#15 - How to Handle Conflict in Relationships (Without Making Things Worse)

In this episode of Being Different Together, Kelly and Nyssa unpack why conflict doesn’t have to mean something is wrong—in fact, it can be the very path to deeper connection.

Drawing on the work of Dr. Polly Young-Eisendrath and the Center for Real Dialog, they explore how “healthy conflict” in relationships can reduce emotional threat, calm our inner “baby,” and transform repetitive fights into opportunities for understanding. You’ll hear how real dialog helps with couples conflict, family estrangement, and everyday triggers like dishes, laundry, and tone over email—plus why “working for peace” is different from stopping war in our homes and in the world.

Along the way, they weave together stories from a big week of events in Tampa, including Polly’s talks on Buddhism, Jung, and real dialogue, and Kelly’s role as Chief of Staff at the Center. Themes like how to handle conflict in relationships, how to communicate during conflict, why we get stuck in the same arguments, and how to know your path (by doing the next relevant thing) all show up in practical, down-to-earth language. If you’ve ever wondered how to stay in relationship when you don’t agree—or how to turn “enemy button” moments into curiosity—this episode is a warm, honest guide.

Main Topics Covered:

• How conflict can actually be the way to peace (and why trying to “keep the peace” often backfires)
• Why conflict doesn’t automatically mean there’s a “problem” in your relationship
• What “real dialog” is and how it lowers emotional threat between people
• The surprising power of healthy conflict in couples, families, and communities
• How Dr. Polly Young-Eisendrath’s work blends Buddhism, Jungian psychology, and relationships
• The “enemy button” and the baby inside us that still runs our reactions in conflict
• Projective identification: the invisible pattern that keeps pulling you into the same fights
• “Do the next relevant thing”: a simple way to navigate your path when you feel lost
• What happened when Polly brought real dialog to a high-end social club—and why people opened up
• Kelly’s new role as Chief of Staff at the Center for Real Dialog and what she’s learning about working in conflict every day

Links: 

• Center for Real Dialogue
• Time is Honey Radiolab Episode - mentioned in the podcast
• Ep #1: Welcome to Being Different Together: How It All Started
• Ep #2: What Our “Enemy Button” Gets Wrong About Conflict

Stay in Touch:

Nyssa Hanger: www.nyssahanger.com | IG: @nyssahanger

Kelly Brady: www.kellybrady.me | IG: @drkellybrady

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome to Being Different Together, the podcast for people who want to make the world a better place, but no, they can't do it alone.

SPEAKER_04 0:17

I'm Dr. Kelly Brady, acupuncturist, psychotherapist, and certified dialogue therapist.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

And I'm Nissa Hanger, massage therapist, aromatherapist, coach, and real dialogue specialist.

SPEAKER_04 0:29

Together we'll explore how conversations can improve relationships, make work more joyful, and spark healing for ourselves and our communities.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

And listen, we don't shy away from the hard conversations. In fact, we welcome them. This isn't about being right.

SPEAKER_04 0:45

It's about being different together.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Hello, hello, everyone. Welcome to episode, I think, number 15. Right on. Of being different together. Being different together.

SPEAKER_04 1:09

So listeners, when we start recording, Nissa does this thing where she she claps.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

She goes, because why do you do that? Um it's so we know where to cut it. Because I actually, as we learned a couple episodes ago, need to press record, make sure it is recording. Okay, are we recording? It is indeed recording, yes. And so then we clap before we officially start. It was a it was just it was a sad day. Yeah. It was definitely a sad day. That's okay. We got through it. We did.

SPEAKER_04 1:41

We got through it, and here we are again. So here we are again. Episode 15, and and we were just talking about what sexually transmitted infection is known as the clap. And I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure it's syphilis. Although Nissa thinks it's this is the topic of our episode. Nissa thinks it's chlamydia. I know.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Yeah, yeah. What is the clap? I think it's syphilis. See, I feel like it should be chlamydia because they both start with a C L.

SPEAKER_04 2:08

Yeah. I don't think chlamydia was isolated as an STI back when the word the clap can I look. I made I made all that up.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

And then you have crabs?

SPEAKER_01 2:21

You can have crabs. Yeah. Wow. Pubic lice. Ooh. Ooh. Uh-huh. Ooh, no fun. I've never had that. No, I don't think I've ever had any of those. No. All right.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Well now you know our um STI history. STI history. So uh moving on. It is it is an upside to being a lesbian. A thousand percent.

SPEAKER_04 2:48

There's way less of that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_04 2:50

There's way less of that stuff. We're not completely free of it, right? Uh yeah. Other thing, war's herpes. Why are we talking about this? What are we going to talk about today on the episode? Oh, the clap.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

You let them know the behind the scenes of podcast recording, which is also how I knew where to cut that episode that Poppy pulled out our plug from the wall and everything stopped. We've had some malfunctions. Yeah. We've had some malfunction.

SPEAKER_04 3:17

What's your Oh it's conjunction junction. Yes. Malfunction junction.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

You know, I always thought that we were the only town with malfunction junction until I heard some I always thought that word 275 meets I4 is malfunction junction.

SPEAKER_04 3:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Right? Yeah. But I think other towns have their own malfunction junctions.

SPEAKER_04 3:38

Well, I mean a catchy rhyme is an archetype. It's true. As evidenced by poetry. It's true. A E B? Poetry. Remember the A E B as evidence by? No. Yeah. A E B? A E B. No. It's a medical script technology. You put it in there, you know, these little what do you what do you call them? Abbreviations that stand for other things. In medical charts, there are abbreviations that stand for other things. And yeah, AEB is as evidence by.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_04 4:08

Yeah. So what's our learn something new every day? Oh, I know.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

So we were going to tell the people about the exciting events of this past week and weekend.

SPEAKER_04 4:20

Yeah, I mean, I'm coming off of a big week of activity, and it's not exactly it's not exactly done yet because the the preeminent P.Y.E. The prominent P.Y.E.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

Most people listening will probably not know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_04 4:37

Dr. Polly Young Eisendraft. There we go. Dr. Polly Young Eisendraft, my my friend, my mentor, my teacher, and my boss.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Uh oh.

SPEAKER_04 4:47

And she's a lot more than that in my life. She's a very multifaceted role in my life that is getting deeper and deeper each each day that we work together.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

So what have you been doing with Polly?

SPEAKER_04 4:58

Yeah, so I um coordinated a series of events here in Tampa that highlighted the Center for Real Dialogue. We did it as a way to um to get the good news out, really, about the Center and to get Polly out in front of um a Florida audience. I think that there's a very strong likelihood that the Center for Real Dialogue will have more interaction here in Florida, partially because Florida has a lot of room for growth, um, secondly because I am here. And uh, you know, Polly um and if this then that. I don't say that to be conceited. It's not like uh, you know, because of me the center necessarily would move, but it is also because of me, right? Because you can't have one thing without the other in karma. So it's like if this then that.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

And what what is it that you've been doing for the center? Yeah, because it's more than it's more than just you coordinating these workshops this week. Yes last week.

SPEAKER_04 5:55

Yes, that's accurate. So probably last uh last year, sometime in the late summer, um Polly and I started talking about the idea of bringing her here in the winter. It actually ended up being in the spring, uh, just because of you know scheduling issues. But we talked about bringing her here uh for the winter to to do some events. And as a part of us w working together, Polly realized that she wanted to bring me in on staff at the Center for Real Dialogue. And uh the title that popped out of her mouth around that was the title of chief of staff, uh, and which is a it's a common title actually. We use it a lot in medicine, it's used in politics. It actually is used in the not-for-profit space, although it's not as familiar to people. So basically, what the chief of staff does, which is different than what the executive director and founder does, so Polly is the founder of the method of real dialogue. She is the founder of dialogue therapy. And based on what she contributed to the world in the in the area of her relational expertise, um she was able to start a not-for-profit with a pretty substantive donation that has lasted for the last three years in Vermont. Um and so she has been the executive director. And her role at the Center for Real Dialogue is in the role of she has created all the intellectual property upon which the center rests, if that makes sense. So it's like if the center was a was a body, Polly would be the brain and the heart of what happens at the center. She is she carries the vision forward. She also has been building relationships with people because she has been widely, internationally really, traveling, lecturing, and being with people in this space. You know, in her space is that she is a Jungian analyst, which is a small space to occupy. There's not a lot of Jungian analysts. It's a pretty exclusive club, actually, to become a Jungian analyst because you have to go to a special analytic institute in order for that to happen, and it's a four or five-year program. It's very competitive and difficult. So she's a Jungian analyst. Additionally, she has a PhD in developmental psychology, which then puts her into that academic space very clearly in a different sort of way the university space. And then she is a lifelong practitioner of Buddhism, similar to me. She and I actually share the same Zen lineage, which is one of the reasons that we connect. Um and so she has been, I I don't know, let's see. At this point, she's written 19 books. The 20th is on the way. Um she's very well known in these circles as really a a preeminent expert in the world of relationship.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Where was I going with this? Talking about your role as chief of staff. Thank you. I do just want to, if I may, thank you, mention that if you have not listened to our first episode, episode number one, we talk about Polly and her method because this real dialogue that she teaches is part of the foundation for our podcast. Period. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 9:11

What I would say is this is that it's the inspir it's the inspiration. And we've used it as a springboard because we like to talk about lots of other things, but we do come back to real dialogue a lot because it's been the inspiration for the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Yeah, and it's life-changing work.

SPEAKER_04 9:24

Yeah, it's very, very good medicine. You know, right now I'm sitting at our kitchen table and I'm looking at a Tibetan picture of the medicine Buddha, right? Leonard Cohen has a great thing that he says, you know, he talks about Leonard Cohen's a singer, songwriter. Yes. And he's also he was a longtime uh Zen Buddhist practitioner.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

Right.

SPEAKER_04 9:43

Um he was quoted one time as some it's I'm paraphrasing, but I'll probably get it kind of wrong. But somebody asked him, you know, what what happens in these uh retreats? And he said, Well, the Roshi is there to be your doctor. And then the person asked him, Well, what is what is he there to cure you of? And Leonard said, the idea that you're sick. Yeah. So the Buddha is regularly described as a as a doctor. That's kind of uh and there is uh there is actually a lineage within Buddhism that is ascribed to the medicine Buddha. Um so I think that real dialogue is really good medicine. I see it actually I see real dialogue as an emanation of the medicine Buddha.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Well, you know, that reminds me of one of the things that I've realized or that I am realizing. Poppy. Poppy is uh is definitely barking up a storm at the moment. But one of the things that I have realized with real dialogue is that conflict um conflict doesn't have to be a problem.

SPEAKER_04 11:02

Actually the opposite is true, right? In our culture, conflict is a problem because it's repetitive, it's mind numbing and soul killing because it is repetitive, right? But people don't have a good way of getting themselves out of it. And so I you know, I like to think about conflict what we're doing at the center, really, is teaching people ways to engage with each other through conflict, not in an avoidance of conflict.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Yeah, so conflict doesn't have to be a problem. Like it it just because there's conflict doesn't mean that there is a problem. It it doesn't necessitate that there is a problem, which I I can I'm sure or an earlier version of myself would be like, how does that even work? But uh one of the takeaways that I've gotten from this work is like if you and I have a conflict, it doesn't mean that we're having problems. Like it just means that we're two people having our own subjective experience and they're may not be aligned. Yeah, and that's okay. It's I mean, almost like it's it c it is to be expected. It's how we at least for me, if I don't realize that part that the conflict doesn't mean that that it's a problem, then I make it into more of a problem than it maybe has to be. And so that's been really helpful because I think it saved me a lot of problems by just letting conflicts be conflicts and then try to get out of my own stuff to be able to just learn from it. What can I learn about Kelly through this? Which actually then kind of I'm still in my own snow globe, but I have some idea of what your snow globe is, and then it actually makes conflicts later less of a conflict because my expectations won't be based solely on my own perception of what's going on because I have a little bit more informed information from you.

SPEAKER_04 13:11

Yeah, well, the conflict is the way to understanding someone else. Conflict is the way, right? It it's kind of like the that's why I started with the Leonard Kahn bit. It's like Leonard Kahn, okay, the Buddha says you're not sick. Now, usually when I say that to people, they sort of do that thing where they're like kind of like they give give me the dog health to head tilt, like they get it at a level, but they also don't get it. And it's important to just kind of sit with it for a second to see, well, what does that mean? And and in essence, you know, uh what we teach at the Center for Real Dialogue is that is that conflict is just baked into the human experience, that it's part of being human and is entirely inevitable. And that there there are things that we teach that are principles around being human, which I can go into a little bit if you want. And we've we've gone into more of those in the first episode, so I don't I don't really need to belabor them, but you know, this idea that we know ourselves, know thyself, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Uh-huh, uh-huh-uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04 14:04

Yeah. We speak and listen responsibly through the skill of real dialogue. Um, another another part of what we're doing at the center is we're we're working towards ending dehumanization and war. It's pretty awesome. Um, and we want to encourage people to learn from failure, defeat, and death. Uh, you know, they're your teachers. So, this thing that happens in conflict, which is that we have this, you know, this kind of pre-programmed enemy button. These are all things we've talked lots and lots about through the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

It's about the enemy button.

SPEAKER_04 14:34

Yeah, so look, listeners, if you if if you're dropping in here and this is your first time listening, go back and listen to the others because you'll get a more of a fleshed out picture of a lot of the concepts that we're teaching through the center by you know, by listening um through, you know, go ahead and binge the others and and you'll get you'll get a longer explanation of that. But I mean, in short, briefly, what I'll say, if you're lucky um and I'm lucky, is that we have this pre-programmed part of our humanity where when we feel emotionally threatened, we will try and promote ourselves and we will start defending ourselves to protect ourselves. And this is that fight or flight response. And how it comes out with words is we start saying, Well, this is why I'm right, and these are what the facts are. And if you only understood, right, and we want to promote that, promote that, promote that, because at some level we start to feel kind of existentially threatened by differences that exist in other people.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:30

Yeah. And there's no need to be existentially threatened by those differences anymore. There, you know, there might have been a hundred thousand years ago.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Yeah, it's not the same.

SPEAKER_04 15:39

But it's not the same now. In some cases, yes. In some cases, yes. If somebody comes in your front door with a weapon, I mean, you know, racism promote yourself xenophobia and xenophobia are all real.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Yes, they are. But for most of us on the day-to-day, the person who pulled into your parking spot that you were waiting for they're not out to get may not have to do with that. Right. Yeah. They're not right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or you know, somebody eggs your car and calls you a a name, that that may have something to do with it.

SPEAKER_04 16:12

Yeah, totally. But I mean, you know, like the amount of rage that people feel about the fact that um when they cook, their wife won't do the dishes. Or vice versa. And and how inflamed. I mean, you know, this is the kind of stuff I'm working with with couples all the time. People didn't put the dishes away.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

They didn't put the dishes away right. But they didn't put the dishes in the dishwasher.

SPEAKER_04 16:34

Like, why why can't you just put the I mean, I had a couple of years ago where the big argument was they had one of those um, you know, those big w what do you call the place where you put your laundry, a hamper? They had one of those big wooden uh wicker, not not wooden, it was like a wicker laundry hamper. And it, you know, the kind with like the cloth on the inside, circular, and they have a they have a top that goes on the and so it's this very beautiful looking thing. All right. And it was like the husband would always leave the top off and then he would go throw his dirty underwear or box or whatever, and it just would be like hanging over the lip. Oh, yeah. Two blows about this kind of thing. I mean, right? Two blows? Two two blows. Like they could, they literally would get so full of rage.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Is that a phrase?

SPEAKER_04 17:18

I made it up. Like they could come to blows over it.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

This particular couple is like, like this, this couple it might it would blow up. It would blow up.

SPEAKER_04 17:26

I mean, like this couple, there was no physical violence, thank God. Oh, yes. But I mean, I it you know, domestic violence, this is where people really get killed. I mean, we talked about gun violence, domestic violence is one of the places, particularly women. Yeah, right? This is a place where women get killed.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:43

So I feel I have i I have such passion around this project. And so when Polly invited me in, she invited me in to be the chief of staff, which basically means if she's the heart and the mind, I'm the spine. So I'm that central actor that's kind of moving the body around and I'm keeping structure. What does a spine do? It keeps structure, which is hilarious if you actually know me. That's part of what I'm doing. Organization, it's all about growth, baby. But there is there is an operations level. So I'm working a lot with operations and I'm, you know, fostering communication between different contractors and etc.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Hey, just just as a point of note, I just want to, I don't know, toot your own horn a little bit, um, because this has been a really huge opportunity for growth for you. This is not stuff that you have been doing largely in your career.

SPEAKER_04 18:35

No, no, not at all. I mean, I've been holed up in my little office with us. I'm a solopreneur. I don't work with anybody else. I haven't never had I mean, I had I did at the beginning of my career, but then I decided, oh, this is terrible for me to work within a group. And um, and I think it was because I was young and pretty hot-headed and also introverted, and it was just easier for me to work on my own. So now I'm working with a team.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:01

Um, and I'm working very closely with Polly. And it's been incredible the amount that I've learned because she and I use real dialogue in our own relationship. It's so good. Um, which means, and of course, it's like a work relationship's like any other relationship. If you get really close to the people that you that I get really close to the people that I'm working with. Polly and I are close. And so, you know, we have disagreements, we don't see eye to eye about things, and um, sometimes we misunderstand each other or step on each other's toes because we don't know where each other's toes are. Sure. We're still learning that.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 19:34

Um, another part of what's a bit complicated about it is that she's in Vermont and I'm here. You know, so for that reason, a lot of the communication has to be via email, and tone is very hard to gauge in email. Yeah. It's hard to gauge in email. So um, you know, working remotely has also been part of that growing, growing challenge for me, you know, and learning how to do things like organize my inbox, which you helped me with. Yeah, I never had to do that. 24-7 tech support. I do care. I do have 24-7 tech support when I started this position.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Uh I'm like, babe, I I can't, I don't know this. This is uh this is outside my pay grade, occasionally, but most of the times.

SPEAKER_04 20:15

Well, we have a lot we have a lot of programming and a large faculty and many, many irons in the fire. And I'm happy to talk about some of those things if it becomes relevant. But you know, basically I was just trying to figure my shit out when I started, and and you were like, here's how you tag your emails. And really that's been enough for me. As simple as it is, I haven't needed a complex software to help me keep track of my projects. I really just tag my emails and um and I keep track of my chats actually too in chat. I keep track and title chats with certain things, and I store information there and you know, use Google Drive.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Yeah, you're really good at cleaning out your inbox every day. Oh, it makes me really anxious when there's a lot of things in my inbox. I just put eyes on it and I probably only have to reply to two percent of the emails that I get. So it's it's for me, it's more like, oh, that's something actually to reply to.

SPEAKER_04 21:07

Yeah, well, I mean, I do have a new email just for CRD stuff, you know. And I get it too, that this is nothing like a lot of a lot of folks I know who are really working in corporate, and they'll come back from the weekend and they have a thousand emails sit in their inbox. I mean, I don't even know how much caffeine and Adderall would have to be involved in order to, you know, it's really intense. So we spent the weekend and the week.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Yeah. What are some of the what are some of I know you've said to me a lot that you've learned a lot this weekend. And so, you know, are any of those takeaways um top of mind for you that you want to share?

SPEAKER_04 21:48

Yeah, I mean, how about this is structure? She did four events while she was here. How about I go event by event and talk about something that I learned in each one? Yeah. How about that? Sounds good. Okay. So the first event that she did was that she um I was able to introduce her to Fred Epstiner and Angie Parish over at the Florida Community of Mindfulness. And it just so happens that Fred is in the same Dharma lineage as Polly and I are. He studied with Philip Caplow also back in Rochester during the 70s. So Fred and Polly knew each other way back when and uh I introduced them and Fred interviewed her um you know kind of one Dharma teacher to another because but you know Polly is a darn a recognized Dharma teacher so well a mindfulness teacher I would say more more accurately. So yeah so Fred interviewed Polly and um in front of the sangha there and they talked about her history and they talked about his history and they talked about the concepts of real dialogue and how they relate to Buddhism. You can probably find that talk on YouTube and under the Florida Community of Mindfulness channel. I wouldn't I would be surprised if it hasn't been posted by now. I want to go back and take a look at it because it was a really good dialogue. In fact some of the people who were online watching that dialogue ended up coming to the workshop that she did on Saturday which was really great. I think that there was something that I took out of that interchange between the two of them it was incredibly powerful. So Fred is in the in the lineage of Tikn Tiknon was also a peace activist a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist a very large Sangha he's pretty well known he was exiled from Vietnam because of his positioning in the war. Some of the monks from his sangha were the ones who self-imolated have you seen those images um in protest. He also did a walk through the country that was a peace walk kind of similar to the recent monks who were walking for peace. But they're not in the same lineage but similar kind of idea Fred is a Dharma heir of Tychnahant TikNahant it's extensively about we have brought up technohan a couple times he writes he well wrote lectured and spoke and taught expense extensively about peace. And one of his messages was peace is the way peace isn't the result peace is the way so just side note do you know I don't know y we had just talked earlier about how conflict is the way that's right okay and so here's one of the things that I love the most about Pollyanna is in the is that she sat on that stage and said that she respectfully disagrees with yes yes yes and honestly there you know and she did it in such a way that it just wasn't a war and it didn't need to be she was expressing herself. Yeah and I having spent time with Ty I think he would have uh responded quite favorably actually nice so what she came forward with is that what she said was the way to peace uh is healthy conflict.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Yes I I I totally agree with that. The way to peace is healthy conflict and that's I feel like that's what I've exp experienced in our relationship. And we're like oh say more oh my god was the titan we have another visitor at the podcast today it's Titten um we have a cat named Titten we have a cat named Titten he's a handsome he's a great tuxedo with a little white teen and a straight and little little white mittens. Um okay so in our own relationship well I mean I think I had said that earlier of like realizing that a conflict doesn't mean that there's a problem. I mean I think that I grew up in a house where I think conflict was largely avoided um and so I mean when there was a conflict it was it also seemed like it was a problem and I don't know if that's part of my own whatever um whereas I feel like maybe you can you you'll naturally I feel like I'm through more thrown off center naturally when we've had conflicts between us and of course I have my only my own perception of you but m part of my experience in the past is there'd be a conflict and then you just want to move on. I can't we move on and I tend to perseverate yeah because I think part of that is I mean there is like just something of the the like naturally moving through of emotion so there is that part but I think it's also like no some part of me thinks that there's a problem and so I guess some part of you thinks there's a problem. Yeah because we had a because we had a conflict you know it's like I I need I need resolution that is like shellacked on and then and then redrawn with permanent marker and then a million photocopies made of it because just in case we lose you know it's like sure it's it needs to be cemented in resolution non-evaporating ink um and reassurance yeah yeah yeah um which actually I think could then like just make it work because you're like oh my god can we move on and so I think that in the past I don't know so I think getting back to the point at hand of just realizing that there is a thing called healthy conflict like letting that enter into my world that was totally poppy and not my butt just just for the record if anybody heard a snort it was a snort. Okay. Um yeah so I don't know is any of that making like um sense and then it's like oh we can just have a healthy conflict yeah and then move on and then maybe make it playful I mean I feel like that's yeah that's maybe it doesn't I don't know it just really feels like it's it's helped.

SPEAKER_04 28:53

Yeah that's good that's so good. And I think that it it brings me to something also that I realized and I'm realizing more and more which is that working for peace is not the right thing to work for.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

That peace yeah the peace is a thing that comes out of this other thing right we need to stop war.

SPEAKER_04 29:14

Uh-huh stopping war is different than peace uh uh uh huh okay uh so yeah so war is unhealthy conflict to the extremists war is unhealthy conflict right yes I kill you remember that Jeff Dunham no I think I started thinking about Mani Python no no no Jeff Dunham I I kinda I just have to sort of go here for a minute he's a ventriloquist My father was a hamster Jeff Dunham was a ventriloquist and he had this bit that he did with where he had one of his puppets was an Islamic terrorist named Ahmed. Okay okay they do remember the skull it was it was so it was in such poor taste I was seeing it it was it was it was really incredibly profiled but Ahmed would often just look in the camera and go like this I kid you I kill you I kill you and this is the thing there is a part of us that's like that now it was Dunham That's part of why it's funny was Dunham appropriate to profile those people as the only people who are doing that no do I support that messaging no but do I recognize the Ahmed in me I do I know the Ahmed in me I know him very fucking well yeah you know and he's gotten me into a lot of trouble and hurt a lot of people in my life and you know what I'm a pretty peace loving Buddhist. You are so I you know if you think about people who are not peace loving Buddhists and we all have an inner Ahmed things are dicey right I mean we're at war right now in Iran I I'm not gonna I'm not gonna go there but I mean it's bad. That's bad. It's a bad war and um I don't have a good feeling about any of it. And there are also bad actors in the world and I get that side of it too. You know there are some people in Iran that maybe are grateful that this is happening in the way that there are some people in Venezuela that might have been grateful that we went in and did regime change. I don't pretend to know what it is to be an Iranian which is part of the thing about knowing myself and being able to speak subjectively I've never been to Iran I don't really know much about it. I don't like seeing bombs being dropped on innocent people though I can tell you that and I wish we just could have fucking talked about it. You know? Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah could we have just talked about it? Right did it have to get to this place so ending war is different than peace. Uh-huh uh uh um and yeah so I get the second yeah um okay so we had the event at Fred's and then we went and Polly gave a talk which is a which was a very erudite and esoteric talk about the relationship between ancient Buddhism and Carl Jung. Yes um I'm not gonna get into anything that was about that talk other than to say it was a Herculean lift that she even did it because the concepts are very difficult to explain in a short period of time. I think she would have rather have done another talk but this was the talk that the Young Library wanted and so she did it and of course she did a great job because she's an amazing speaker. Yeah Grace under pressure even though she gets up there and two of her slides are missing and they have and that takes up time. You know it's always a thing. For those of you who have presented in public you know the tech is always a thing. Here was the the the the golden nugget I got out of that one was that in this she's talking about the idea of your path. Yes your own I was hoping you were gonna your own personal path in life yes and the relationship between how Buddhism sees that and how Carl Jung saw that and she told a story that Roshi Kaplow had told many many years ago and the story was finding your path goes like this he said finding your path is like walking through a field of tall grass. You're just walking forward right you're just walking through a field of tall grass. The only way you can see the path if you're walking through a field of tall grass is to turn behind you and look behind you to look over your shoulder behind you because you've made the path you have made the path as you're walking forward. I think that that was the nugget that came out of that for me. What did you think? No I totally was thinking I was thinking the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

You were there it reminds me of this Radio Lab episode that I listened to recently that I think I had told you about where the study of honeybees and how honey bees communicate with their brothers and sisters or whatever their fellow hives be. Hives hives I guess they're men technically because there's just the one queen but whatever these bees how they communicate with each other and how they can tell the other when they get back from getting their nectar or their pollen or whatever they have a way of doing this waggle dance that indicates to the other bees which way to go.

SPEAKER_04 34:22

Wiggling my butt and I mean a little bee wiggling my butt. I'm a wigglin' I mean go this way other bees I'm a wiggling go that way other bees like that is that it actually is the exact tune that they waggle to in fact that tune is called I'm a little bee waggling my butt here birds coming out soon on Spotify um at least we got the doch Tampa I need to tell you little bee waggling your butt needs to be Doche's next drop right now.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

Love Dochi so let me see if I can connect these without it being a really long story. The episode is great I'll link it in the show notes. And basically the way that the the larger ideas that studying these bees and how they communicate with each other help them make the internet faster which it that in and of itself is a really fascinating story. But basically it's like it's a way for the bees to it's like they make a decision as a hive without making a decision as a hive. Like it's some natural thing that occurs by just the one bee being like hey go that way and then more of them they they can actually change the direction that they're going um yep with all that communication. So how this relates to the path thing is they're only responding to what's going on in the present moment. They're not like you know what in about a half an hour this place is going to be drained so you need to start going this way. They're only responding to what's happening in that moment. And so there's not that future prediction um and I guess it just made me think of that path like when you don't know the long distance that you're going it just happened with me with the garden and I'm like taking apart the garden in the backyard because we're gonna build this edition for mom. Yes. And like I wasn't sure exactly the longevity of that garden but it's like I now know that right now I need to do this thing. And so if I just figure out what I need to do right now rather than the long stretched out vision, which I'm all for having visions and big dreams but it you always get there from small actions from that next step in the tall grass. So yes yeah that just it really resonates and it resonates deeply especially with the um change of seasons.

SPEAKER_04 36:57

And you know what also resonated I love that story they told about the garden and the bee butts by the way which also it reminds me one time I was with Vieira and one of our one of our little nieces who was very scared of bees and I said I I said to Vieira don't tell Skylar that there's a B E E over there she goes mom you're spelling Baster yeah just can Skylar not spelling when you say B when you spell B you say B. And she heard me immediately and started to cry all right so I think it though it falls under this category of you know what we're interested in the center which is you know knowing myself knowing like what does it mean to actually be a human. And so that's a part of the mission of the center too people don't know what their path is I get I get folks in counseling who come in all the time particularly young folks but sometimes folks in midlife sometimes folks older folks they don't know what they're supposed to be doing. Totally they don't know what they're supposed to be doing. So what Roshi Caplo used to say to people was because Polly said then to him well what am I supposed to do if that's the way it is and he said you do the next relevant thing you do the next relevant thing. So you know you wake up in the morning what's the next relevant thing to do make your bed because then when you come back that night to go to sleep someone will have made your bed. Totally so that that's that simple teaching really is part of the wisdom that she carries and it's part of the wisdom of you know what I see as kind of her lineage. She kind of probably has her own lineage. It's not a it's not a technical I mean because it's come from so many different places. Yeah yeah and so then the then the next day on Friday morning we had a members only event at um a social club down in South Tampa that's called the Stoville House. It's a house that was built in 1909 so it's really really cool to be there. It has like in the lobby the original wallpaper is on the wall I mean it's really fantastic. It's this old beautiful colonial and um it sits on a fair amount of of acreage and so they've revamped it and done it and they put in you know beautiful gardens and restaurants and bars and there's pickleball court and etc some guest rooms um all set within this you know very large house I suppose you would think of it as a an estate an estate you know I would call in it estate I don't really know do people use the word mansion anymore is that in is mansion in is a weird haunted mansion. Yeah go to Disney walk swiftly walk swiftly and slowly please keep your hands and feet away from the track so remember that please walk swiftly walk swiftly and slowly well that's a what a walk swiftly and carefully I think is what they say. When you're stepping out of the you step out of the chair and onto that belt.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

That's hilarious. Yeah so okay so she did a event a members only event.

SPEAKER_04 40:11

So I have some colleagues that are members at the stovel house and um you know it is it is a I would consider it to be a pretty high end place. It's um you know it to to be a member there costs the equivalent of the tuition of uh it costs it's probably the equivalent to college tuition per year not including how much you're expected to spend there. So it's a really h you know so this is a this is which people go there. Okay that's one way of saying it and I I'm I'm down with that. It's fine. They're people of capacity.

SPEAKER_00 40:46

So it's a fancy schmancy place it is a fancy it's a fancy technical fancy schmancy place.

SPEAKER_04 40:53

And so Polly and I uh Polly did an event I helped her with it it was you know sponsored by my colleague and um and so there are 22 of us that sign up and I had written the the content uh to pitch it and basically I I wrote some content around you know how much estrangement how much family estrangement there is and did people want to come in and learn about real dialogue and and I used that kind of as the hook because I knew that they folks would be suffering with that. And so people came in Polly comes in she sits in the rec director's chair she starts talking she starts presenting the material she starts explaining the center explaining the concepts she's you know talking about what happens with um basically the way we tend to hook each other into conflict which is a kind of a complex um concept that comes from the psychoanalytic tradition that's called projective identification. I'm just gonna put a pin in that and if we have if if we have time I'll I'll get back to that. But what I'll say for now is that we all are still babies. You know you were you were a baby for two years and that baby and the way that development works is that you just layer experiences over that is exactly right. A Russian nesting doll. That's exactly right. So this is one of the reasons I was so attracted to you.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

Because I would interrupt you when you're so smart.

SPEAKER_04 42:22

Oh thanks and yeah I love the way that your mind thinks of metaphors and simile and imagery I love that about you. Thanks that's a great image so that tiny little baby is still in there and it's the center of things and by the way it's controlling everything. It's controlling everything. And so what does a baby do when it doesn't have the attention of its mother it screams it yells it points it flips out you've seen a baby having a tantrum totally we are all that baby having tantrum absolutely so what we're trying to do when we're in relationship with other people is we want to get them to respond in the way we want them to respond. Yes so we project you know we evoke from them what what we want and we do that in all kinds of ways and guess what they're doing it with us too oh man so you can kind of think of it like a common way of thinking about it is like puppet puppeteer.

SPEAKER_00 43:11

You know what I thought of you remember those things in the eighties where it was like a a thing that had water and like another liquid substance in it? Yes that was a different color. Yes and and they would it would be on a balancing thing. Those things are cool. But it's like the liquid would make waves yes it's like it makes waves with each other. Uh-huh that's what it makes me think of that's what I mean that's a cool image.

SPEAKER_04 43:37

I mean I I I tend to think of it is the shape being made by the one or is the shape being made by the other I mean in some case well in some cases the shape is very fixed. Like some couples that you see it's a very fixed projective identification. Like it's always the same. She's always in control, he's always being jerked around right um in some cases it is more fluid where we're both jerking each other around equally I think that's going on in our relationship Oh yeah. I don't think there's a main jerk or I don't think we I don't think we have I don't think we have a main jerk.

SPEAKER_00 44:08

We're both equally jerky. Greatest conflict hits.

SPEAKER_04 44:12

We have some greatest conflict hits, that's for sure. And guess what? More to come because we're st we're, you know, we get the rest of our lives together, I hope. Knockwood. So I'm looking forward to each and every conflict that we have, my love. So anyway, she talks about that. Um, and then she shows this really evocative uh clip from a film that's called Hope Gap, which go watch it. It's a really great example of this, where uh there's a couple in the kitchen that have a fight and it escalates. It escalates. Yeah, we watched it in the dialogue therapy training. She shows it. And so, yeah, we watch that and it it escalates to the point where uh the wife slaps the husband and the crowd. And so what happens is that in the stovel house where I never anticipated it, Polly opens it up for questions, and people start sharing the most intimate details of their lives after learning that they are not alone with the way that they are going through conflict. You know, people are sharing very, very I won't get into it because you know it was private at that moment, but and I am and the thing that I got out of that was first of all, what powerful medicine this really is. That she could walk into a group of people and have that effect by sharing this. The amount of healing that happened in that room because of that talk, people from that talk ended up coming to the workshop the following day where we explored these principles even further, right? And later that evening, Polly and I were having dinner, and I was saying to her, I was just kind of shocked by how open people became. And what she said to me was, and this is what I love about Polly, is she said, Well, I wasn't shocked. And I said, Well, why not? And she said, Well, because I've done this so many times and it happens every time. And I said, Well, what do you think it was that made it happen? And she said, Well, I think it was me. She was talking about herself, but she was talking about herself with humility. It wasn't a, I think it was me, like, I'm Dr. Polly Young Eisengrath, I'm the bait, I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread. It wasn't any of that, it really wasn't. But she was very clear that if someone else had been presenting that information, the group wouldn't have responded the same way. Because the group and she were in a projective identification with one another. Whoa. So I learned that. That's one of the things I learned from that was that projective identification doesn't just happen between people, it also happens between people and leaders.

SPEAKER_00 46:42

Oh, true. True, true, true, true.

SPEAKER_04 46:44

And then I've been really cogitating on that. I have been letting that settle and letting that settle and letting it settle. Um, and then we had the following day at the workshop, which I just thought, you know, expanded on a lot of these topics, and and we can talk more about that. But um, you know, I I learned a lot more about uh these concepts behind uh speaking for myself, listening mindfully, and remaining curious. And with the goal of that to lower the emotional threat. Because if we can lower that emotional threat, if we can take care of the baby, it takes care of the baby. When we lower the emotional threat, we're we take care of the baby. The baby then knows that the baby is safe, and then we don't have to operate from the baby. You know? One of the things I love most about you, Nissa, is your big, beautiful frontal lobes. You have great frontal lobes, you know.

SPEAKER_00 47:45

And I have no idea. I'm like how to take that. Is this a euphemism? Do I have something on my forehead? I didn't know. Wait, wait, wait. I didn't know if your frontal lobes are that is the part of the roll. That was what really I don't know why they're being two makes it just Well, because it's a joke. I made a little joke.

SPEAKER_04 48:15

I made a joke, I made a joke. Yeah. You got some pretty great frontal lobes. You got some pretty frontal frontal, baby. Oh, thanks. I work on them. Me too. Part of the reason I took this job with Polly was so I didn't go into my 60s. I'm 57 now. I didn't I wanted to go into my 60s with a challenge. Nice. I I am not, I I don't in any way feel ready to kind of like move towards retirement. That and I recognize that some people do. I have friends who are retired already and they seem to be having a great time driving around in golf carts, you know, living in Georgia, doing their thing, you know, like they're having a blast. I think that's great. More power to them. My own path, you know what's calling me out into the field of green grass is this work. Yeah. And um, yeah, I know I don't I want to keep moving into it. I want to keep challenging myself and stimulating myself. And I want to bring this work to as many people as I can. Yeah, because it's such good medicine and the world needs it. The world needs it. And you know, Nessa, I love the world.

SPEAKER_00 49:19

The world loves you, baby. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:22

Yeah. Yeah, I love the world and I love the people and I love all the sentient beings. And um, but this is good medicine for all of us.

SPEAKER_00 49:32

Totally. Yeah. So there we go. There we go. Well, thank you all for listening to the 15th episode of Being Different Together.

SPEAKER_04 49:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 49:48

And we're here together, and I'm just so happy to be different with you. It teaches me so, so much.

unknown 49:55

Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

So much. Thanks, Nisa. And um, yeah, if you're on Apple Podcasts, leave us a review. Always good to say. Grateful for you listening in and share this message with someone that you want to encourage some dialogue with.

SPEAKER_04 50:11

Yeah, and please go to the website, go to www.realdog.org. Look at our courses, look at our programming. We've got an end-user course that's gonna be a digital course that's coming up for lay people. It's gonna be dropping in late May. It's gonna be fantastic, and that's available to you. We're also gonna have courses coming up for people to be able to learn the skill of real dialogue and then teach the skill of real dialogue.

SPEAKER_02 50:35

Excellent.

SPEAKER_04 50:35

And then finally, if you're a mental health professional, you too can become a dialogue therapist. It is some of the best uh couples counseling work, in my opinion. It is the best couples counseling model there is.

SPEAKER_01 50:46

I think so as well. Yeah.

unknown 50:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:49

So there's all right, we'll put all we'll link all that in the show notes. So find it there, and we will see you next week. No, we will not see you. You will hear us.