feel when I was..

Kiran Prasad (32:05)
Mm-hmm.

Nikita (32:17)
when I was late?

Kiran Prasad (32:19)
Well, I hate lateness, as you know, so I would be so upset. You're not there on time. Couldn't you have left a bit earlier to make sure you are? I would feel maybe I'm not important enough or this event isn't important enough. Like I've come to all your childhood everything you've ever done. I've been there on time. So yeah, it would hurt.

Nikita (32:43)
Yeah. Yeah. And so that's beautiful, mom. I love, we're gonna take that, that example of this, your, your hurt, right? And I would listen deeply, and I would reflect, and I would say, okay, mom, I totally hear you. I'm hearing that you are really, really disappointed and hurt that I was late. You, you gave, you even gave me a heads up  that I needed to be early and I wasn't. You're, you're feeling deprioritized

by me. And this is where I would do something that none of us do because it's so uncomfortable. I invite you to share even more hurt. I would say, mom, am I getting it? Is there, are there any other feelings that came up for you during this that, that you haven't shared with me?

Kiran Prasad (33:13)
Yep.

Basically it's not very often I have this sense of achievement of doing something like that. And it's my first time ever on the stage doing hula. And I didn't want you to miss even a minute of it. Like you could have missed my performance. They're very short each one, each dance. You could have missed it completely.

Nikita (33:34)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

Yeah, so that that just is deeply hurtful and maybe even confusing to you is what I'm hearing. Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that mom.

Kiran Prasad (34:01)
Mm-hmm.

Nikita (34:05)
What did you need from me in that moment that I didn't provide?

When I was late.

Kiran Prasad (34:13)
I needed an apology straight away, firstly. Although for me, apology is not just words, it's action as well, a change in behavior as well. for me to see that this really bothered you being late.

Nikita (34:15)
Hmm. Yeah.

Okay.

You needed it to be just as important to me as it was to you. And if it was, I wouldn't have been late in the first place. But if it was unavoidable for me to be late, I..you wanted me to be as distressed by it as you were.

Kiran Prasad (34:34)
Yeah.

Exactly. That you're upset by  really upset by that. You didn't wanna miss a minute of this. And to hear that you did your best.

Nikita (34:52)
Yeah.

Okay. See how much time I spent making sure I fully understood all the degrees of how upset you were and why you were upset and what you needed from me, right? No defensiveness, only listening. And if anything deepening that that what I said is kind of mind blowing about this to me is how often do we say, oh yeah, what else? What else are you upset about me for? But in a genuine way.

Kiran Prasad (35:08)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Nikita (35:25)
Here's step two, the filling. Totally optional. Ask permission to whether the other person even wants to provide their context, their side of what happened. So mom, in this case with the hula, I might say, I totally hear you. I absolutely understand why you would want to make sure that this feels as important to me as it was to you. That's reasonable. I do have some information about what happened that day

and I would be happy to share it with you if that would help you in this moment. However, I want to be clear that none of it takes away from how you feel. Do you think it would help you or hurt you in this moment to hear what was going on on my side?

Kiran Prasad (36:10)
Well, I'm the kind of person who would want to hear, not everybody would, I get that. Some people might think you're just trying to make excuses. Yeah, yeah.

Nikita (36:17)
You wanna hear about it? And yep, okay.

So for me, what really happened is that I was so focused on rushing to get you flowers and the florist is who let me down. So I actually was on time from my house to the florist and then I was anxiously waiting. I had prepaid for these gorgeous Hawaiian flowers and I was so excited about getting you those flowers. And so by the time I left, traffic had built up.

And devastatingly, I came in with these gorgeous flowers, but too late. And I really missed what was most important to you. And you know what? I wanna be clear, that is not an excuse. It's my explanation for what happened. And it's a little context for you.  But I don't want it to take away from what you experienced. So I would share that with you, right? right? That's context. Yeah, go ahead.

Kiran Prasad (37:08)
Yeah, and what I wanna say

is what I loved about that is that you said this is not an excuse. That part was really important to me because you could have just said that and it can sound to someone like, excuses, excuses, this person's making excuses. And actually, by the way, she did actually, you did actually get me a massive bunch of Hawaiian flowers and you were still managed to be in the front row,

Nikita (37:31)
you

Kiran Prasad (37:33)
lined up first, unbelievable. And over an hour of traffic, battling over an hour of traffic too. But yeah, that part was so important.

Nikita (37:43)
Yes, absolutely. So the last thing I'm gonna do is double down on your needs. Mom, I hear that no matter how this situation unfolded, I made you feel deprioritized. I want you to know how important you are to me. It broke my heart that I missed even a minute of the show. I'm so grateful I didn't miss your performance. And I will prove to you how

how true this is for me by making sure I show up for you wholeheartedly as important things arise. And I think the way you felt about that situation, completely valid, I would feel the same way.  So I hope that I can I can make it feel a bit better as time goes on through making you feel prioritized.

Kiran Prasad (38:41)
prioritized. I appreciate that Nikita and us Brits say, the proof is in the pudding. Yeah, actions speak louder than words still for me.

Nikita (38:51)
Wonderful. Okay. What do you think about that method?

Kiran Prasad (38:57)
I love it. I really love that. And we don't want to. We're so reluctant to even have to explain why to somebody, let alone take even more time than that. and do that extra bit.

Nikita (39:08)
Yes.

That was a long apology right? So to summarize it goes, what are you feeling? How do you hurt? Did I miss anything? Then, here's my context, only if you want it. The focus is on you. Finally, reinforce what you heard about that pain. Validate it and say you're going to change that. go

Kiran Prasad (39:34)
Something that I also liked was that you, and it ties in with that Three-Step Assertiveness, is that from what I remember, you were using you statements. Sorry, you were using I statements, not you statements. It was, I'm sorry, I did this, or I, I. It wasn't you, oh you expect me to be here so early, it's tough for me. There wasn't the you, the accusations that we can get into with people

Nikita (39:47)
Mm-hmm.

Kiran Prasad (40:01)
to try and justify ourselves. You weren't doing that. You weren't trying to shift any of the blame. You were holding yourself accountable. And it was with all the I statements. I really loved that. I think that makes a lot of difference.

Nikita (40:10)
Mm.

Beautiful that's exactly right mom. You noticed something so important, which is we stayed on your pain. We didn't, I didn't go oh you expected me to come a day that I had an exam. It would have been so easy for it to turn into that. But the idea's that when someone is hurt, you nurture their needs.

Kiran Prasad (40:24)
Mm-hmm.

And on that point also, you didn't turn around and say to me like you used to in the past, like you said, you've come a long way. You didn't say, oh, why do you have to react like this? Like I tried my best, and I can't help it if I'm late. You could have done that and you could have turned it around to why are you feeling like this? Like it's my fault that I'm upset as people can often do.

Nikita (40:58)
Yes!

Yes!

Kiran Prasad (41:00)
that what's wrong

with me? Why am I that mad? Or why am I so upset?

Nikita (41:04)
Beautiful reflection mom. That's one of the number one things I teach my clients when we talk about this process. The the feeling the other person is experiencing is truth. That is not debatable. We don't get to tell them whether they get to feel hurt. And the fact that you are coming to me in that scenario and telling me that you feel this way is an invitation for me to repair our relationship

as the apologizer. I have, I've come to love apologies, truly, and I mean that, because it gives me a chance to celebrate how much I love that person and to make them feel heard. So I know that one of the things we were chatting about is like, well, this all sounds so great. This sounds so easy.

Kiran Prasad (41:53)
Yeah, it does sound so simple doesn't it Nikita? But I wondered though as a therapist what have you noticed stands in the way of people doing this well?

Nikita (42:05)
Yeah, I mean, like you said, the Three-Step Assertiveness model that you shared and then that needs sandwich  that I shared, they both sound simple, but that does not mean that they're easy. And I think there's a few ways that things can stand in the way of that. And so one of them is this thing I've been working on with my clients of these mental pictures that we carry of the other person. So maybe these caricatures we hold in our minds.

In the example of the hula mom, if I had had this caricature of ⁓ mom overreacts, mom overreacts. And if you had had a caricature of, ⁓ Keet doesn't care, Keet never cares. That may have prevented that really beautiful constructive conversation that we had because we can write off the other person's experiences as part of this one dimensional caricature

Kiran Prasad (42:47)
Mm-hmm.

Nikita (43:00)
versus the three dimensional person sitting in front of them. Something I always say to my clients is like, how can you really, as you're regulating, think about the person you're in conflict with and the full picture of them? And I think it's a lot more successful if you come to the conflict with that. But how about you, mom, what are some of the things you feel like stand in the way of people having successful conflict and repair?

Kiran Prasad (43:29)
Well, to me, the other person might not be ready. You might be ready, but they might not be ready. And it definitely takes two to resolve a conflict. Obviously, one can move forward first and open the door. As we said, you know you can't have two of you, the ego getting in the way and both of you lacking any forgiveness or any attempt to repair.

Especially if we make up that narrative, like you said, in our head, that can really get in the way and that can get in the way for us being able to do that. And also to think that, like I always try to do give the benefit of the doubt that look, it might not be personal, their behavior. It may be just something to do with them. So we've got to try and like you said, not

have that caricature. I love that.

Nikita (44:24)
Perfect. I love that too. And then I think something we really want to reinforce is I think people can be really scared to apologize. I think they think that it makes them culpable. I think it makes them bad. I would actually say shame plays a huge role here that when we're being confronted with something that we've done wrong, we want to avoid it because we feel ashamed. Again, I wanna say taking responsibility does not make you the bad guy. In fact,

it's the opposite. You're providing this deep validation to the other person. And I don't remember if I've mentioned this yet in this episode, but just remember to always give the type of apology that you would want to receive. it, When you're receiving an apology, you don't want to hear defensiveness. You don't want them to bring in some random thing from your relationship as a counterpoint, right? Well, you do this. You want to feel heard and feel like that person is reaching for you.

That's what apologies are for. And so we can, I think one of the best places we can take accountability for this conflict resolution is by learning to be good apologizers. And mom, I know that you have a point about what makes a good apologizer. It's not just what you do in the moment, right?

Kiran Prasad (45:38)
Yeah,

No, I love this Nikita because I feel at the end of all of this, I see the goal of this as being able to change the way we interact and our patterns of behavior. And like I said earlier, the proof is in the pudding. Actions ultimately speak louder than words. Yep, I know plenty of people, I'm sure you do too, who'll say the words, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, didn't mean to do this over and over again.

Nikita (46:02)
Mm-hmm.

Kiran Prasad (46:06)
But you don't see the action to go with it, the change in the pattern of behavior.

Nikita (46:11)
Yeah.

And I wonder if something like the needs sandwich helps change that because you are really spending so much time in the apology of understanding why that person feels wronged and understanding their state of mind, which can help you change the way you approach in the future. yeah, go ahead.

Kiran Prasad (46:29)
Exactly, and everyone

wants to feel seen and heard at the end of the day, don't they? Everybody wants that.

Nikita (46:33)
Mm.

Yes, that is the biggest takeaway of all. But I love how throughout this episode we've kind of chatted about how conflict resolution is this deeply kind of ignored, I think, thing in society. And so we always say the prerequisite to the conflict resolution is you have to be in a good enough place. So go listen to the emotional regulation, make sure you kind of have your tools on board to calm yourself down if you need to. We want to reinforce that

rupture or conflict is such a normal crucial part of relationships. It's not something to shy away from and repair is vital. It allows us to communicate kind of what we're experiencing in a relationship. It makes that relationship more honest and that is so important, transparent communication that how you communicate, how you feel hurt as well as how you communicate an apology matters a lot.

So there's a lot of stuff that stands in the way, our egos, our impressions of one another,  but we can choose to bring more awareness to these moments of repair and do it with intentionality. And most of all, as mom beautifully said, taking someone's expression of need

as an invitation not only to apologize, but then to change your actions moving forward and fulfill their needs. That's what creates relationships that we can truly trust those beautiful lasting relationships. So, so happy to have been able to join.

Kiran Prasad (48:12)
Oh thanks so much Nikita for helping me with today's tips for rootedness. You made it a much more interesting show, you always do. ⁓ And I always learn so much from you, I really have. And on such an important, useful topic.

Listeners, they're always hearing about you from me  and got to hear from you today, Nikita. And I hope all of you learned something as well from her wisdom, insights, and her therapy training.

My wish for you listeners is that if there is a relationship you value that you could do with strengthening or repair,

I hope now you have some tools to work on it and will make that a priority because now more than ever in our world, we really need one another so much.

I'd like to end now by also saying that please be aware our schedule has changed, the podcast schedule, to get episodes out there on the first and third Tuesday of the month now. So please bear with me as I settle into that. That's even more reason now to subscribe and stay updated on the latest episodes.

I hope you'll share this episode with someone who may really need it. And I look forward to seeing you next time! Take care.