Today’s episode at a glance

There’s a story I regularly tell when I’m asked how I deal with conflict. It’s of a time when a campus leader called my cell and chewed me out. Hard. In today’s episode I unpack that story and try to disentangle what I usually say about it from what the neuroscience of conversations tells me. I come to some interesting truths along the way, all in the context of helping us think about how to understand the neurochemistry of our emotions when we’re having fraught conversations.

Understanding what parts of your brain are activated in conversations, why they’re activated, and the stories you’re telling yourself about your physiological reactions (your racing heart and churning stomach) all give insight into the neuroscience of conversations — and how you can harness that to turn difficult conversations grounded in fear into conversations that build trust.

My favorite quote from today’s episode is from Lisa Feldman Barrett: Emotions that seem to happen to you are actually made by you. 🧐

Readings & resources on neuroscience and conversations

Conversational Intelligence, by Judith Glaser. (Affiliate link through Amazon.)

Creating WE Institute, founded by Judith Glaser.

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen, and Listen So Kids Will Talk, by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlisch. (Affiliate link through Amazon.)

Lisa Feldman Barrett‘s website.

How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, by Lisa Feldman Barrett. (Affiliate link through Amazon.)

You Aren’t At The Mercy of Your Emotions, a TedTalk by Lisa Feldman Barrett.

Like this episode? Here are others you might also enjoy:

episode 43: “Why Am I Talking? And Other Powerful Questions”

episode 28: “How to Take a Tiny Sabbatical” with Sarah Moore-Nokes and Shelly Roder.