Logic isn't the Balm for Emotion, so Why Try to Use It?

What would the holiday season be without a little family drama!

After days of baking together, playing board games, a jigsaw puzzle, and lots of Great British Baking show, I had that argument with a family member. You know, the one you probably had with your loved one. About the election, the future of the country, and how some people are working to destroy it.

She unloaded. It wasn't the kind of conversation where you're trading ideas. This was no point, counterpoint, counterpoint. It was pure outrage, funneled into words. Kilauea wasn't the only volcano erupting last week.

I don't hold myself responsible for her outrage; I didn't cause it. But I fueled it when I tried to use facts and logic to persuade her to calm down. She did not want to calm down. She wanted to rage. She wanted me to see her rage, to feel it, to battle, and be bloodied.

She didn't need to wound me. She needed me to see her wound.

In the moment, though, my rational brain was at the helm. I dismissed her words as being disinformation instead of responding to the emotion. I kept asking her to clarify, give more facts, help me understand with examples. Spews of molten outrage in reply.

And then I thought to myself, what if this is the last Christmas with her? Do I want to waste it by trying to "fix" her?

Nothing turns off our rational-thinking brain like a strong, urgent emotion.

I finally responded with an emotional plea, to "help me understand. I want to be close to you, but you have such a different perspective than mine that it feels like we're from different planets. I don't know how to connect with you."

That was what she was able to hear. Emotion for emotion. Not logic. Not prefrontal cortex; this was all limbic system.

I've talked and thought about this division in my family this year more than I ever have in my whole life. It was amplified and set in stark relief by our weekly learn-and-share, but it seems the lessons learned about relationships strained by polarization are the ones I need to keep learning.

Foremost of these is my instinct to "fix" things. Many couples have this dynamic, I know my ex-husband and I did, since he also has the need to fix things.

If you're unfamiliar with the "fix it" instinct, it goes a little something like this:

Person 1: "This frustrating thing happened to me today."

Person 2: "Oh no, that's terrible. Tell me more"

Person 1: "[more]"

Person 2: "Ok, here's what you're going to do. [This] [This] [This]."

This conversation usually ends in additional frustration, anger, and resentment.

If you've been Person 1 in that situation, nine times out of ten, you just need someone to listen to you vent. You want your feelings to be validated. You probably already know how to handle the situation, or you may have already handled it.

The trouble is, Person 2 wants to show how much they care about you - by taking control of your decisions - ahem, I mean "fixing it".

I've certainly been Person 1 many times. It feels demeaning and discouraging to have someone explicitly or implicitly tell me that I'm being too emotional and there's a rational path to resolution.

When I'm being a Person 2, I don't truly think that I need to control Person 1. But, while in my "fix it" instinct, here's the question I've been asking myself:

Why do I think that I am better able or more equipped to solve Person 1's problem?

At no point did she ask me to fix the situation or help her resolve her anger.

More to the point, there is nothing I can do to fix how she feels.

Empathy can backfire on us when we think the other person is being irrational. We can feel what they are feeling, but don't understand why, so instead of accepting it, we try to convince them that they are not actually feeling something real.

Imagine your best friend tells you that their feet hurt intensely; a searing, prickling pain that they feel but cannot see. No, they weren't recently injured. Do you deny the fact of their pain? Do you doubt their sanity?

Most of us would react with bemused, but genuine care and concern. They are feeling something that needs to be validated. They need to know we care about their pain. Somehow, though, we forget to do this for emotions that we don't understand intuitively.

I was able to bring the conversation back down to Earth eventually. We finally landed again on core values - things like "every person has equal value" and "every person should have equal ability to take care of their families" and "butter makes everything taste better". We could release tension and chuckle and hug.

I'll keep trying to learn this lesson. I will listen, try to validate the emotion (if not the reasons for the emotion), and focus on building relationships grounded in shared values, not shared politics.

How did you fare? Any lessons learned from your latest fractious conversations?