During Emotional Conflicts, Take a Break

“Almost everything will work if you unplug it for a few minutes…Including you.”
— Anne Lamott, Truth #2 in Ted Talk “12 Truths I Learned from Life and Writing”

If you haven’t watched Anne Lamott’s TED Talk, I recommend that you do. She had many great observations, and this “truth” reminded me of some advice I received to help me manage my own emotions through conflict, as well as how I related the strategy into tech terms to help myself absorb it. (This Substack is called “Retired Techie” after all!)

Every couple experiences conflict. I feel blessed after sharing on this Substack that many friends (and readers!) have privately shared their experiences with me, too. One of the biggest things I’ve learned by talking to others is that I am not alone. Many of us just don’t learn how to manage our emotions through our own family and cultural influences. We weren’t taught those skills growing up.

A tip that's been shared with me about managing my emotions through conflicts follows along the lines that Anne Lamott shared — take a break and restart. I found it funny that her advice also happens to follow along the lines of how to reboot or reset electronics! I’ll explain!

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Familiar tips with electronics

For those of us familiar with computers and electronics that may not be working right, we are familiar with several types of advice.

1. Restart when things aren’t going right. Sometimes, software has underlying bugs or memory leaks that have existed for a very long time. While regular software updates can help mitigate known problems, bugs often take a long time to find and resolve. We are sometimes forced to just restart a system from time-to-time to keep everything running smoothly.

2. Trying a soft shutdown is preferred. Particularly with computer systems that involve using storage devices like hard drives or SSDs, it’s important not to just unplug the power indiscriminately. For computers, it’s often important to not interrupt write operations to avoid file system corruptions. While my current MacBook Air seems to recover just fine from hard system resets when I need to do them, I remember when my “daily driver” was a Sun-4 while working at Oracle. Simply turning the power off always risked the system not coming back. I always had to first initiate “soft” shutdown from the command line:
   sync;sync;sync;/etc/shutdown now

3. Hard resets are often required. Sometimes, simply pushing the power button doesn’t resolve the problems because often these buttons just attempt to send a signal to the built-in software to initiate a “soft” shutdown. Often, cutting off power to the electronics is required when the software is not functioning properly.

4. Leaving the power off for a short amount of time is often helpful. Often, electronics have capacitors that store energy, even after they are unplugged. Keeping the device off for a few moments provides time for the capacitors to fully discharge, which helps to clear any residual energy that might prevent a proper reset.

5. Sometimes time is required to let the network reset. Particularly for networked devices, leaving the device off the network and allowing other devices to properly reset their connections to the device on their own is required to make everything work together properly.

6. Temporary failures should be treated as such. In general, users still need to complete their tasks at hand. It’s generally not acceptable to use system failures as an excuse to skip tasks when a simple system reboot or reset would get everything working again.

Managing emotions during conflict the same way

These same concepts for electronics also apply to managing one’s own emotions during heated emotional conflicts.

1. Restart when things aren’t going right. Like software, I know I have some “bugs” that have existed for a very long time. I’ve written about some of these before, such as a tendency to dissociate from my emotions, which might “bottle up” and lead to outbursts later on. Taking a break has been recommended for me to calm down and reduce the likelihood of saying or doing something regrettable.

2. Trying a soft shutdown is preferred. The basic advice is to initiate a break using an “I” statement. (Our younger daughter reflects back fondly even about how her elementary school teacher taught the students “I” statements to manage conflicts between children.) An example “I” statement might be “I understand how important this issue is, and I want to give it the attention it deserves. Let’s take a short break and come back to it.”

3. Hard resets are often required. Sometimes, a suggestion needs to be framed in the form of non-violent communication (NVC), expressing feelings and needs. An example NVC statement might be “I am feeling overwhelmed. I need a few minutes to calm down so we can discuss this more effectively."

4. Leaving the power off for a short amount of time is often helpful. It’s important not to use any breaks to ruminate over potential wrongs the other party has committed or to “vent” to others. Instead, the recommendation is to truly “unplug” for a little while to drain the residual energy of emotional self-regulation (“me”) and to allow everyone to reset back to co-regulation (“we”).

5. Sometimes time is required to let the network reset. The recommendation is to communicate clearly and to agree on a specific time to resume the conversation. A possible agreement might start with “Can we take a 20-minute break and then continue?” Setting the timeframe shows not only a commitment to resolving the issue but also gives both parties an appropriate timeframe to reset on their own.

6. Temporary failures should be treated as such. It’s important to follow through on the promise to resume the conversation. This builds trust and shows that both sides remain serious about resolving the conflict.

Geeky? Yes!

A recent article in Psychology Today “Understanding and Coping with Emotional Flooding” provides a more formal and professionally-assembled summary of the strategies for those who prefer to read this kind of advice that way.

In my case, I had to translate much of the advice I’ve heard and read into terms I can more easily understand and remember so that the advice can “stick” with me in practice! I hope it helps you, too!

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My reader survey from my post “Six Months In” is still open! I would really appreciate the feedback!