In this video Brendon Burchard explains how self‑talk shapes the feeling that remains after an emotion fades and why it is essential for maintaining healthy relationships. He contrasts two possible responses in conflict: emotional contagion—an automatic, mirror‑neuron‑driven mimicry of another’s mood—and emotional regulation, a conscious choice to sense, label, and steer one’s emotions toward constructive intentions. Burchard clarifies the distinction between fleeting emotions (quick, physiological spikes) and longer‑lasting feelings (the brain‑generated meaning attached after the emotion passes). He offers a practical three‑step toolkit—breathe, move, self‑talk—to regulate emotions in the moment, illustrating the method with a “watch technique” (maintaining eye contact, deep breaths, and a discreet glance at a watch to wait out the partner’s venting). He emphasizes listening without trying to solve, honoring the other person, and using self‑talk to reinforce intentions such as “improve the situation, build the relationship.” Burchard also acknowledges that many people have been conditioned to “attack and destroy” in arguments, but that old patterns can be re‑trained through repeated practice of these regulation strategies. The overall message is that intentional self‑talk, combined with physiological regulation, transforms conflict into an opportunity for connection and growth.
Chapters
Self talk is what generates the feeling after the emotion passes. So what are we saying to ourselves? What are we stating? What are the thoughts going through our head? Being thoughtful about that. Mine again. I already told you. Improve the situation, build the relationship. Improve the situation, build the relationship. Even if I disagree, I can still improve the situation. I can de escalate the emotions. I can make the person feel honored, heard, respected, even encouraged, even if we disagree. And I can make sure that whatever I'm saying is going to help us move through it and build from there versus attack and destroy. Practice emotional regulation. Practice emotional regulation. And we're going to talk about what that means because here's what happens. You have two choices in a conflict situation. You have emotional regulation or you have emotional contagion. You'd better make that choice consciously. Emotional regulation or emotional contagion. So what is emotional contagion? Emotional contagion is that part of us that we are hardwired to do which is mimic or act out respond to someone else's emotions. It's how when you walk up to a group of three people who are sad, you start to feel sad. It's how an eight month year old baby Mel Abraham when you smile at the eight month year old and they smile back, they can't help it. What's happening there, it's in your brain, in your prefrontal cortex. These things called your mirror neurons that make you. Or in your cortex it helps you want to mimic other people and match their emotions. It's why when someone yawns, you yawn. It's why when someone gets super angry, you feel your blood go up. It's automatic, it's impulsive and it is hardwired until we run a new program over it so many times that that gets dampened. Maybe it doesn't go away, but it gets dampened, right? Emotional regulation, however, is a conscious choice to sense and feel the emotions coming up and to regulate them appropriately for my intentions or the situation. It means you take the reins of your emotions and your feelings and your behaviors. It means you're personally responsible for it. And that's hard because if you heard me teach on this before, there's a big difference between emotions and feelings. I talked about it in the Daily Fire that your emotions psychologically. So when we talk about emotions in my field of practice, whether it is in actually doesn't matter what field of practice. If it's in psychology, if it's in coaching work, emotions are automatic, physical, impulsive and very difficult to dictate their Extremity, very. It's just like emotions tend to happen. Feelings, however, think about. Feelings are kind of like the wake of an emotion, but you get to apply meaning to it. Feelings you have much more control over. It's a lingering effect of an emotion. Emotion, in most, at least most neuroscience and most studies of physiology of emotion and emotion is actually pretty quick to come up and go, right? Emotion can come in maybe 60 seconds, 90 seconds, sometimes 2, 3 minutes in the extreme. But the emotion itself tends to pass and. And now the brain is starting to label it, attach meaning to it, decide, what does this mean? What does this mean for me? Is this safe? Is this bad? A lot of mental processing has actually taken over, and now it's creating a lasting feeling. Your spouse comes home and they start accusing you of a bunch of random stuff. How do you meet that? Well, hopefully you go, okay, this person must have been traumatized or triggered at work today. This is a person who's, you know, creating a situation here. They can get not good. So I want to improve the situation and I want to build a relationship. This is my spouse. This is my partner. I've committed and sworn to God that I will honor and protect and love and serve and care for and be there with and for this person. Okay, I take another deep breath. Let me not react. Let me start manage my self, talk immediately. Be here, take deep breaths. Listen, Brendan. Be here, take deep breaths. Listen, Brendan. It's not react, it's not scream. It's just be here, listen, react. It's emotional regulation. My friend John Gray, he wrote this book called Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. And whether or not you like that metaphor, whether that's old school now in the modern era. One of the things he said to me that one time was so good. He said, I was talking about. He was asking me about conflicts I had in my relationship and how I approached him, what I said to myself, and everything else. And he goes. He literally interrupts me describing what I think is my coping mechanism. He goes, bren, do you wear a watch? Yeah. Yeah, I wear a watch. He goes, here's what I want you to do. Next time your partner is saying something that you don't like, or they're venting to you and you don't want to hear it, and it's going to cause you to get angry or mad or to solve or to react. Next time, all I want you to do is as they're talking, make great eye contact, take a lot of deep breaths. Really quickly, glance at your Watch, don't let them see it. And just wait 20 minutes as you make eye contact and you breathe. I said 20 minutes. Why? He goes, because by the end of 20 minutes, they're out of gas. They vented, they frustrated, they got it out. And you were there listening, being attentive, not solving her problem, not telling her she's wrong. You just let her go for 20 minutes, man. I go, that's it. He goes, you got to watch. Oh, my gosh. And you know what? It's real. It totally works for the guys looking for the tactic. Shut up. Listen, Give her some time to talk. This works in almost every relationship. Every conflict situation, the other person really needs to vent and talk it out. And if you can understand, they're coming from a place where they are triggered or traumatized, where they're defensive. Did you know the more people tend to talk and if a person just sits there with them, the more they talk it out, the more they actually calm themselves down, Right? Therapists will know this, right? You just sit and listen sometimes, Right? Very rarely with another person who's holding a good space there will someone keep ramping it up. You got to practice emotional regulation. As soon as you feel it come up, breathe, maybe move around a little bit, go for a walk, or pause the conversation to go. You know, I'm feeling really upset or triggered right now. Can I take a beat? Can I just. I'm going to do a lap around the house. I'll be right back. Is that okay? Can we just hold this for a second? I really want to do a good job for you in this conversation. I hear this is important for you, but I'm all kind of frazzled. Can I come right back and be more centered with you? Oh, we're allowed to say that? Yeah. Oh, okay. You go around, take a deep breath. Now you come back centered, more calm. You breathed, you move. And remember the self talk. Remember the self talk. The self talk is what generates the feeling after the emotion passes. So what are we saying to ourselves? What are we stating? What are the thoughts going through our head? Being thoughtful about that. Mine again. I already told you, improve the situation, build the relationship. Improve the situation, build the relationship. Even if I disagree, I can still improve the situation. I can de escalate the emotions. I can make the person feel honored, heard, respected, even encouraged, even if we disagree. And I can make sure that whatever I'm saying is going to help us move through it and build from there, versus attack and destroy. For those who have that. If you know this Please write it down. I've been a person who attacks and destroys. Because if you've been a person who attacks and destroys, you can see the littered dead bodies of old relationships that you hurt. Like, you got to go. Okay, let me be honest. I was trained to attack and destroy like a dog. But dogs can be trained. Old dogs can learn new tricks. Forgive the language here, but I think it's really important to be severe about it a little bit and use metaphors like that. Because most of us, if we are out to attack and destroy someone in argument, we grew up around it, we saw it. And I'm not judging it, even though it sounds like I am, because I'm teaching, I'm raising my hand. That's what I grew up around. That's the way I was till my early 20s. Right? So I'm not preaching. What I'm here is trying to teach what we know from research and from all these years of practice. That just helps the situation. So next time you feel triggered in a conflict relationship, breathe, move, self talk. That's your three emotional regulation moves, right? Breathe, move, self talk. Breathe, move, self talk. If you're like, but I can't move, I'm kind of. I'm. I'm stuck there in the situation. They won't let me leave. They don't like that. Be like, okay, keep breathing, keep breathing. Manage your self talk. Right? Manage your self talk. Often movement can be as simple as maybe take one step back to feel a little more safe. Maybe go on the other side of the kitchen counter. Really? Maybe in the meeting, if you're feeling that way, move chairs, stand up, ask, can we have a conversation? Can we walk and have this conversation? A lot of times I'll teach managers, take the team or the employee for a walk if you're there in person. I know it's hard in a virtual world, but it's like, it's much easier to process who's gone on a walk with a friend recently and just found yourself sharing things and feeling better afterwards. That's generating. You're breathing, you're moving, you're having positive conversation. That can be used here. Okay, that can be used here. Again, this is hard. If you're right there and they're in your face, I get it. But if they're right there and they're in your face, you can still breathe and you can still speak to yourself. You can always breathe, and you can always speak to yourself. You can always breathe. Always speak to yourself. Please do that in that situation. Sa.
