If Constant Arguing Is So Counterproductive… Why Are We Still Fighting? | Dr. Patricia Timerman

If Constant Arguing Is So Counterproductive… Why Are We Still Fighting?

In a world where conflict seems to be everywhere, families, relationships, workplaces, social media, politics, and communities, why do we continue engaging in behaviors that damage trust, connection, and understanding?

In Episode #37 of Bounce Back in Business & Life, Frank Zaccari sits down with therapist, speaker, and author Dr. Patricia Timerman to explore the psychology behind conflict and, more importantly, how we can move from division to connection.

Drawing from her groundbreaking IAP Model (Intention • Action • Perception), Dr. Timerman explains why so many disagreements spiral out of control, how misunderstandings take root, and the practical tools anyone can use to communicate more effectively. The conversation is based on the principles outlined in her book Why Are We Fighting? and her work helping individuals, couples, families, and organizations transform conflict into meaningful connection. 

Key Takeaways:

✔ Why people often listen to respond instead of listening to understand
✔ The power of "reflecting" to improve communication and reduce conflict
✔ How intentions and perceptions frequently collide and create misunderstandings
✔ The difference between healthy conflict and destructive conflict
✔ Why trigger words like "always" and "never" escalate arguments
✔ How social media, algorithms, and outrage culture fuel division
✔ The "Rule of Three Interpretations" and how it helps challenge assumptions
✔ Practical strategies to build empathy, understanding, and stronger relationships

Memorable Insight:

"The same way you want to be heard, the people around you want the same." — Dr. Patricia Timerman

If you're tired of talking past people, repeating the same arguments, or feeling misunderstood, this episode provides actionable tools to help you communicate with greater clarity, empathy, and effectiveness.

Connect with Dr. Patricia Timerman

🌐 Website: Advocate 2 Create (A2C)
📞 Office: (305) 204-7764
📘 Book: Why Are We Fighting?
📱 Social Media: Search for Dr. Patricia Timerman or Advocate 2 Create (A2C)

Remember: Conflict isn't the problem. Unresolved conflict is. The path forward begins when we stop trying to win the argument and start trying to understand the person.

#Leadership #Communication #ConflictResolution \ #Relationships #PersonalGrowth #LeadershipDevelopment #Empathy #WorkplaceCulture #Resilience #TrustTheProcess #ConnectionOverConflict

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Wondering how to fight for white notes. Then Bell Stack is for you. So gather your resilience and type to hope and get ready to reimagine what's possible in your life. So here's your host, Frank Ziccardi.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Welcome to Bounce Back in Business and Life. Folks, everywhere we look, people are arguing. It's families, couples, friends, coworkers, communities, social media, politics. We're more connected digitally than at any time ever. Yet emotionally, many people feel completely disconnected. So why do we keep fighting, even when it's clearly hurting our relationships, our mental health, and our communities? Let's find out. Today's guest, Dr. Patricia Timmerman. She's a licensed clinician. She is a trauma-informed therapist, a speaker, the author of Why Are We Fighting? Through her advocate to create programs, she helps individuals, couples, and families navigate trauma, grief, anxiety, depression, relationship challenges with compassion and evidence-based care. She's also transforming conflict into connection through her IAP model, which we are going to discuss here in a couple of moments. If constant arguing is so counterproductive, why are we still doing it? Dr. Timmerman, welcome to Bounce Back in Business in Life.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Thank you so much for having me. I love the question that you posed, and I kind of actually have somewhat of an answer to that. I think it's interesting. Yesterday I was seeing a couple for the first time. And as I'm thinking of this answer, I think about them. We often want to be heard, and uh we want to be heard so much that while the other person is talking, we're thinking about the thing that we want to actually be heard about and not necessarily listening. You notice that there's a lot of argument where people are talking at each other as opposed to with each other. And so I remember that in the session yesterday, this was not an IAP model specific strategy that I developed. This is something that has been working through in like in communication, in mental health, marriage, and family, but I definitely do use it and highlight it in the IAP, which is it's called reflecting, is the coping strategy. And the science of reflecting is I am repeating back to you what you told me and what I understood from what you told me, and giving you the opportunity to tell me if I understood you correctly or not. This is used a lot in imagotherapy and so many different types of couples therapy. But yesterday, when I was with this couple, as the female partner was speaking, I could see that the male partner had a response. But I told him before responding, can you reflect back? Can you repeat what she said and what you understood? And because the moment that he started thinking about his own response was the moment he stopped paying attention to what she was saying. So he couldn't really repeat back, right? And one of the things that we had discovered when the two of them were speaking is like I want to feel heard and validated, but we tend to not give the same to the other person because both all of us in an argument want to be heard and validated. And I may not agree with your point of view. That doesn't mean I'm not validating it. I just do not agree with it. But if I don't repeat to you what you told me and I simply go into my point of view immediately, then likely you have the tendency of thinking that what you said was dismissed or that I didn't listen, or that you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Yeah, it's uh so reflecting. You know, I wrote that down and make sure I put that in.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Reflecting is repeating back what you said, what I understood from what you said, and giving you the option or the opportunity to say that is correct, or no, that's not correct.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

Good. So let's back up a second. Give the audience a short overview of your background. How did you get to this position you're in? I understand you wanted to be a medical doctor at one point.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

I did growing up. If you hear my accent, I'm from Brazil, and I moved here when I was 14 years old with my family. And at that moment, right at that age, you're not really heard, like you just do what you're told. And so we moved here. And in my family, I'm uh Jewish, Brazilian, and then growing up, you had certain professions that were sanctioned: being an attorney, being a medical doctor, or going in business. I joke around, I say, my sister is an immigration attorney, my brother works in banking, and I became a psychotherapist, but I was supposed to be the medical doctor of the family. And when I was doing my bachelor's, it was pre-med. I remember when I'm at NYU and I'm choosing what's my major, because pre-med is not a major, even though let me tell you it should be because there's so much coursework. And I did intro to psych and intro to political science, and I said no to psych. And my bachelor's is in political science because I've always loved advocacy. And then I graduate, I take a time off between, you know, go didn't feel ready or prepared to go to medical school in this detour, was looking at maybe a master's in education. And then I saw this master's at Barry University in mental health counseling and marriage and family therapy. And I do not know a different way of saying it outside of the fact that it spoke to me. Right. But this was just going to be like a pit stop before medical school. When I was doing my master's, I was working also at an immigration law firm, hence my expertise, writing the gap between the legal and the psychological in immigration. But when I graduated, I was gonna go back to medical school and I noticed that I fell in love with the mind. I use a lot of the mind and the body, they are intertwined. Where one goes, the other follows, right? But I just I fell in love with the mind and I decided to instead do my PhD, and I got my grandpa's blessing, which was actually really big for me, to become a doctor, but in psychology or psychotherapy as opposed to medicine.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

That's interesting. You got a lot of the ethnics. I'm an Italian Sicilian, my parents were immigrants, and there's a difference between when I spent a lot of time in Brazil in my high-tech life in Ministra in the middle of the country. And in the Italian world, Italian uh it was survival. You're gonna work in steel because it was a steel town, you're gonna work in the railroad, or you're gonna go in the military. And those were pretty much your options that were laid out. So I'm interested to hear how other cultures position where they think they want their children to go, and many times they push them in that direction. Yeah. Very interesting. Well, tell us about the IAP method. I know everybody's waiting to hear. Where did it come from? Tell us about what it is.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

The IAP stands for intention, action, perception. I started noticing, and I want to say this is back in 2017, 2018. Like I work a lot with trauma, I work a lot with suicide grief, and started to work with families, and I'm understanding a lot of patterns in communication and cycle of miscommunications, even in my own life. I became very aware of the relationship between our intentions and perceptions and how the action itself is the only thing that's external and sometimes kind of can bite us in the tushy if we don't explain what the intention of our actions are. An easy way, and I say like this, I think was one of the first times that I became acutely aware was in an argument with my husband back then, like boyfriend. When I left the room for me, I thought, if you care, you're gonna follow me. My action was to leave the room to show how frustrated that I am, and the expectation attached to my intention is that in showing you my frustration, obviously there is no other way of looking at it but to follow me. He didn't follow. Because to him, I created space. And if he had been the one creating space, then he would want me to respect that. Ergo, he respected me by not following me. And that was, I think, one of the first times that I became acutely aware of this dissonance. We actually learned that, like, if he leaves the room, it means he wants space. If I leave the room, it means I want him to leave. Yeah, but we learn, right? One of the things about conflict resolution is not about avoiding conflict. Conflict can be very healthy, right? Through conflict, which means that we look at things in a different way. When we become aware of these differences, then we can identify a resolution or a compromise. When we avoid conflict, it doesn't mean that it's not there, it just accumulates in silence. But there were other things that I noticed that again, like the action that was taken was subject to interpretation, and the interpretation that I had was different from my husband's intention, or vice versa. And I started really paying attention to these patterns. And I saw, oh my God, there are so many times when a client uses a word that has one meaning to them, but it has a different meaning to the person receiving it. And in that transition from this person's mouth to this person's ears, a completely different reaction comes out. Another example that I've used often is with this couple that they were coming to couple therapy, and the male said, This is a sacrifice I'm willing to make. And the moment I saw the word sacrifice leave his mouth and enter her ears, sacrifice had a negative connotation to her. Whereas to him, the context was supposed to be a positive connotation. And when she grabbed onto the word sacrifice, she's like, This is not a sacrifice, this is an investment. And I had to like pause in the middle and understand like what was your connotation? Right? Let's not let it get lost in translations. Like, no, no, no. I mean like this is a time that I'm willing to put here for us to try to work. But if we didn't have that pause and explanation, it would have been received in a very different way. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 10:35

Yes, oh, absolutely. I think anybody who's been married has experienced that.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

The idea behind the intention, action, perception is for us to become aware, like what is our intention for the action that we're using, and knowing that unless we verbalize where our intention is, it becomes subject to interpretation by the person receiving it, because the other person's perception is internal to them. And we do not know how people perceive the things that we are doing unless we verbalize to them the intention behind it, the concept or the expression action speak louder than words. It can be correct, but in very specific spaces. Action can only speak louder than words if our intentions are clear. If I don't know what your actions are telling me, how can it speak louder than your words? The time when it's appropriate to say action speak louder than words is if I tell you one thing and then I do another, because there's incongruence there. And now you're saying, well, your action speaking louder than words because you're saying I'm sorry for having done this, I'll never do it again, yet I'm doing it again. It's not just a blanket statement, not all actions have one universal meaning.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Exactly. Wow, that is really interesting. Now, you had mentioned earlier that not all conflict is bad. What's the difference between healthy conflict and destructive conflict?

SPEAKER_01 11:57

That's a great question. A healthy conflict is when we go into it wanting to understand what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future. How can I use what the issues that happen now to guide to a better circumstance in the future? An unhealthy conflict is when we don't use it to learn to the future and we get stuck in it. Right? So, for example, my husband and I don't agree on everything. And the times that we disagree, our voices may get altered as we're talking to each other because we are frustrated. We also become very aware of, hey, like my frustration is because of this situation, and I have the right to be frustrated because of this as much as you do. When we see things differently, we then understand if next time, if the same thing were to happen, what are we gonna do differently? Versus if you and I talk, I tell you what my frustration is, but I do not put any change from my point of view, but I expect every change to come from your end. Or I'm constantly arguing about the same issue without allowing for a resolution or without being able to let go of what happened in the past. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 13:19

Absolutely. I've seples and I've talked to people and I've had it myself, where you're repeating the same argument over and over for multiple years.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

And one of the reasons we repeat things is because it really marked us and stayed with us. Like, for example, when I work with clients, if there was an affair, for instance, the party, the individual who like did the affair, one of the things that they want to be able to do is move on and not talk about it all the time. But for the individual whose partner had an affair, they are very hurt and they want to talk about it a lot. And is what do I need from you to give you what you need? I love this question. What do I need from you to give you what you need? And one of the things that I say is for the person who is the hurting party, they need to be able to talk about it without eliciting a defense mechanism. When I try to talk to you about it and you immediately shut down, that creates the fight. Because you're shutting down and it's like, well, you have anything else to hide? You know what I mean? Like it creates more versus if I use the preamble. So let me start talking about one of the actionable strategies that I've developed. One of the functions of the preamble, the IAP preamble, is for me to tell you the intention behind what I'm gonna say before I say it. So there isn't room for assumption. If I tell my partner, hey, I can't stop thinking about the affair and what happened, and I need to be able to speak it out loud and for us to talk about it without being shut down. I am telling you the intention behind it. So when I speak about it, you understand it's not a punitive thing. It's not that I'm trying to punish you, it's because I really want to be able to let it out of my head because it is constantly in my mind. And if I don't let it out, it stays trapped inside. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 15:09

Yes, it does. It does. I believe one of the things that was in your book was in a disagreement or an argument or whatever, and one party appears believes they're losing, they will reach back into the archives and pull something back and put that into which has nothing to do with the topic at hand, correct? Yep. What do you do then?

SPEAKER_01 15:33

A couple of different things. This is when I am essentially introducing, I'm introducing both the communication strategy that I call the three columns of communication, and I'm talking about the do's and don'ts of the I statement in what you're talking about. I'll start with the three columns of communication, which I actually developed in response to a professional situation and not a familial situation. Column one in the three columns of communication is venting. When you're frustrated with someone, when you are hurt, when you are whatever it is, we go through a venting space where we are saying a lot of things that we don't necessarily mean and using a bunch of different examples that can derail from the conversation. So on column one, use whatever you need to vent, but don't vent directly to the person. Because the possibility of you going on tangent, the possibility of you being interrupted, and then totally losing the reason why you started to speak is really high. I usually tell people like vent in the shower, you're feeling the water like touching you to soothe you. It can be a muffler, put music on and say it out loud so you can hear what you are saying. Once you've gone through your venting and using your senses, right? Sense of vision, touch, like you're writing it, hearing yourself, then you go to column two, which is deciphering the message, right? And in that, I have a couple of questions. Why do I want the person to receive this message? What's the intention behind it? What purpose will it serve and to what end? And what's my expectation in response? And then column three is what is the best delivery method? So, knowing that individual, what is the best way to convey your message to that individual? So you gotta know your audience. If you don't know your audience, that's when you fall back to the I statement. Now, people use the I statement erroneously so much. Actually, on my Instagram or my social media, I started doing videos on the do's and don'ts of the I statement that I wrote in the book. Because the I statement starts with I feel. And how often will you listen, hear people saying, I feel like you? I feel that you. That's not an I statement, that's a you statement shrouded by the I statement. The words like or that is the easiest way to cheat the I statement. I feel hurt, I feel silenced, I feel not heard, I feel happy, I feel whatever the emotion is. That's when you're talking about you. And it's less about the person's behavior and more so about your experience of the circumstance. Whether that's proportionate or disproportionate, it's a different story altogether. So the formula is I feel with the emotion when something specific happens, avoid always and nevers and generalizables and what I would like or prefer next time. Now we touch back to what you said, which is if I say I feel like you don't listen to me, I feel like you never listen to me. Let's go a step further. Let's put a generalizable in there. Likely, what people tend to do when they're accused of something, I know that I do that, is I immediately want to defend myself. How do I defend myself? I either think about times when I didn't do what you accused me of, or I look for something to accuse you of to deflect from what I'm being accused of. I feel like you hurt me. Well, you hurt me too. You hurt me first.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

It really takes away from that. So when I express like I felt hurt in the conversation we had yesterday in the kitchen, and the statement made made me feel invalidated or not seen, or when I was told to let go, felt like my emotions were not validated or were dismissed. Next time I would really appreciate if we could all listen to each other or just validate by saying it that sucks before telling each other to let go. You see how I evaded the word you.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

Yes, that was very good. The you like always massive trigger words, and so it's training our brain to speak in a certain way.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Because once I was having a conversation about the IAP, and this person asked me, It's like, but how real is it that you're able to do that? I'm like, Well, you train yourself, you pause as you're saying the words because you know words you don't want to get caught with, right? There are times when the word you cannot be avoided, but there are times when it can. I usually try to change the word you for we, like we can do better instead of you can do better. It's more inclusive than distancing.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

Do you think that social media and all the nonsense helps fuel these emotional reactions and divisions and arguments within families, within communities? What's the impact of people staying behind a keyboard and not speaking?

SPEAKER_01 20:47

It's multifaceted, right? Off the top of my head, a couple of things that I think about is the way in which we speak with people, like when you're typing or chatting with somebody versus when you're speaking with them, like today. I think it's really interesting when people tell me lol instead of actually laughing out loud, right? And OMG instead of oh my God. I'm like, wait, we type that, we don't say that. But now it's more colloquially accepted for these things to be said. And generationally speaking, culturally speaking, some things are accepted via message or text that are not accepted when you're speaking. And so I think it can become more difficult for people to distinguish the language that they use. But there's something very different, which I will speak on, which are algorithms of things that validate the narrative that we have. When I am frustrated with someone, or if I felt a certain way about someone, if I am looking at things that only validate my point of view, I may not be able to look at a different point of view, or even like in think of our like political views or anything and everything. It's really hard today. To differentiate between what is effect and what is misinformation, which brings me to another actionable strategy for effective communication from the IAP, which is the rule of three interpretations. So when something happens, we tend to have our immediate automatic thought of our interpretation of what happened. And for some reason, it tends to either be worst-case scenario or taking it personal. I'm not saying that that is a rule, I'm just saying that oftentimes is what happens. What I request of people is to pause in that moment and identify what is a fact and what is our assumption. The reason that I do that is because if immediately I think, oh, my husband didn't pick up his phone, he's cheating on me. Right? That may be because of previous experiences, either from this relationship or another. But if I don't check that the only fact is that my husband did not pick up his phone, then I will not be able to differentiate between what is a fact and an assumption. I start to believe that he cheated on me is the actual fact. I want everybody to differentiate between the fact is he didn't call me. My immediate assumption is the worst case scenario. For balance sake, let's do best case scenario. He's planning a surprise party for me. I mean, my husband wouldn't do that because he's not really big with surprise parties, but best case scenario. A neutral case scenario. I mean, he really sucks with his phone, so it's not a great example, but a neutral case scenario would be the phone is on silent and he did not see it ring. Once I have three different possible interpretations of the same fact, choose the one that serves you best. Because until you ask, you don't know. Why not choose the one that serves you best? Now, if you're with your partner and you want to break up with them, the first one will serve you best. But if you're with your partner and you're trying to make things work and you understand that your anxiety comes from past experiences, then maybe choose the likely one or the best case scenario. But legit, which one serves you best? You get to choose. I mean, I used to watch a lot of news. I kind of pause for my own sanity. But when we think of like in Congress, when you would see different hearings or anything happening, there used to be a conversation where we would speak with each other. But even in these bigger spaces, what we see is a lot of talking at, because you want to make sure that whatever you said is in record. But there isn't necessarily a let me address what you told me. So when we see these bigger bodies doing that, what keeps us from doing the same thing? When I talk at, I don't necessarily need to address the issue as much as just say my side and that's it. That is when we talk about the unproductive conflict resolution because I'm not going in to find a resolution. I'm simply going in to say my side and not really mind whatever the other side is, and that's it. And again, I'll say like I cannot be 100% responsible for any relationship. There has to be a give and take. I think there could be some of that until people really for me to have the other person listen to me, I will give them the grace of listening to them, but I need the reciprocity.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

Exactly. What I noticed, I don't know how many years ago it's been now with the news, for example. It used to be well when I was growing up, yeah, Walter Cronkite and Frank Reynolds, yeah, Huntley and Brinkley. 30 minutes, six o'clock. This is what's going on. They got off the air. You draw your own conclusion. Here's what's going on, and I have four talking heads here who are going to argue and talk over each other, and we're not going to accomplish anything.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

And we speak so much on assumptions. There's a difference again in rule of three interpretations, a fact versus an assumption. When we have so much conversation about what we think could have happened, it becomes murkier for you to differentiate between what actually happened and the assumptions of what actually happened.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

My observation has been people don't want to think anymore. Someone will tell me what to think, and someone will tell me this is the only way. And then when we attempt to have a conversation, even within a family, it escalates very quickly. Well, what the hell do you know? Or he said this. And I heard, you know, that all that nonsense.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

Of course, I have my biases, as everybody does, but I strive to make a conclusion based on the information that I have, as opposed to have the conclusion and only allow for things that corroborate my conclusion to enter, right? I don't have a problem with being wrong. I actually, one of the things that I praise my husband so much for, and I think it's amazing and it's such a quality. Whenever he's having a conversation with somebody and he makes a statement, he will then go and double check. And he will only message the person if he was wrong. If he was right, he doesn't. But if he was wrong, he wants you to know that. And I taking that from him a lot. And whenever we make statements here, we're like, okay, I do not know if it is like a credible source. I haven't checked it yet, but this is something that I saw. So we tend to have those conversations because I do agree sometimes we hear things and we have our opinion, but our opinion needs to be based on something. Even when you think of like peer review, when I was doing my dissertation and suicide grief, I had my thesis. I had what I believed would be the outcome. And a lot of the times, like we will have our formed opinion before something happens. But then we need to look at what did the data show me? Did the data support what I believed, or did it teach me something different, or did it disprove what I really believe in? Because then if I have a data that gives me the null as opposed to my actual hypothesis, that is just as valid information because I know that what I thought is not right.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Correct. I've seen that with my sister PhD when she was doing her dissertation and she was going down the path, and she said, the data is we're telling, right? So a little volatile. She says, the data doesn't validate my point.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

I love Dr. John Gottman and his wife Julie Gottman, and in the marriage clinic, which is one of the books that I've used to teach a marriage and family therapy. One of the things that he says, and I'm gonna paraphrase it because I don't remember 100%, but it was when you don't test your thoughts, your opinion, you think that you're right a hundred percent of the time. When you test it, you may realize that you're only right 60% of the time and not 100% of the time. And that knowledge is important because it allows you to know the times when you are not right and why. I like to look at my life as a study and I gather data and see like what works and what doesn't. I had a relationship with someone that we had very different views of similar things. And because to my baseline, these individuals' views were disproportionate as much as I believe that to her baseline, my views were disproportionate. I often try to gather data to see like, was I the only one who saw this this way? Because if I'm the only one who saw this this way, I need to check myself. Were there other people that saw it my way? Then maybe it's not that I need to check myself, is that now I'm aware that this person's response is disproportionate because of the only thing, whether or not they want to check themselves, I can be on me. I can't gather data on someone else's experience. And I think one of the ways that she received what I was doing was that I was checking her experience. I'm like, no, I'm checking my behavior. My intention of my behavior was A, your perception of it was B. I really want to understand, do I need to change my behavior across the board, or is it just with you?

SPEAKER_02 30:33

Yes, or we just agree to disagree, as one of my sisters always says when she's losing an argument. That's that's very interesting. In my CEO life and when I was in the corporate world, one of the things I had to learn quickly was if I'm the smartest guy in the room, we got a big problem. Let's gather information. Now, when I sold a company and started advising other businesses, one of the things I saw was they're gathering too much information. Okay, let's bring more in, let's bring more in. And they never get to a point where they can make a decision and then that debate continues. Do you see that?

SPEAKER_01 31:08

Yeah. It's like I feel like at one point, even for the book, when I was writing the book, there are other strategies that didn't make it into the book. Because the IAP is ever evolving because as I continue to see different experiences or different types of communication that I hadn't noticed before, I'm like, oh, how can I apply this? The post-conversation, for example, is something that didn't make it into this book. Because at one point I said, for me to put it out, I need to have a finite, I need to have a stop, right? And understand that if there needs to be revisions, if there needs to see a second one, yeah, there can be too much information. You can never make a decision if you never stop the amount of things to make a decision on.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

Exactly. I see that all the time. So, how do you think, Dr. Chairman, is it possible to rebuild empathy in a divided world?

SPEAKER_01 31:59

I believe so. I think that when we actually get to speak with each other, we might find more common ground than we believe come in. When we use labels that can be very polarizing, we already have a certain vision of what your label is going to say as opposed to what you are going to say. And when we speak and we listen to each other, we can find more common ground and see each individual not as their label, but as a person. Again, the concept of labels helps us distance ourselves from people, versus, oh, you are a person as much as I am. We're all human beings, it brings us closer together.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

Dennis Batoko, who's very good at trying to bring people together, say, help me understand your point. Okay. And then what he said to me is it can go one or two ways. A person may not have a point, and then you go back to your thing. Okay, it's them, the perception, or they explain why they feel the way that they feel or why they think the way that they think. Okay. Now, again, you don't have to agree with it. If at least we understand each other, we can build some type of empathy.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

I agree. So let me go back to the concept of the post-conversation, which happened with this individual telling you about because our way of looking at the world was very different. The times when we did the post-conversation was like after having intense moments. I'll give you the parameters of the post-conversation. When you and I sit for that, I'm not trying to convince you of my point of view. And you're not trying to convince me of your point of view. Instead, in this post-conversation, I am being curious of your experience of that instance. And in response, you will then be curious about mine. So I'm a visual person, and the way that I visualize it is I'm gonna jump in your cart as we go through the roller coaster of your experience of an instance. Let's say that you're telling me about your experience and your reactions, you can say, you know, when you were talking to me, and then you all of a sudden you turn to the side and you spoke to somebody in Portuguese. When you and I were talking, I immediately thought that you were talking about me. And it was a big trigger because in my past relationships with other people that spoke other languages, they would do that. So immediately my assumption is that you're talking about me. And because you changed languages, you're speaking negatively about me, which shifted my demeanor and made me really pissed off. As I'm listening to you, I'm like, you know what? Based on your experiences in the past that you're telling me now and why that was a trigger, I understand why my behavior was received in that way. And I can even go in so far as to say, like, I'm sorry. Like, I will try my best to be more conscientious of it. What I need from you to give you what you need. As I strive to be more conscientious, in response, I'll ask for you to maybe not assume worst case scenario when it comes from me. Right. So now let me tell you about my experience. And then I can now we jump into my cart and I'm like, we're having a conversation, and then somebody asked me a question, and they are Brazilian, and it was just like a switch. I wasn't intentional. It had nothing to do with you. So then I was very taken aback by the response or the reaction. Now I understand, but for me it was very innocuous. Like my mind, sometimes I'm going through Portuguese, Spanish, English, not necessarily being aware of the language that I'm speaking. Right. And so the other person may say, you know, like I can see how to you it seemed very innocuous. Right. But only when we give each other the space to talk about our experiences and how come we responded in this way can we have a greater understanding of each other? And my response may have seemed disproportionate to you, but it is proportionate to my baggage, my previous experiences, my life, and vice versa.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

And then you hope that there's some meaning, some common ground.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Yeah. Because then we're able to identify like what strategies we can implement. Code words is one of the strategies that I have here. So the science behind the IAP code words is that a code word must have a meaning associated to it, instructions to all parties involved, and can only be used when warranted. If you get triggered and you use a code word with me and I know now the meaning of that code word and what the instructions are, because of our conversation, it gave light to this new communication that we have. If the same thing were to happen again, we learn for next time. Now it's important to note something. There's a difference between theory and practice. In theory, when you and I first come up with a solution, like a code word, to the next time that something similar happens and an argument is incited or something like that. In theory, it worked. In practice, it may work or it may not work, which gives us data as to whether or not to continue using this or whether or not it needs to be tweaked or changed or discarded.

SPEAKER_02 37:20

Exactly. It's almost experimental. Let's try it. Let's see how it works. If it's not working, don't keep doing it.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

Don't keep doing it, or what can we shift? Because like it needs a little bit of a tweak. Now also say, I like to say with awareness comes action, waka with awareness comes action. There is an adjustment period, right? If I try something once, the likelihood of it working the first time is really small.

SPEAKER_02 37:47

Very good.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

Right. Is when I use it a couple different times. So I usually say try a minimum three times, like a real effort, three times, and identify like it does not work at all for me versus okay, like I see, I understand it. And then what needs to be tweaked?

SPEAKER_02 38:05

Wow, this has been incredibly enlightening. We're just about out of time. What last words? And you've given a lot of great wisdom here. Do you want to live with the audience around the world?

SPEAKER_01 38:17

The same way that you want to be heard, the people around you want the same. So one thing that I would invite everybody to do, because I know that this is something for me. When somebody talks to me, I try to reflect back to them, their point of view before going into mine. I notice that when we are talking, especially if we're disagreeing, if I tell you my point of view and in response, you just repeat yours, it makes me feel like I was not heard.

SPEAKER_02 38:45

Right.

SPEAKER_01 38:46

So repeat back what you understood before confronting, before saying your different side or argument. So again, the same way that you want to be heard, so do the people around you.

SPEAKER_02 38:58

How do people get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_01 39:00

You can check us out at our website www.advocate2create.com, and the two is the number two. We call it A2C for short. So again, www.advocate2create.com with the number two. We are on social media, both as advocate to create or as Dr. Patricia Timmerman, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook. You can also call our office at 305-204-7764.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

So as I said, we're just about out of time. I want to thank my guest, Dr. Timmerman, who showed us and gave us great examples that there are ways to avoid feeling misunderstood and being perpetually caught up in this vicious cycle of miscommunication. And we always want to be right, but at times we just have to open up our minds and use her IAP method. Get the book, folks.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

Get the book.

SPEAKER_02 39:57

Yes. Get the book. It is eye-opening, believe me. I was shocked. Also, the key to the success is to work with someone like Dr. Timmerman, because she's can guide you along the way. None of us are in this alone. And the secret to walking on water is to know where the rocks are. And Dr. Timmerman showed us where many, many rocks are today. Through this podcast, we're going to identify more rocks and we're going to bounce back better than ever. Again, Dr. Timmerman, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 40:23

Thank you for having me here. So that's it for today's episode of Belt Back. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One week you listener every single week. We post a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes. We'll win Instagram prize drawings to win ten thousand dollars with Fraint and Stop.com and pick up the free copy of Frankfurt.