Moving Feisty-Pants to The Good Side: Calming Upset People

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, feisty-pants. Okay, relax. Just calm down! Calm down!” –Anna in Frozen (2013)

“You will know [the good side from the bad] when you are calm. At peace. Passive.” –Yoda in Star Wars: Episode V-The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Does it seem that the people we meet are at higher levels of stress and tending toward high conflict? Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a short, practical book for calming people down?

We know it’s natural to try to argue about reality, how right I am and how wrong you are. One person comes at the other with attitude, and the other person responds in kind. When someone is upset with you, it is harder for you to return caring for attacking. High conflict people take this to a whole new level. Their anger, fear and frustration interfere with rational decision-making, and they instigate and escalate conflicts, whether unintentional or on purpose.

There is a very practical book to help us understand and to help us deal with rising conflicts: Calming Upset People With EAR: How Statements Showing Empathy, Attention and Respect Can Quickly Defuse a Conflict (2021) by Bill Eddy. Eddy is a lawyer, therapist and mediator. His training programs have focused on high conflict personality traits. And he is the co-founder of the High Conflict Institute. Over the years, Eddy developed his verbal calming method as a way of connecting to the other person. Rather than argue about reality, he focused on their pain and showed that he cared.

EAR Statement

• Empathy
• Attention
• Respect

As the author-lawyer-therapist-mediator explains in his book, one person’s emotions cause automatic emotional reactions in the second person. That second person has some level of emotional regulation within them, but their mood state is affected. Eddy refers to this fundamental principle by explaining “that emotions are contagious—both positive and negative emotions.” The corollary is that “we can help each other calm down.” We do not have to be controlled by the other person and robotically respond in emotional contagion.

• Emotions
• Reactions
• Regulation [Dysregulation]
• Mood State

We have a choice: we can adopt the other’s emotions, or we can choose to override our evolutionary responses. We can use our capacity to regulate emotions by either changing our thoughts or changing our face. Changing our thoughts means we reappraise the situation and think before reacting. Changing our face means acting as if we have a more positive emotion than the one being pushed at us. Obviously, practice helps: the more experience we develop in emotion regulation, the more we influence our own mood (rather than absorbing the other person’s mood).

Changing Thoughts

• Cognitive Reappraisal
• Think Before Reacting

Changing Face

• Expression Suppression
• Show Positive Emotion

“This is the essence of EAR Statements. They are a way of shifting another person who is upset from a negative mood to a less negative or neutral or even positive mood. Most people can do this with practice.” As important as practice is, we also need some reflection or self-assessment. After we conclude an encounter using an EAR statement, we should reflect on: whether the environment was safe; the extent to which we showed caring rather than defensiveness; whether we had a friendly tone of voice and body language; and whether we avoided premature problem-solving.

Like the rest of us, the upset person needs empathy, attention and respect. Giving it to them is designed to calm them down, to avoid escalation, and then to either work on problem-solving or “simply leave each other in peace.” The first focus is on giving empathy, attention and respect. Only after this task is done do we decide what to do next. If we work on problem-solving after connecting, we are adopting an us-against-the-problem approach rather than a you-versus-me-versus-you approach.

The words we use are not necessarily “empathy,” “attention,” and “respect.” They are phrases like:

“I understand how frustrating this can be” OR “I hear that you are upset with me”

“Tell me what’s going on” OR “I will listen as carefully as I can”

“I can see your efforts to solve this problem” OR “I see you making a contribution”

When speaking with sincerity, we “stay focused on the other person’s emotions and recognizing them.” In addition to words, EAR Statements employ a matching tone of voice, facial expression, gestures and body language. Eddy addresses these as well.

Specific to family law, Eddy’s book includes specific examples for divorcing parents, their professionals and judges, domestic violence cases, and mental health clients. He also provides dozens of examples spanning home and family, work and neighbors and groups, law enforcement and political polarization, strangers, and even “EAR for yourself.” Eddy’s book includes a discussion of cautions and safety concerns.

When our daily lives involve such diverse conflict, it makes sense to learn the skills that keep us at our best. Eddy’s Calming Upset People with EAR helps us do that. The result: less time with Feisty-Pants, more time on The Good Side.

David C. Sarnacki helps people through separation and divorce as either their advocate or mediator. He strives for creative problem-solving, honest advice, and powerful advocacy in even the most difficult matters. And he is regularly recognized for his excellence in family law, mediation, and collaborative divorce, twice being awarded the honor of Best Lawyers in America’s “Lawyer of the Year” for Grand Rapids divorce matters.