Tell Me More: Four Words to Defuse An Angry Person

Someone you love is about to lose it on you. Their voice rises, their face changes, and every nerve in your body screams the same word: defend.

Most men treat a loved one's big emotions like a grease fire. Smother it. Cut the oxygen. Get it to stop before it spreads. But the explosion was never the real problem. Every strong emotion is pointing at something that person loves, something they believe is under threat. Shut it down, and you confirm their worst fear, that nobody is listening. So they get louder. You get more defensive. The distance between you hardens into something neither of you meant to build.

There is a posture that runs against every instinct you have, one that turns the moments you dread most into the ones that build the deepest trust.

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Transcript

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The big emotions of other people. How do I respond to them? How do I react to them? How do I absorb them? How do I be present to them? How do I maintain my sense of self when they're freaking out on me? Now it's one thing when a toddler is throwing a tantrum. It's another thing when an adult is throwing a tantrum. Depending on the home you grew up in, that may be much easier, much more difficult to do, to feel like your blood pressure isn't through the roof or like your heart raise isn't through the roof. As soon as someone is really mad at you, I want to tell you some of my thought process when someone else is having big emotions at me or even subtle but unhappy emotions at me, what goes through my mind. Number one, I have to tell myself is they are having a hard time. And I have to initially trigger myself to think that they need something. Big emotions are caused by big loves somehow being threatened or harmed or perceiving to be threatened or harmed. An emotion is a concern-based interpretation of reality. That's where emotions come from. That they love something that has either been insulted or threatened, or they perceive it that it's been insulted or threatened. And so the bigger the love, the bigger the emotions. Generally speaking, whether it's frustration or anger or rage or grief or sadness, people come with big emotions. How do I interact with that? So number one is I want to go, I want to have sympathy for what they're going through, whether it's uh, and by sympathy, I mean I want to connect with what it is they're experiencing. I'm not gonna have my experience of this moment be the most important thing. I'm trying to make their experience of this moment be the most important thing. So I'm kind of setting myself aside and I'm going, what's going on in them? That they're having a big moment, I'm not necessarily having a big moment. They are having an emergency, I'm not necessarily having an emergency. This is a big and significant thing for them, and I want to be present for them and what they're going through. That's true, whether it's a four-year-old or a 40-year-old or a 94-year-old. And so if I can first go, this is a moment for me to give sympathy to them. Now I'm going towards connection rather than self-defense. Because if I go, this is a big moment for me, this is hard for me, their emotions are hard for me. Now I'm going to get defensive. Now I'm going to question what they have going on. I'm going to kind of undermine or start to poke, should they think that? Should they feel that? Because I'm trying to defend my homeostasis. I'm trying to feel okay. But if I go, I am okay, they're not okay. And I want to help understand or I want to understand why they're not doing okay. And then I can have an appropriate sense of connection with them. And this makes me think of Proverbs 20, verse 5. The purpose or the values of a man's heart is like deep water, and a man of understanding will draw it out. Now, a man of folly will not draw it out. Man of understanding draws it out. That I want to be able to understand what exactly is going on. So if my wife comes to me and she's mad, or I can tell she's mad, she's not saying she's mad. I want to go like, what exactly is going on in her heart? What exactly is the narrative that's led to this moment? What are the little things or the big things that have created this frustration in her? And that helps me be not defensive, but be curious. Because if I go defensive, she continues to elevate. But if I go curious, she starts to feel cared for, loved, and seen. And I move towards her in that. And so when she's frustrated, it's like, hey, tell me something's off. What's going on? Uh, when did it start? What did what are the factors that contribute to this? Because rarely are people mad about one thing. Usually there's a handful of things going on uh all at the same time. Usually it's uh some type of capacity has been reached, some type of level of frustration has been building. So there's always a narrative leading to a moment because uh emotions are concerned based construals or interpretations of something that has been happening. There's no such thing as a moment without a narrative. And so you want to inhabit their narrative, understand their narrative, and really have high sympathy for what it is they've been going through and thinking through and dealing with. Again, that they're having a moment, not necessarily I'm having a moment. Then when I'm able to understand the narrative in their mind and really make sense of where the frustration and anger and hostility or even just bitterness is coming from, uh, what I need to understand there is going, are there ways that I've contributed to this that I think are legitimate and true? And sometimes I need to pause and circle back on this conversation an hour later, 10 minutes later, because I don't want to immediately begin to contextualize and defend myself because that's gonna look like I'm just dismissing whatever it is they're going through. I'm gonna make them feel stupid or patronized or treating them like a child. And so whether it's a coworker or my wife or my friend, I want to make sure that they feel felt, that they sense, that I sense and can rightly understand what it is they are going through. Because once they feel like I understand them, then that an additional layer of the difficulty when you're having big emotions is you feel like nobody gets what I'm going through and you feel alone. So first thing I can do is I can connect with them by being able to say back to them, here's what I'm hearing you say, here's what I hear the narrative has been, here's what I understand that you're going through, and here's why you're upset. Am I understanding you correctly? And I go, that sounds difficult, that sounds hard. So there's sympathy for what they're going through. So I'm connecting. Then after they feel felt, after they sense that I am seeing what they're dealing with and going through, then I can say, uh, do you want me to explain to you some of how I write this narrative, or do you want to do that later? Kind of you ask for permission, like, hey, can I add some context? Okay, well, then, especially with my wife, if she says, you know, here's the plot points A, B, C, and D, and I can go, if I'm able to connect with her around that, then after I feel like I understand where she's coming from, I then ask, like, hey, can I bring some of my context to this? And I can go like, yes, A, yes, B, but between B and C, here's what was going on in my heart. I was feeling this, I was thinking this, I was thinking that. And then I'm able to add some context. And what ends up happening is now I'm inviting her to see my perspective after I've fully gone to inhabit her perspective. And now we're connecting with each other's perspectives before we're trying to arrive at a narrative that we both agree on. And it's the same with our friends and with our coworkers as well. But I want to recognize that other people's big emotions are not a threat to me unless it's like a crackhead on the street with a gun or something like that. But generally speaking, in friendship, family relationships, other people's big emotions are telling me something about what they love, what's been threatened. And if I can connect with them over what they love and what's been threatened or attacked, then we're gonna actually have a relationship that we're gonna actually be able to navigate through disagreements together. And so a man of understanding draws out the deep waters of a person's heart. And so my encouragement to you is when you see someone else having big emotions, you're going, I want to draw out the deep waters of their heart. I really want to understand where they're coming from. Because a lot of times big emotions or reactivity come from not feeling seen. And so you get bigger and bigger and bigger, trying to be seen, trying to be understood, trying to be noticed, and your volume goes up and the intensity goes up. And once you feel like you're being taken seriously, like you're being seen, blood pressure goes down and you're able to talk about it in a more uh rational, two-sided direction. And so do your best to not interpret other people's big emotions as threats, but interpret them as data about what's going on in their heart and their mind. And you'll find that other people's blood pressure comes down and that you are able to have a more secure sense of self because you're not interpreting other people's emotions as threats on you. When someone else is exploding, you say, Tell me more, tell me more, tell me more. You don't try to stop them. You draw it out, you draw it out. What else you got? What else are you thinking? What else you're feeling? Tell me more, empty the drawer. And then once they've emptied the drawer, you're able to repeat back to them what exactly it is they're thinking and feeling. They feel seen, blood pressure comes down, and you've had a connecting moment rather than a conflicting moment, and you're able to progress and move forward as a man of understanding who's drawn out the heart of another person.