I find it very telling that when I ask people at the start of my classes and professional trainings what they think of when they think about conflict, the most common responses are emotions (particularly unpleasant emotions) such as frustration, anxiety, anger, or fear.
As I have described in prior blogs, it is understandable why many people associate conflict with unpleasant or difficult emotions. For a variety of inborn and encultured reasons, most of us perceive conflict as a threat; therefore, when we encounter conflict, our tendency is to default to fight, flight, freeze, or appease sorts of behaviors to protect ourselves. Related to this, many of us have been taught that conflict is bad, and most of us have—in large part because of the downward spiral of destructive conflict I described in a prior blog—experienced negative outcomes from conflict situations. All these dynamics contribute to people’s tendencies to associate conflict with emotions such as frustration, anxiety, anger, and fear.
When we understand that conflict is simply the intersection of different concerns and needs that are in tension with each other and not easily reconcilable—and that this, in and of itself, is not a threat to our survival and wellbeing or a negative thing, and it can create opportunities if skillfully handled—we free ourselves up to separate our emotions from conflict itself. Doing so empowers us to exercise an important technique for productively navigating conflict: using emotions as data.
What it means to use emotions as data
I first heard the concepts of using emotions as data from psychologist Susan David, the author of the book “Emotional Agility.” The basic idea is that our emotions are not good or bad, they are not a mirror of reality, and they aren’t directives for what we must do. Instead, they provide valuable and useful insight into our experience of the world and what we value. Susan provides an explanation and illustration of this in her blog “Recognizing your emotions as data, not directives.”
Understanding our emotions as data pushes us to see and process our emotions from a balcony perspective. Rather than being driven or controlled by our emotions (or, as Susan puts it, “hooked” by them), we remove ourselves one step from the emotions so we can think about them with curiosity. This allows us to really hear what our emotions are trying to tell us and to be responsive to this information rather than getting dysregulated and reactive.
An “emotions are data” approach also helps us avoid suppressing emotions or trying to “not feel.” Instead, it encourages us to really tune into and value what we are feeling, understand our emotions, and listen to what our emotions can tell us about what we are concerned about and what really matters to us.
How to use emotions as data when navigating conflict
When dealing with conflict, people tend to either react from their emotions (e.g., by attacking, accommodating, or avoiding) or to shut down and stifle emotions to avoid “being emotional.” Neither of these approaches work; they often result in poor behaviors and poor outcomes for us and others (not to mention that research suggests repressed emotions are bad for our health and wellbeing).
A “using emotions as data” approach encourages us to pay attention to, listen to, and really try to understand what our emotions are trying to tell us about what we value and care about. Since we need to understand what really matters to us and others to create solutions that really meet people’s needs and solve problems, this is valuable data!
To use emotions as data, we need to lean into our curiosity to try to truly understand what we are feeling and what our emotions are trying to communicate to us. This requires approaching ourselves and our emotions with openness and compassion, rather than with judgment or assumptions. To tap into this curiosity about and compassion for myself, I have found it helpful to think of my emotions as a well-intentioned friend who knows and deeply cares about me, and who wants to help me. I listen to what the “emotions friend” is trying to communicate, and I do so with true curiosity about and compassion for my inner self and without judgment, but I don’t let the emotions friend make decisions for me or control my behaviors.
It is important to remember that our ability to be curious and compassionate start to go offline as soon as our neurological system starts to get dysregulated. Therefore, a first step in tapping into the wisdom of emotions is to learn to recognize signs of when you are getting dysregulated, and to have tools and practices that can help you return to and maintain a calm, centered state of being. From a well-regulated state of mind, you can use tools and approaches such as the Nine Whys (which I explained in this blog) to help you pull back the layers of the onion from what you are feeling to what is really going on for you—i.e., what really matters.
To illustrate what this might look like in action: Imagine your boss demands that you add another project on top of your already overly full work docket, and you find yourself feeling angry. If you take your emotions as a directive (i.e., I feel this way and therefore I must react!), you might do something rash like quit your job without really thinking it through or badmouth your boss to a colleague, which could come back to bite you. Or you might tell yourself that your emotions aren’t helpful and therefore try to stifle them, which likely will lead to you becoming resentful and unhappy with your job. Alternatively, you could observe your emotional self from the balcony, treat it like a friend trying to tell you something important, and get curious about what it wants to tell you about what matters to you. Through calmly and curiously exploring what your emotions are trying to communicate to you, you might find that your emotional self is telling you that your work-life balance isn’t sustainable, and you need to take action to address that. Or perhaps you find that you need to have more clear boundaries and uphold those boundaries to take care of your needs.
Developing your emotional agility
Like all conflict competence skills, learning to hear and interpret emotions as data is “simple but not easy”—it is easy to understand in theory and much harder to put into practice in our lives. To help you start to do this, I encourage you to do a few things.
First, recognize that all emotions are embodied. They arise from and are tied to our physical state of being. Since many of us have become disconnected from our physical state, you may find it helpful to practice tuning into and becoming aware of what is going on in your body—in general, and especially when navigating conflict. For example, does your chest feel tight? Do you feel hot or cold? How is your breathing?
Second, work on bringing that same kind of awareness to your emotional state. When you start to feel strong emotions, tune into what you are really feeling. For example, you might notice a flash of anger. What does that feel like physically and emotionally? Is it really anger that you are feeling, or is it physical discomfort or something else (e.g., fear)? Can you correlate emotional experiences with physical experiences (e.g., is there a relationship between when you feel angry and how you are breathing or how your body feels)?
Third, and complementary to the two above practices, when you feel a strong emotion (whether in the context of conflict or in general), work on making sure your neurological system is in a calm state and then explore that emotion using the Nine Whys. To do this, ask yourself “why” questions, such as “why do I feel this way?” and “why does that matter?” or “why would that lead me to feel this way?” up to nine times until you truly feel you’ve gotten to the heart of what matters—i.e., what your emotions are trying to bring attention to.
These kinds of practices help us tune into and better “hear” what our emotions—and our bodies—are trying to tell us. Doing so helps us not only learn how to use emotions as data but also helps us become active operators of our nervous system, both of which go a long way in helping us productively navigate conflict (and effectively navigate all parts of our life)!
Danya Rumore, Ph.D., is the director of the Environmental Dispute Resolution program in the Wallace Stegner Center at the University of Utah. She is a research professor in the S.J. Quinney College of Law and a clinical associate professor in the city and metropolitan planning department at the University of Utah. She teaches about, practices, and conducts research on conflict, negotiation, dispute resolution, leadership, and collaborative problem solving. She is also the founder and a co-director of the Gateway and Natural Amenity Region (GNAR) Initiative.