Love coach Rebeccah Silence breaks down how to stop taking arguments personally. She shares a four-step framework: recognize conflict reveals true patterns, stay fully yourself, use a "check it out" technique to clarify intent, and set boundaries around what you need. Handled right, conflict brings people closer.
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Mix 102.5 with Big Papa in the morning on a Mental Wellness Wednesday. The world's leading love and emotional healing coach, Rebeccah Silence, online, theunsilencedwoman.com. Rebeccah, good morning. How are you?
Hello, everybody. Let's make some magic.
So everybody has arguments. Everybody has disagreements from, from time to time. What is a way to not take things personally? Oh, it's so, it's so easy for people's actions or their words to hit you in a certain way, and you may take it a certain way thinking it's personal to you, but they just maybe make a blanket statement, but you're taking it personal anyway.
Oh my gosh, I just in the Own Your Voice Society, which is my coaching membership, did a whole month on how to change your relationship with conflict because it really is dicey and icky and sticky and painful for so many people, right? We assume conflict is bad or wrong instead of when there's conflict, I get to see who you really are. Okay, think about this, okay? We are easily the best of ourselves when life is going our way, but when conflict strikes, that's when you meet somebody So the next most important thing I can say here is they are always showing you who they are, and how they show up is how they show up. So if it's not with you, it's with the next person they're interacting with. That's why it's never personal. That doesn't mean it's not painful. It can be not personal and still painful, right? I was coaching a guy recently and he was having a huge issue with a coworker, and I asked him, do you think this is personal? Is he just showing up like this with you and with nobody else in the company? And my client was gobsmacked, literally gobsmacked. Like, wait a minute, no, this is what he does with everybody. I'm like, right. So either his bad behavior is leading you— listen to this— or You stay the best of you and your energy leads the moment. So what do I mean by that? I am somebody who— and just try this on, even write it down in a journal— I am someone who is never less me for anybody, for any reason. Try that on. That has been my life for the past 20 years. I'm not going to be less me because of you or your bad behavior. So not only do you get to see who they really are, which is good information, but you get to see who you really are in the face of conflict. And one of the things I've been teaching couples, and I've been helping people heal since 2002, is conflict can always bring you closer. It can always bring you closer. What a concept! And how does that happen? You don't need them to be different for you to be okay. So boundaries are what is needed when it hurts and you're taking it personally. What are boundaries?
Well, my, my question is, like, if you are in a discussion or you are in an argument or whatever it is and someone mentions something, yeah, and it hits you like, like it hits a nerve in you, and I get it, did that on purpose or not, But how do you not take, how do you not take that hit to the nerve? Is that a, is that a self-esteem thing or is that something different?
Well, so this is what I want to say about boundaries. Boundaries are very simply, you know your character so well it can't be threatened. You know who you are. You know your worth. They're not walls. So here's what you do. You do what I call check it out. Did you just mean to be hurtful? When you said that to me? Are you trying to shame me or embarrass me right now? Is that what's happening? I can't tell you how powerful this technique, this hack is. Checking it out, putting it right back on.
Most— that would stop most disagreements and conversations right there.
Oh, and you can do it with your kids. You can do it with your spouse. You can do it with your team. You can do it with your friends. You can do it with your mother, your father, your aunt, whatever. Right.
Reality check right there. Like, wait a minute.
So let's Give them the benefit of the doubt in that you're gonna get them to admit that's what they meant, or you're gonna at least own it. This is how I'm experiencing you. Is my experience of you accurate right now? And they have to put their foot in their mouth, right? So you check it out. Is this what's happening? Then after that, the boundary is Here's what I want. Here's what I need. Here's how I feel. You've got to say, here's the solution I'm looking for. Don't avoid it. Don't shut it down. And you can go to theunsilentwoman.com and get my free resource, the 10 one-liners to handle any conflict right now.
It's funny, before we started today, you said, I love learning stuff about you. Even today, we've been doing this for so long and I've known you for so long. This is the first time I've heard that and it blew my mind. If you want to learn more, theunsilentwoman.com, the world's leading in love, emotional, and healing coach. She is Rebeccah Silence and Rebeccah, great stuff as always. We'll talk to you next week.
