Difficult Conversations, with Kern Beare
Talking to people we disagree with can be fraught with fear and anxiety — triggering our fight or flight survival drive. We fight by arguing to win, or we flee by avoiding the conflict altogether. But to resolve our differences, we need to move beyond this ancient instinct and access our capacity for connection, creativity and compassion. Join Kern Beare, founder of the Difficult Conversations Project, as he explore how we can have conversations that can actually heal divides and change hearts and minds. For more about Kern, check out his website: www.difficultconversationsproject.org
Difficult Conversations, with Kern Beare
Breaking the patterns of "high conflict": A conversation with author Amanda Ripley.
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Kern Beare
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Season 2
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Episode 2
Amanda Ripley is an investigative journalist and a New York Times best-selling author. Her most recent book, and the subject of our conversation, is High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out. In this interview, we take a deep dive into some of her book's main ideas, including:
- Why high conflicts are a lot like the La Brea Tar Pits.
- The four "trip wires" that lead to high conflict, including "the power of the binary."
- Why often the best thing you can do in a conflict is first "get straight in your own head."
- How finding the "understory" of a conflict can be a source of liberation.
- How to creatively break the patterns of high conflict by "stepping out of the dance."
- What it means and why it's important to appeal to a "transcendent identity."
- And much more (my favorite: Amanda's "food in the fridge" conflict).
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Kern Beare is the founder of the Difficult Conversations Project and the author of Difficult Conversations: The Art and Science of Working Together. He also facilitates a workshop based on his book, which is free for non-profit organizations and community groups.