Conflict Avoidance

Rachel McNamara is a health educator. She identifies as a recovering conflict avoider and has worked hard to recast relational tension. Rachel explains how several key conflicts in her life showed her that setting boundaries doesn’t end relationships - boundaries clarify, even strengthens relationships. She highlights key tactics for navigating conflict, including pausing, reframing situations, and focusing on understanding rather than winning. 

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Transcript

Michael Lee: [00:00:00] When We Disagree is a show about arguments, how we have them, why we have them, and their impact on our relationships and ourselves. Let's talk about a sneaky argument that can make a simple issue seem like the beginning of the end where one action leads inevitably to a series of unavoidable and increasingly terrible consequences.

Michael Lee: The slippery slope logical fallacy is when someone argues that a relatively small action or event will lead to a chain of related events or actions. Should schools, for instance, be allowed to ban certain clothing? Well, both sides could offer slippery slope answers that veer towards an extreme, honestly.

Michael Lee: Banning one type of clothing, say hats. Could inevitably lead to schools deciding what students wear in every part of their lives. Next thing you know, schools would be banning hairstyles and shoes and the color of particular socks. A tiny regulation would spiral into totalitarian control over [00:01:00] personal expression.

Michael Lee: Or the other direction would say that the failure to regulate an article of clothing, say hats again, would lead students to make riskier and riskier outfit choices. And this overly permissive environment until it was total chaos. Take the work from home debate, the post COVID work from home debate. It can be approached from a similar slippery slope angle on both sides.

Michael Lee: If companies let employees work remotely once a week, then eventually they would work multiple times a week, then every day. Then they'd have to shut down office spaces altogether. Everyone would start working from home all the time and it would collapse the entire office culture. Or, conversely, if companies forbid working from home, well what else in my life can they forbid?

Michael Lee: You get the idea. The slippery slope argument matters because most debates are not either or scenarios. They are, at their core, at their most productive, assessments of risks. Of balancing competing goals, not choosing between [00:02:00] absolutes. Of dealing with the details in the middle, not what psychologists call dichotomous thinking about black and white.

Michael Lee: The slippery slope argument exaggerates the potential consequences of a single choice, and make it, can make it way harder to base decisions on probability. It can make us fear an extreme future, even when it's completely unfounded. Recognizing these types of arguments can keep us grounded and focus on the facts rather than getting lost in hypothetical worst case scenarios.

Michael Lee: I'm Michael Lee, Professor of Communication and Director of the Civility Initiative at the College of Charleston. Our guest today on When We Disagree is Rachel McNamara. Rachel is the Director of Student Wellness and Well Being at the College of Charleston with a background in clinical and developmental psychology.

Michael Lee: Rachel, tell us an argument story. 

Rachel McNamara: Thank you for having me, Michael. And I want to remind you that I've [00:03:00] been kind of hesitant to come on this show for a while. I've been working my way up to it. So I've been thinking about it a lot as I usually do, which is maybe overthink about things. So what I want to talk about is that I am a former Conflict of order.

Rachel McNamara: And so, um, I'm coming at this maybe in a recovery of some way. And, um, I'm changing it up on you a little bit, cause I wanted to talk about three different arguments that are the same one. And the theme that I'm going to give to you is what if the world doesn't end? Um, and in fact, maybe gets a little better because you have this discussion with somebody else that you're afraid of.

Rachel McNamara: And I'm going to if it's okay, I'll give you a brief summary of all three and let's do that. Okay. Excellent. Um, one was in graduate school. Um, again, I generally avoid conflict. And so graduate school, I had a somewhat stern and a little bit scary, uh, advisor. [00:04:00] And she had come into the room and said, I need your master's thesis proposal in two weeks.

Rachel McNamara: And it was, um, December 5th, 10th, somewhere around that. And I said to her, which shocked me coming to my mouth, I would really love to do that for you, but there's no way that that will ever be possible. 

Michael Lee: And she had a reaction? 

Rachel McNamara: Yes. Um, We went back and forth a couple times with I really want it and I went, I know and I would really like to give it to you but it is not possible for me to be able to do that for you.

Rachel McNamara: Um, and ultimately we arrived at two weeks into the spring semester was when I would hand it in. 

Michael Lee: Okay, what's the second one? 

Rachel McNamara: Okay, the second one is, um, After graduate school, in the start of my professional life, I worked with sexually aggressive youth. Um, as a therapist, which is a very challenging job, as you may imagine.

Rachel McNamara: Um, so I'm working with a lot of trauma in that job [00:05:00] and we had a friendship group and one of the people in our friendship joke group always joked about sexual topics and made a joke about, um, something that would cause sexual trauma. Um, and I. Immediately said, that's not funny, and it will never be funny, and I can't be in this group if people are going to joke about that.

Michael Lee: You set a pretty hard boundary. 

Rachel McNamara: Oh yes. Yeah. Very strong. So 

Michael Lee: the first example is you setting a boundary, a timeline with a person of authority over you. The second one, you're in a relative position of authority, if I'm reading that story correctly, and set a boundary about appropriateness. 

Rachel McNamara: Mhm. 

Michael Lee: Yes. 

Rachel McNamara: And being in a friend group.

Rachel McNamara: Yeah. 

Michael Lee: Right. And then the third one. 

Rachel McNamara: So the third one was with my family. I had been invited out to join just the women kind of in, I don't know if it's holiday, but it felt holiday to get together and either craft [00:06:00] or play board games or something like that. Um, yeah. And before I got there, the situation had kind of changed a bit.

Rachel McNamara: People hadn't shared. I was a young mom at the time, so it was very hard to kind of get out of the house. Um, and when I got to the event, it was like 20 or so people and tensions for whatever reason, um, were raised between family members and Um, the conversation kind of continued with me there and in general, most of my life I've been a peacemaker for better or worse.

Rachel McNamara: But what I ended up doing is just kind of standing up and saying, this isn't what I thought I was coming to and I'm going to go home now. 

Michael Lee: I'm out. So you, were you a conflict avoider before these? 

Rachel McNamara: Yes. 

Michael Lee: Okay. 

Rachel McNamara: Yeah. 

Michael Lee: I have surprised you with 

Rachel McNamara: this as I planned. [00:07:00] 

Michael Lee: Yeah. I will admit to being a little struck by you saying, I am a former conflict avoider.

Michael Lee: And then telling three stories about clearly not avoiding conflict. Yeah. 

Rachel McNamara: Yeah. So that's adulthood. Right. Is me kind of making. Yeah. Okay. My own space and all three of these which you kind of picked up were all about boundaries But that third one was the scariest and so I perceive and looking back you say things You've thought over and over and over about is, you know, how did I get to where I am now?

Rachel McNamara: And it was by learning through these kind of series of things that it was okay And that it was a, like, my needs could be met, but also, um, that a boundary can be set and you could still have relationships with the people who are involved. 

Michael Lee: Do you, and I mean this in a kind of felt sense of it, do you feel okay during conflict?

Rachel McNamara: No. No. No. Does anyone? I think so. You haven't been doing the 

Michael Lee: podcast. I do very strongly think so. I don't think it's incredibly [00:08:00] common, but I, I do think that people, And it really, it's really contextual. I'm just giving my own example. Like, I really enjoy conflict. Um, not necessarily destructive conflict.

Michael Lee: But like intellectual or, you know, some low stakes conflict, it's very topic specific. I can really enjoy conflict. I really enjoy negotiation. I can find real joy in like negotiating or haggling over a car, for instance, I can find, I can find real joy in. Uh, even a professional dispute provided. I don't feel like life is on the line, but I could find real joy in like arguing with a superior or a colleague over something, and then I can also feel I could go completely catatonic in an argument with a family member.

Rachel McNamara: Well, I understand that last one really easily, um, but the, I would say in classrooms, say like reading books or in history classes, I'm okay having a discussion where I'm [00:09:00] disagreeing for the other side. So I think more conflict where it gets me very anxious or not anxious because it's normal. It's uncomfortable is if.

Rachel McNamara: I feel that there's an emotion component. Um, I, other things I may not perceive as conflict, or maybe I got better at them as I got older. Like, I have no problem asking to speak to, say, a supervisor if something isn't working. But generally, I try not to, I don't present that as a conflict. I present it more like, I understand you've done all, You can do for this situation, but somebody above you can help me and I would like to talk to them.

Rachel McNamara: And then generally speaking when I get to the person above them I usually say nice things about the person under them because it's not really their fault. 

Michael Lee: Yeah, you're not personalizing it, but it is a conflict It just doesn't happen to be a personalized conflict, 

Rachel McNamara: right? 

Michael Lee: Is there a moment when? I'm struck by the phrase former conflict avoider.

Rachel McNamara: I 

thought you would be. Yeah. 

Michael Lee: Yes, I am struck by that phrase. It's almost like a rehabilitation group. Hello, my name is Rachel. I'm a [00:10:00] former conflict avoider. And then you tell three stories of successful conflict in a way, in which you survived, the world didn't end, perhaps relationships were deepened, or you felt like more your authentic self, like you're not going to sit in a room and listen to jokes about things that are triggering.

Michael Lee: Is there a moment describe the process of becoming a former conflict avoider? 

Rachel McNamara: Yes. So, um, I think I said briefly a few seconds ago that I spent a lot of my life as a peacemaker and it's, um, so one of the good positives about my brain, but maybe one of the negatives of the brain, which is either genetic or through environment or a mixture of both, is that I can see a hundred reasons or maybe even more of why someone may do a certain thing or say a certain thing.

Rachel McNamara: Um, and so generally speaking, if you're around people who are having a strong emotional response, or if, um, there were the black and white thinkers versus my style, I can usually talk [00:11:00] to people and explain potential different motives or reasons why something that happens, um, in a way that's more positive.

Rachel McNamara: Um, so because of that trait that was developed when I was younger and a very relational person too, I think that it had gotten to the point where I could just excuse everyone's behavior a lot around me, um, and kind of have the conflict in my mind and resolve it without them pressing, which sounds very little, little narcissistic there, maybe, but, um, and so.

Rachel McNamara: Um, the other issue I was struggling with growing up is in our family background, there are people to just have very sudden. Uh, loud anger, and that was probably very, it was very scary to me as a child, um, and so I didn't want to kind of lose that control over myself and ever end in a situation where I kind of exploded with loud anger.[00:12:00] 

Rachel McNamara: Um, and so in adulthood, I went to the clinical and developmental graduate school, and then I did some time as a therapist, um, and by nature started applying some of the strategies on myself, and I found. Really against my will that the people I worked best with were adults and boys with conflict issues.

Rachel McNamara: And so I always joke with my psychology students now, um, that volunteer with me. Um, I have a peer counseling program at the College of Charleston that all therapy is actually conflict. And so if you don't like conflict, you shouldn't become a therapist. Um, or if you're not, cannot be comfortable with conflict.

Rachel McNamara: So, um, I spent a lot of time. Teaching them kind of the strategies that I had developed, but then when it gets to a point where, uh, you the boundary is the issue can't [00:13:00] be resolved in your mind. Like, I, I could not do another thing in graduate school at the time of the semester when this conversation came about, um, and even though the person was not.

Rachel McNamara: Someone I felt very close to. I had to set that up. I had to tell her it wasn't going to happen. Um, and it was, there was other people in the room too, at the time. And they were, everyone was really shocked and kidding me, especially because I did it. Um, but yeah. So that helped me, after that experience, learn that, um, that there was value because she wasn't like, you're out of grad school, right?

Rachel McNamara: She was like, okay, we're just going to set another date eventually. She didn't even yell at me. So that was nice. 

Michael Lee: You said that you Your brain generates lots of reasons as to why people do what they do, right? We're all faced with questions, whether they're minor and insignificant or major and life changing.

Michael Lee: The question of why do others do the things that they do? What are their [00:14:00] motives? What motives do we assign to them? It's so important. And you said that you can really come up with lots and lots and lots of different reasons. And that perhaps, that seems like a very useful skill to me as a therapist.

Michael Lee: Maybe a useful skill as a human to understand the massive gray areas and confusions that we all face and not to attribute to malice, things that are easily attributable to a difference of opinion or mistake or ignorance or stupidity, frankly. Um, but you also said that that can lead to a lots of excusing.

Michael Lee: Of perhaps bad behavior. Will you say more about 

Rachel McNamara: that? yeah, I think that if conflict is an opportunity to allow the other person to hear where you're coming from and have a chance to adjust the way they're Reacting or interacting with you to make a relationship stronger. So if you read anything from [00:15:00] Gottman, um, Gottman has the Gottman Institute that looks at masters and, um, challenged, uh, partner relationships.

Rachel McNamara: And then, um, even looking at Renee Brown and some of the work that she does. Um, if we're not. Really kind of sharing our own experience with the people that we care about or have relationships with them Then they don't have the opportunity to show us their willingness to adapt 

Michael Lee: Mm hmm. You said that a line that really struck me is that all therapy is conflict Of course, let's just take a therapeutic setting from my outsider point of view Of course, so much of it is working with, let's say, a therapist about my approach to conflict, or how conflict impacts me.

Michael Lee: But is there a sense in which the therapeutic relationship is not in full, but in part built on a kind of conflict between what the therapist wants [00:16:00] to get to, or what the therapist sees as a therapeutic goal, and people's protective defense mechanisms. Distracting perhaps from that potential goal. So is there a conflict built into the therapeutic process?

Rachel McNamara: Um, so anybody pursuing therapy is pursuing change and. If they're in a therapist's office, it is because they haven't been able to kind of enact or do what they need to do to create that change for themselves. And so they're essentially going to an expert to help. What are the strategies and tools to help this happen?

Rachel McNamara: Um, so the, the change can be wide range, right? Like, I don't want to feel this depressed anymore. I don't want to be constantly arguing with my kids. I, um, don't want to be a procrastinator anymore. So that's what. They've developed into doing, and so getting them to change that means that they're like agreeing to that conflict when coming into the session because they need someone else to be like pushing them, [00:17:00] um, to see where they can make some adaptions to.

Michael Lee: Right. And it's always like a therapeutic personal trainer in that sense. Like I want to get stronger. I need to be pushed. There's going to be some friction along the way. 

Rachel McNamara: Yeah. And so then the defense mechanism or the habitual behavior that someone gets into is something that the therapist has to acknowledge, bring up and present to someone.

Rachel McNamara: Um, and. Learning things that are not necessarily positive about yourself is not pleasant, that right. So that, that sets up an environment where a therapist actually kind of has to be a master of how do you present information that is unwelcome in a way that keeps people open to wanting to continue to make the change that they want to see in themselves.

Michael Lee: I'm always interested in, in what I would call conversion narratives. I once was lost and now I'm found and the extent to which there's any. The classic conversion narrative is [00:18:00] really a narrative of zealousness, right? My old ways were bad and wrong, and my new ways have illuminated my world in a way that I'll never regret.

Michael Lee: But I always wondered to what extent that's a posture, that there is some regret lurking that you have to perform. They kind of, especially if you make a big public conversion, your conversion from conflict avoider to former conflict avoider, not quite so religious in scope, but I am curious about whether there's, is there any, do you miss being a conflict avoider sometimes?

Rachel McNamara: No, I'm a lot less anxious. I'm not avoiding conflicts. Um, I'm a lot less anxious. I'm sure there's other factors that I've employed from techniques and strategies along the way. Um, but also having a lot of. Conflicts, at least in a personally are also about boundaries. And so having boundaries, um, feels better.

Rachel McNamara: Like it feels like I'm not being taken advantage of or not thought of at all. I guess is another way. [00:19:00] Um, someone can feel if you're constantly bending for the people around you. But to be clear. I also feel like it's a disservice to the people around you in relationships with you to always bend and not give them the chance to hear your perspective or experience.

Michael Lee: You're not showing up authentically and you can kind of claim that they are the ones who are abusing you or mistreating you, but you're not really giving much of yourself to the relationship in the first place to say, these are my lines. And so you're not, there was a kind of dishonesty in suppression.

Rachel McNamara: Yes. And I wasn't even thinking about that. Right. Because you're keeping your authentic self kind of in a box protected while you navigate what other people's needs and wants are. 

Michael Lee: When you talked about, um, and I've run into this a few times. And so I asked this from a very specific point of view, when you talked about being so charitable in your motive [00:20:00] attributions to other people, why do they do what they do?

Michael Lee: And you come up with lots of really friendly reasons, perhaps as to why they do what they do. 

Rachel McNamara: I think I can come up with all over the across the spectrum. I don't want to be, I'm not a saint. I can come across the spectrum. 

Michael Lee: Yeah. And perhaps you can ruminate on all of these different reasons. 

Rachel McNamara: Absolutely.

Rachel McNamara: Right. Yes. Okay. 

Michael Lee: Do you come up with the same number of reasons when you assign a motive to yourself? 

Rachel McNamara: I think that in general I'm harder on myself than I end up being with other people. But I don't think I think of it in the same way. I think the, probably the first reaction is to blame myself for a situation and then I have to think through, is that accurate?

Michael Lee: As we close, I'm curious to talk. We've talked kind of high level avoidance, anxiety, et cetera. But to talk about tactics. [00:21:00] So what have you learned about successfully articulating boundaries, introducing conflict and relationships so that the world does not end and so that relationships perhaps improve?

Rachel McNamara: Yes. Well, that's a great question. I think one of the things I've learned from my years of being a conflict avoider is that If you think about how all the possible reasons why someone can do something there's like the worst possible reasons And then there are the most generous Best possible reasons and in general, it's going to fall in between, right?

Rachel McNamara: And so if you're thinking of that in your mind, I think they, especially if it's a hurt or a pain, the first reason that comes to mind is the worst possible reasons. Like they don't love me. They don't care for me. They never liked me at all. Um. But those generally end up being not whole truths. And so it's hard to work with resolving a conflict when you're only [00:22:00] thinking those worst possible reasons.

Rachel McNamara: And so the conflict avoidant years remind me that I, if I spend a little bit more time or I actively work to be more generous and the way that I'm thinking about it, then I'm probably closer to the actual reason than I was at the beginning. So in the moment I've used a couple different strategies. Um, first of all, it really does help when you have.

Rachel McNamara: An instantaneous reaction to breathe, like the brain's job is to give you a signal. And generally that signal in a conflict is, you know, pain or we mask it with other anger or other nervousness or other reactions, but it's pain. And so taking a pause, even as like, Two deep breaths pause to be like, Oh, I felt that.

Rachel McNamara: Why am I feeling that? Um, cause sometimes when you're feeling that it isn't actually fully related to the situation you're in, it may have tapped into how you're feeling about other things in that given time. So if you can kind of isolate, is this really my reaction really solely to this or am I bringing the [00:23:00] argument with my husband into this discussion as well?

Rachel McNamara: You know, earlier today or later. Secondly is. I like to use Brene's Brown Statement, which I've definitely used in many of my relationships, is the story I'm telling myself is, when you said that, you meant this. Um, and I think by putting whatever the phrase is, if it's not the story I'm telling myself, but putting that in a way, acknowledging your, your thought can be wrong.

Rachel McNamara: allows the other person a space to respond. Um, the other thing is if you can't do that, if you can give some alternatives that can, like, can you help me understand, um, saying something like that, or I need you to clarify, like, um, If you, if you come out too strident in a discussion that you're trying to resolve, then you give no space for the person to kind of weaken their stance, um, and then they come at you offensively versus, like, [00:24:00] resolving, 

Michael Lee: take a breath and then try not to accuse.

Rachel McNamara: Right? And then, um, I always tell my kids all the time, almost no conflicts, except for maybe the classroom, are about who's right. And if you can take the, I just, like, I am right, I'm the one that most hurt, kind of out of the, the goal of the conversation, it will move more smoothly. 

Michael Lee: Listening for the story that you're telling yourself for the story that this person has created in their head versus the quote unquote facts of the case.

Michael Lee: Like, do I have this right? Do you have this right? Can you help me understand rather than you did? 

Rachel McNamara: Yeah. 

Michael Lee: Here is the ledger, right? Here is the court record of the ways that you have mistreated me, and now deal with that. 

Rachel McNamara: Yeah. And I think, too, if you're, I have a child that's really, he's like, I'm right, I'm right all the time.

Rachel McNamara: Uh huh. I'm like, I'm right. The idea that also you can both be right, right, because there's a hundred different reasons [00:25:00] why that's happening and your perception of it feels right to you right now and you, and depending on the action or behavior of the person that may have resulted in the argument, that behavior did cause whatever it's doing to your reaction, but it doesn't mean that they're not right too about why they may have acted that way.

Michael Lee: And then finding some ability to be comfortable with that. uncertainty over who's right and who's wrong and where that desire to be right comes from and what good it does either for you as an individual or for the relationship. 

Rachel McNamara: Right. 

Michael Lee: Yeah. Rachel McNamara, thank you so much for coming on When We Disagree.

Rachel McNamara: Thank you for having me. 

Michael Lee: When We Disagree is recorded at the College of Charleston with creator and host Michael Lee. Recording and sound engineering by Jesse Kunz and Lance Laidlaw. Reach out to us at whenwedisagree at gmail. [00:26:00] com.