You're Not Arguing About the Thing
Most conflict isn’t about what’s being said. It’s about what it means.
Most people think they’re arguing with their parents about the issue.
Politics, parenting, religion, time, tone, boundaries, behaviors, respect, etc…
They’re not.
They’re arguing about what the issue means. And that’s why it escalates so quickly. A question doesn’t land as a question. It lands as doubt. A comment doesn’t land as a comment. It lands as criticism.
Now you’re both reacting to something that wasn’t actually said out loud, but feels very real.
And then we do what most of us know how to do.
We explain ourselves. We clarify. We defend. We try to get it “right.”
It feels like good communication. It usually makes it worse.
Because when someone feels misunderstood, more explanation doesn’t calm them down. It just makes them feel like you’re missing them even more precisely.
What actually changes the tone is something most of us were never really taught.
Curiosity.
Not the kind where you’re gathering information so you can respond better. No litigating questions. No socratic dialogue.
The kind where you’re actually willing to let the other person make sense for a minute.
We don’t do this well.
And I don’t mean some people. I mean almost all of us.
We are not good at conflict. We are not good at difference.
Most of us learned, directly or indirectly, how to protect ourselves in conversations—not how to understand another person inside of them. We are wired to survive, not thrive, when it comes to conflict and disagreement.
At best, maybe we’ve caught glimpses of it. Someone in our life who could stay steady, ask a real question, not collapse or overpower. But that’s really not the norm.
Curiosity, as a posture, is harder than it sounds.
It requires you to separate yourself just enough to see the other person clearly.
To hear something you don’t like and not immediately move to correct it.
To feel misunderstood and not rush to fix it right away.
This is where most conversations break. Right at the moment something real starts to come out. You can feel it.
They’re not just talking anymore, they’re showing you something underneath.
And we tighten. We interrupt. We shift the tone. We subtly signal, no, not that.
And the door closes.
To stay there, and not shut it down, takes a lot more strength than people realize.
It means you’re willing to not know what to do next. To not have the upper hand. To not resolve it immediately.
Just to understand.
It often looks very simple on the surface.
It sounds like,
Help me understand what feels so important about this to you.
Or,
What about this worries you the most?
Sometimes it’s as direct as,
What does this mean to you?
Or even,
Is there something here you feel like I’m not seeing?
You’re not asking because you agree.
You’re asking because you’re willing to understand.
It doesn’t mean you give up your position or your clarity.
It just means you’re not arguing with a version of them you’ve already decided is wrong.
Instead, you’re actually in contact with them.
And that’s usually the first moment anything starts to shift.
Have you ever done that with a parent? Or your adult child?
Not asked a question to make a point: but asked one and stayed long enough to hear the answer?
Again Rachel is educating us…and with so much grace and respect for all people. Thank you Rachel. Keep it coming…you are brilliantly gifted and the more people that hear your wisdom might change the world a little at a time….time for you to create a an app…Rachel’s thoughts we could get a piece of your wisdom and knowledge every day that we could practice
Someone asked me recently what the line is between curiosity and doubting yourself. It’s a great question - but the two are actually two different things.
As you said so well in your article, curiosity is about looking from a different perspective, it doesn’t mean giving anything up.
If anything, we stand to gain from curiosity. Even if what we gain is a better understanding of what is possible in a relationship and will require us to change expectations.