How To Fight Your Family

Five principles for fighting wisely this holiday season.

This is the first installment in a four-part series called How to Fight Your Family. Once they are uploaded, you can find the second installment here, the third here, and the fourth here.

When Rich Bartlett and I started teaching Fight Wise, our conflict/assertiveness training course last year, we had an intuition that family holidays would be one of the hardest challenges our students would face, but we knew it was out of the original course’s scope. Everyone’s relationship with their family is so different, so fraught with triggers and unexpected regressions (as Ram Dass said, if you think you’re enlightened, spend a week with your family) that we thought, this needs to be in some kind of advanced, emotional black belt program. We shelved it for another day.

Fast forward to this summer, when I was working hard on understanding my own attachment patterns and family dynamics. I stumbled upon a wealth of knowledge about how to re-pattern my relationship to my family - that is, how to change how I habitually construct my internal models of my family members. The techniques involved were fairly experimental, but theoretically sound. I ran them by my psychologist friends, got a few curious and interested nods, then asked a few game coaching clients who were willing to try the techniques out. We were all floored by the results. Every single person I worked with changed their model of a difficult family member with whom they had struggled mightily in the past, found catharsis, and was able to access a wiser, more humane, more mature version of themselves. Extraordinary work.

I brought Rich in, and we agreed it was time to teach a Family Holiday edition of Fight Wise. So we redesigned the course, not only to incorporate the new techniques, but also to accommodate the sensitivity and complexity of family conflict.

Then, we decided to just give away all of the content.

Of course, Fight Wise is still worth attending - ask anyone who has, and they’ll tell you that what makes the course special is the container, the people and the practice. There’s no substitute for learning your triggers, exposing yourself to them in a safe way, and practicing courage and composure in the face of all the emotional bluster and tempest that arises. (If you want to sign up, you can - there are still a few tickets left but they will be gone soon.) But the theory is still very useful on its own, and could be helpful to many more people than we have the capacity to teach. So in the interest of peace on earth, goodwill towards men, and good content marketing, here is the first installment in How To Fight Your Family. May it help you find your backbone - and thereby bring you peace and joy - this holiday season.

The Five Principles of Fighting Wisely

Rich and I believe that following five simple principles will help you show up to life’s inevitable conflicts as a wiser, stronger, and more mature version of yourself. These principles are:

1. Be Prepared

2. Operate Your Nervous System Intentionally

3. Empathize Without Abandoning Yourself

4. Fight To Win

5. Integrity Is A Win You Can Guarantee

We’ll take each one individually, each in an upcoming Substack post. But today, we’re going to focus on the first and most important of the principles:

Be Prepared

Preparation is the antidote to anxiety. That’s so important that I’m going to say it again: Preparation is the antidote to anxiety. With enough preparation, you can remain composed and skillful in nearly any conflict that life brings you, no matter whether you’re ambushed, or you start the fight on your terms.

There are three components to preparing for any conflict: Meditation, reflection and rehearsal.

Why Meditation is Essential

Meditation is the single most powerful tool you have for effective, wise fighting. It calms the nervous system, re-oxygenates the brain, cools down neural inflammation, and gives you outside perspective on your problems, your relationships, and especially your ego. A daily practice of at least 20 minutes is best. You don’t have to get fancy - guided meditations are just fine. And if you start meditating the week of Thanksgiving, 20 minutes in the morning, and then throw in an extra session just before you show up to family dinner, you will see and feel immediate benefits. There’s no substitution for it.

There are far too many excellent resources around the internet for me to spend any time teaching you techniques here. My clients often enjoy Sam Harris’ guided meditations on the Waking Up app, and I have always been partial to this cheesy Alan Watts guided meditation on YouTube. (It runs a little short, so if you decide to go with it, spend an extra five minutes in silence once it’s finished.)

The Master Strategist’s Field Manual (Your Journal)

To create your master strategy, all you need is your memory, your imagination, and something to write on. You can use a dedicated journal if you like, or make a binder, or buy a cheap composition book (I buy boxes of these in bulk.) Whatever you choose, designate it your family conflict journal. In it, you will both reflect on past conflicts, as well as factors that contributed to them, and rehearse future fights. If you give it enough time, attention and courage, you can also reconsolidate old memories, recontextualize old wounds, and renew your inner environment - all with a simple pen and paper. (I do not recommend journaling on a computer - our brains treat word processing fundamentally differently than handwritten words on a page.)

When reflecting on relationships with family, the task is simple: write the truest, most complete version of your past fights with them that you can. I recommend a four-perspective essay - here’s how you do it:

The Four-Perspective Essay

First, pick a family member that you expect to have conflict with this holiday season. Maybe it’s cruel, boorish Auntie Fascist or virtue-signaling, priggish Uncle Marx. If you have multiple family members you expect to clash with, you have your work cut out for you - but for this exercise, just pick one to begin with.

Now, think about all the conflicts you’ve had with them in the past. Of the lot, which one had the worst consequences, for you and for your relationship with them? Now, get your pen ready - we’re going to reconsider that conflict from four different perspectives.

In the first, you’re going to take a deep breath and be as neutral as humanly possible. Try to tell the barest, most stripped down, factual version of the story, like you were a detective investigating, or a mystic meditating. Just the facts, ma’am. No opinions or projections, only a cold, bare record of events. Who said what when? Who did what to whom? No assumptions, no interpretations, no context, nothing you couldn’t prove happened in the actual real world. Do as much deep breathing and take as much space as you need to get this as neutral and objective as possible. Then, you’ll move on to the second perspective: yours.

Here, you’re going to write the story of the fight the way you experienced it. Feel free to get as colorful and emotional as you like. If you find yourself being kind or generous or empathetic, stop it. Don’t make any excuses for the other person, don’t make any apologies, stop being reasonable for the duration of this exercise. Just really get into your anger and sadness and stress, and let everything out on the page, no matter what comes up. You won’t hurt anyone by privately journaling difficult or even insane thoughts. It’s much more important that you feel the feelings all the way through than rehearse any virtues at this stage.

When that’s finished, you’re going to write the third perspective. What’s your family member’s story about your fight? How do you think they experienced it? This one’s hard, and may take a lot of referring back to the objective record to imagine what was happening for them. What do you think were they feeling when they said each thing? How did you appear to them during the fight? How did they receive and experience what you were telling them? The point is not to get this right - the point is to try to humanize their perspective as much as possible. Imagine that they are being totally selfish, totally in their feelings, the way you just were about them. The point here is not to agree with them, or cave to their point, or countenance their beliefs that you think are fundamentally wrong or immoral. The point is to fully understand their position, so you can better predict what they might think or do in a future conflict. Sun Tzu wrote “if you know yourself and you know your enemy, you need not fear the outcome of a thousand battles.” Who knew that empathy was required to fight well?

When you have written the first three perspectives, put the project away for a bit, take a walk, have a bite to eat, meditate, whatever you need to do to get some distance and fully calm down. Then return to it after a couple of hours (or days, if you have the time) and write the story of the fight from the fourth and final perspective: an imaginary version of you that is the very best, wisest, and most successful. Imagine yourself in your eighties, still in excellent health, surrounded by grandchildren, in the home of your dreams, a long and accomplished life behind you. What would that version of you say about the fight, with all their perspective, humor, grace and wisdom, many years after the political and cultural fights of the present are obsolete? What is the most humane way to tell the story about both participants? And - crucially - what was it that younger you needed to learn from that fight, in order to grow into the wisest and best version of you?

With that finished, as emotionally difficult as you may still find it, you will have access to a much richer array of perspectives on your conflict, and a much richer store of data with which to make predictions. Repeat this process on as many difficult situations as you can remember clearly, until you have a maximally comprehensive history of your fights with this family member.

Then, it’s time to begin your training.

Rehearsing Future Conflicts

Dwight Eisenhower, the American general that defeated Nazi Germany, once remarked that “plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” Which is to say: it’s essential that you make plans for the conflicts you anticipate this holiday season, and every bit as important that you do not expect those conflicts to go according to your plans. The point of planning is to align resources for potential problems and contingencies, and so you can rehearse. So you can practice, practice, practice in preparation for those conflicts, and be ready for anything your family can throw at you.

Here’s a framework for rehearsing holiday dinner before it begins:

Just as before, imagine the family member you expect to have conflict with. In your journal, write down what you think the conflict will be about. Write what you would normally like to achieve - your goals in the fight, or win conditions - if it weren’t the holidays. And then write out what a peaceful, joyful holiday would look like if the conflict were avoided, or skillfully managed.

Next, try to picture the setting of the fight as vividly as you can. What room? What time of day? Record as many sensory details as you can, down to the smell of the turkey in the oven and the sound of college football on the TV in the background. The more of these you can visualize now, the more you reduce your natural anxiety about the unknown, which (paradoxically) will make it much easier to respond to surprises.

Then, write out how you think the fight will go. Based on your past interactions with your family member, what do you expect them to say and do? How do you expect yourself to react or respond? Try to list at least five potential triggers that would make you escalate, fawn inappropriately, or foreclose on the conflict without maintaining your integrity.

Write at least three possible scenarios in your journal - a best case, a worst case, and one that’s mixed. Then, read them out loud, both your lines and your family member’s lines, with as little reaction and judgment in your voice as possible, like you were reading out of the phonebook. This is detachment practice. Anywhere you notice that you’re getting emotional, or can’t read something neutrally, take a deep breath and try again (we’ll cover more regulation techniques in the next installment.) If you still can’t do it, take a break, calm yourself down, and try again when you’re back to your best self.

If you can, consider what the trigger is about, what it’s connected to in the past. Then, remind yourself that you are not going to heal that old wound by fighting about it at Thanksgiving. If you’re going to have an opportunity to break the pattern and resolve it going forward, it’s going to be once you’ve been able to be strong and self-assured, and when you’ve been able to let go and let their actions be about them, not you. Once you no longer have to take it personally, you’ll be in a position to find a solution, if there’s any to be found. But it won’t happen right away.

Finally, imagine that every scenario ends with everyone finding a way to enjoy a peaceful holiday together - even in the worst case, which may take some imagination. Imagine that each scenario ends with you leaving on good terms, with your integrity intact, your relationships healthy, and your self-respect preserved.

If you only have one day to do this, you’ll still get a small benefit from these rehearsals, but you’ll get even more if you can practice them for 15-30 minutes a day, from now until the holiday. Combined with great self-care, meditation and deep, comprehensive reflection, these rehearsals will put you in the best position to skillfully navigate what could otherwise be a very difficult, painful family feud. And with some luck and cooperation from your family, you might even pull off a big win: an unforgettable Thanksgiving or Christmas that lives on in your hearts long after everyone goes home.

Looking Ahead

In the next installment, we’ll cover the second principle: Operate Your Nervous System Intentionally. In this, you’ll learn how to recognize your triggers, you’ll create a scale for yourself to measure where your level of activation is at, and you’ll learn how to fortify your nervous system in the week leading up to the holiday. We’ll also talk about nervous system interventions you can use in the actual conflict to keep your composure and remain effective. Once it’s uploaded, you’ll be able to find that installation here.

If you’d like to come practice with us, we still have a few seats available for the upcoming cohort of Fight Wise. You’ll be able to rehearse scenarios with others, build your courage, and try out new orientations toward your loved ones that open up your inner resources. You’ll also get the chance to work directly with both Rich and I on any difficult particulars of your situation.

We’d love to see you there!