How do you talk to people who are angry?

In this election year, I am resharing some of my favorite newsletters that I think might be helpful.

The rioters on January 6th in the Capitol were angry. They were probably mad for a long time before 1/6. My reaction to listening to Trump supporters is that they almost always seem angry. Maybe if we’d learned how to talk to them and make them feel heard earlier, events would have played out differently. Instead, we argue and don’t get anywhere. Facts don’t seem to help. We need a new way.

I’ve been troubled by this for a while and have been pondering what I could say to help.

Like many of you, I’m conflict averse. I don’t like conflict. I see Facebook posts from many people who advocate cutting off relationships with people in their lives who are angry, calling them toxic. Even though sometimes you do need to avoid conflict, in general I’ve learned that avoiding conflict just makes things worse. Conflict is a necessary part of life. And some of these people are our relatives or neighbors or friends. We need to learn how to talk to them even if we usually avoid conflict.

I’ve (re)rediscovered a method for dealing with angry people in a book by Marshall Rosenberg, author of “Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life.” (I say rediscover because this was the second time I read it, but I had fresh eyes this time.) Rosenberg opens the book with a story of doing a workshop on nonviolent communication with a group of 170 Palestinian men. The workshop didn’t start very well, with rumblings at first, and then deteriorated fast, with shouts calling him a murderer. He realized that this might have been due to a recent tear gas attack, and the canisters that had been made in the United States were sprinkled around the area. The Palestinians were angry! Unlike those of us who would run from this, Rosenberg directly engaged with the man who had called him a murderer. He asked questions and reflected back feelings for a good 20 minutes. At the end, the attendees had calmed down. He was able to complete the workshop successfully — and was even invited into the man’s house for a meal!

This is a pretty extreme example, but not more extreme than what we have in our country.

The technique that Rosenberg used has four steps:

·       Observations

·       Feelings

·       Needs

·       Requests

This technique has some similarities with the method that I’ve been recommending:

·       Ask

·       Listen

·       Affirm

·       Reframe

Both start with letting the person talk. Both advocate not arguing. Neither suggest confronting the person about things that they said that don’t make sense (the way I see shared on the media or social media.) NVC adds in other elements: verbally reflecting back to the person what they’ve been saying and including feelings in those reflections. One of the main points of his book is that very few people are in touch with their actual feelings. Instead of feelings, we substitute thoughts or actions. If we can identify and deal with feelings (both our own and the person we are talking to), that can defuse the emotion.

It’s hard work, but we need new tools to defuse our situation. We can jail those who rioted, but what about those who didn’t riot but support them? Let’s find a new way to deal with people we disagree with.

Next week, I’ll give more details about the method ALAR. Subscribe to make sure you don’t miss a week!