Years ago, I worked in a department store, and one of the best parts of that job was the training I received in customer service. And I say it’s one of the best things because that course was so helpful to me that I use most of the tips they gave me in my daily life. One of them was to stay calm in the face of complaints and not listen to the hurtful things they might say to me, and that’s exactly what Douglas E. Noll tells us.
He is an attorney, mediator, and conflict resolution expert in venues ranging from maximum security prisons to the U.S. Congress. Next to nothing. With over 15 years of experience and as an expert in his field, he wrote the book ‘.De-escalation: How to calm an angry person in less than 90 seconds.‘A practical guide with real examples that promises to help you learn how to eliminate conflict and develop healthier relationships. It’s full of what he calls “peacemaking tools” that will transform conflict situations into calm, non-violent dialogues. In this guide he writes Use empathy and communication to achieve this in just 90 seconds. And we tell you how.
Ignore words and read emotions
According to neuroscientific research and as Noll explains in his book, our behaviors occur in the brain 750 milliseconds before we even realize it. It also confirms, as neuroscientist Antonio Damásio says in his book, that we are emotional, not rational, beings.Descartes’ mistake‘ here he explains the somatic marker hypothesis (SMH). This theory explains that emotions play an important role in decision making. Actually, A somatic marker refers to the emotional response associated with a particular situation or stimulus.. These reactions are the result of our past experiences and are stored in our brains in the form of somatic markers, so everything we do has an emotional basis.
This is how Noll explains it in his book Noll. When we feel anger, the emotional circuits in our brain suppress executive function (prefrontal cortex) and we resort to programming learned in early childhood. It is triggered by “learned, automatic, and unconscious responses to environmental cues or memories.”
Therefore, the key to calming an angry person in less than two minutes is to use emotions and ignore words. writer Announced in La Razón “An emotional problem cannot be solved with logic and rationality. “You have to use emotional tools to solve emotional problems.”
The goal in conflict is to reduce the emotional revolutions of the interlocutor.It starts by identifying the other person’s feelings by remaining calm and labeling the other person’s emotions. Connect with what you’re feeling and use empathy.
To do this, in the words of the expert, it is necessary to “ask him key, direct questions, away from the ‘I’, so that he understands that there is an understanding.” In this way, it doesn’t matter what they say to us because there is no room for our ego, only the emotional experience of the other person. The expert explains the technique in three steps:
- ignore the words. What it reveals to us is that during an argument or conflict, the other person may say something hurtful to us and this causes our emotions to take over. So the first thing to do is to prevent this from happening by focusing on the emotions and not paying attention to the words.
- Discover emotional experience. You don’t have to be an expert to detect emotions such as anger, resentment, disgust, fear in another person. The expert states that “Humans have a limited repertoire of emotions. “There are parts of our brains that will effortlessly recognize, identify and label emotions for us,” and according to him, this happens naturally.
- Use second person expressions. If we want to calm a person down, our conversation should focus on them, not us. That is, we will use direct statements in the second person to let the person listening to us know that we understand their feelings. What we will do is active listening, A former FBI agent told us what emotionally intelligent people do when they talk to others.. Active listening, which has its origins in the work of an American psychologist Carl RogersUse empathy and make the other person feel heard. We can use it by voicing the other person’s emotion by saying, “I think you are feeling angry right now.”
According to the expert, by using this technique, we ensure that emotions calm down and rationality returns. And if you too have lost your courage, the expert gives a trick: emotional labeling With you. Well, label your own emotions and talk to yourself so you realize that it is them who are taking control, not your rational side.
Note: Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may benefit Trendencias.
Photos | Friends
In Trends | The best tips for getting over the breakup of a couple you still love
In Trends | Ghosting: What does it consist of and what kind of person usually does it?
In Trends | 49 invisible friend gifts for under 10 euros that will help you succeed on a budget
