Conflict is often seen as something to avoid, suppress, or “get over.” But what if conflict—when understood correctly—could become a pathway to deeper connection, clarity, and emotional safety?
In this insightful episode of Inside Personal Growth, Greg Voisen sits down with Lena Morgan, author of the transformative book Fight Languages: Turn Conflict into Connection, to explore how her groundbreaking framework is helping people shift the way they communicate during disagreement. Lena’s work blends psychology, emotional intelligence, and relationship dynamics into a remarkably accessible system that anyone can start applying immediately.
You can learn more about Lena’s work on her website at LenaMorgan.com and follow her journey on
Facebook and Instagram.
Understanding the Five Fight Languages
Lena’s core contribution is the discovery of five primary fight languages—distinct conflict styles that shape how people respond when emotions run high:
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Amplifier – feels deeply, expresses strongly, seeks emotional validation
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Analyzer – relies on logic, structure, and “proving” the point
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Extinguisher – shuts down, needs quiet, becomes overwhelmed easily
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Igniter – reacts quickly, bursts of emotion, wants the conflict done
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Negotiator – smooths tension, seeks harmony, avoids escalation
As Lena explains, conflict becomes chaotic not because people disagree—but because they’re speaking different fight languages without realizing it. Once you can identify your own style and the style of the person in front of you, everything changes. Misunderstandings dissolve, defensiveness lowers, and both sides can finally feel heard.
Why We Fight the Way We Do
One of the most surprising insights Lena shares is that most of us have more than one conflict style. A person might start as a negotiator when things are manageable but shift to an amplifier, igniter, or extinguisher once emotions rise or stress piles up. These secondary fight languages are usually formed during childhood or early emotional experiences.
This explains why conflict with partners, coworkers, or family often follows the same painful pattern. It isn’t intentional—it’s neurological autopilot.
Understanding this gives us compassion, grounding, and a new lens for empathy. It turns reactive moments into opportunities for connection, repair, and emotional growth.
Turning Conflict Into a Bridge, Not a Barrier
One of the most powerful takeaways from the interview is Lena’s belief that conflict holds essential information. Every argument is someone trying to say:
“This matters to me.”
Instead of focusing on winning, shutting down, or fixing the problem immediately, Lena encourages listeners to approach conflict with curiosity:
-
What fight language are they speaking right now?
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What are they trying to protect or express?
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What does this moment reveal about what matters to them?
This mindset doesn’t just improve communication—it deepens trust.
Repair: The Most Important Step We Often Skip
While most of us want to move past arguments quickly, Lena explains that repair is where relationships become stronger. Returning to the conversation after emotions have cooled—without blame, shame, or defensiveness—allows both people to understand each other’s experience and create a new plan for moving forward.
Repair is vulnerability, empathy, and teamwork in action. And according to Lena, it’s the most transformative step we tend to ignore.
Start Understanding Your Own Fight Language
If you want to discover your personal fight language, visit LenaMorgan.com to take her free quiz. It’s simple, insightful, and often eye-opening for couples, families, teams, and leaders.
To dive deeper, grab her book Fight Languages: Turn Conflict into Connection—a powerful guide for anyone looking to communicate with more clarity, empathy, and intention.
You can also stay connected with Lena on
📘 Facebook
📸 Instagram
You may also refer to the transcripts below for the full transcription (not edited) of the interview.
[00:00.5]
Welcome to Inside Personal Growth podcast. Deep dive with us as we unlock the secrets to personal development, empowering you to thrive here. Growth isn't just a goal, it's a journey. Tune in, transform, and take your life to the next level by listening to just one of our podcasts.
[00:20.0]
Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of Inside Personal Growth. And joining us from Anchorage, Alaska. You're in Anchorage, is that correct? That's correct. Is Lena Morgan.
[00:35.8]
And, Lena has a new book out, and it's called Fight Languages. It's really, really gonna be a cool interview. Good day to you, Lena. How are you? I'm doing great.
[00:51.3]
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you taking the time to impart your wisdom. You've got an interesting path before you actually got to doing this kind of work, but I can see how you got there. And to learn more about her, you just go to lenal e n a o R-G-A dash n.com leenamorgan.com and after you're done listening to this podcast, if you want to actually take, a quiz, you can take a quiz there.
[01:25.2]
So she's based out of Alaska. As I said, she's dedicated her work to helping people find their voice and transform the ways the negative conflict, is affecting them. Her innovative fight languages framework identifies five distinct conflict styles.
[01:42.9]
Amplifier, analyzer, extinguisher, igniter, and negotiator. Offering what I would tell my listeners a revolutionary lens for understanding not just how we argue, but why we argue. What makes Lena's approach so powerful is she doesn't teach us to avoid conflict like many people would, or simply win arguments.
[02:07.5]
Instead, she shows us how to use conflict as a pathway to deeper connection with ourselves and others. And believe me, in the world we're living in today, and the divisiveness that we see, we could all use this. Her work's been praised for adding new depth to relationship research, with readers noting its compliments and expand upon the foundational work of researchers like John Gottman.
[02:35.2]
So whether you're navigating conflict in your personal relationships or at work or within yourself, we're gonna be talking about how Lena can help give you some process, practical advice and guidance. So, Lena, welcome to the show.
[02:51.8]
Thanks for taking time. Thank you. So look, when we did our pre interview, you told me that you spent a lot of time as a midwife, and I'm just curious as to how. You know, I think the listeners get some context.
[03:08.2]
I'm sure there's plenty of fighting that goes on when people are birthing a baby, because you see it in all the movies. The wife is screaming, the husband's running out of the room, whatever. Yeah. So how did you navigate into this work and, how did this come about for you?
[03:26.6]
I think they'd love to know. Sure. And, you know, when it comes to welcoming a new baby or going through the process, it's much less the actual fighting, and it's much more trying to have conversations when you are 10 out of 10, when you're not in this very well rested, very calm space.
[03:47.2]
So how do we navigate these important conversations that need to happen when we have just a mountain of stress or pain or, you know, whatever is happening on top of us? So that's really so much of what I took from my career as a midwife and helping families navigate these really important.
[04:07.3]
These really kind of critical times in a way where everybody was feeling understood, where the laboring mom felt like her voice was heard in the experience. So that was, you know, the background that I was able to pull on, to say, wait, we're having these kind of important conversations in so many different contexts and situations and varying levels of stress.
[04:29.7]
I think there is a lot of information to be found here about how to have these conversations in ways that we don't end up just, you know, whatever, I give up. I'm walking away, or, no, I'm going to fight to the death on this one. You know, where we actually feel like, okay, this was productive.
[04:46.8]
I understand you better. You understand me better. We're moving forward with something new. I think there's that old saying that people have heard, and I know my listeners have heard it. Can't we all just get along? Right. Yeah.
[05:02.4]
And, I would say, like, no, we can't all get along. We're all such different people. But can't we just feel understood? Because so often you'll find, you know, two people on opposing sides. We don't need to arrive at the same answer.
[05:17.8]
And both agree that that's the answer. Right. But if we feel like, okay, this person gets me, they understand why this is important to me. They understand the point that I'm trying to make here. That starts feeling a lot like getting along in the end.
[05:34.1]
Yeah. And I think people get very emotionally charged. They get on their bandwagon. They. They have their, causes that they think are important. And your book introduces a framework to turn conflict into connection. What personal Experience or aha moment in your own life led you to stop merely mediating conflict and begin the journey of really articulating the five flight languages.
[06:03.5]
You know, it's got interesting. We. I read them initially at the onset here, the five. But, you know, instead of just being a mediator, you said, oh, no, I want to make this connection. Yeah, absolutely.
[06:18.8]
So my, like, personal aha moment comes from my own relationships. So I'm the amplifier, fight language. I have this deep emotional experience, and I want someone else to understand how it feels to be me. And I was in relationships with analyzers who didn't care about the emotions at all.
[06:39.6]
They had a firm logic base that they wanted to be understood in. And so it was watching these conversations unfold in the same pattern again and again, where I'm not feeling understood, they're not feeling understood and thinking like, man, this doesn't make any sense, how we're going about this.
[06:58.9]
And I'm approaching the situation as if they're looking at it the same way I am. Surely everyone else feels the way I feel when I'm in a fight. And when I took that big step back to say, like, okay, if I was to articulate, how am I showing up?
[07:15.5]
What are the main points of it? How is this other person? I'm thinking of other relationships that I've had. How are these people showing up? It really coalesced into this idea of, oh, my gosh, we're speaking these different languages, and we are completely missing each other in an argument.
[07:34.0]
We are having two totally different arguments and not finding any common ground to overlap. So coming out the conversations from this point of view, that was like, oh, but you're an extinguisher and you're getting overwhelmed. You're shutting down.
[07:50.3]
That's protective for you. And it actually means nothing about me. Just immediately started turning conversations on a dime. So with partners with, romantic partners, business partners, with my children, it was immediate that when I had this point of view of, okay, but what fight language could they be speaking?
[08:10.2]
The conversation immediately changed. I had curiosity, which leads to empathy. And I was so much less defensive about my own point of view. Well, you know, I think when you put a label on something like that, it's an identifier. Because frequently people who are not educated in this space, they're not psychologists.
[08:30.9]
That isn't what they do for a living. They need a way to kind of understand it. And you've given people a really simple way to understand this. Now you candidly share that your Main fight language was negotiator, which can initiate, you saw as a strength, but later recognized a way to avoid conflict.
[08:50.0]
Can you explain how this realization that you had that your core coping skill was actually a form of avoidance, which, when you think negotiator, you don't think avoidance. But I get where you're coming from. You said this was humbling and fundamentally shifted your work.
[09:08.8]
Yeah, absolutely. Because I'm a negotiator, I guarantee you. And negotiators have this incredible skill, which is a desire to understand where other people are coming from. Right. I want you to feel understood, but the way I'm going to go about it is on my own agenda.
[09:28.9]
It's on my own timeline. And so I find that negotiators have a really difficult time letting tension exist in a situation. Particularly, I don't say that it's positive or negative, it's productive. This is, you know, a great part of the fight language, or it's protective.
[09:46.4]
This is a coping mechanism that's coming up when we're in times of stress. So negotiators will have this protective need to resolve the conflict. I just need everyone to be okay. And that really tends to dismiss other people in their experiences, their emotions.
[10:03.9]
And then we see the negotiators stepping in saying, fine, it's all my fault. I'll, I'll take responsibility. That's fine. At least this can be done and we can move on. But the other person or people still end up feeling very misunderstood, very not heard in the conversation that happened.
[10:20.6]
So I was certainly the people pleaser. I wanted everyone to be okay all the time. And so here I was thinking, oh, I'm great at fighting. Like, I never want to fight with anyone. I am sorry. So good at this. Just.
[10:37.0]
Yeah, exactly. I can, you know, resolve anything. I, I would wade in with friends and, you know, at work to resolve whatever tension was happening. But then in my own relationships, my inability to let people be upset or to feel their feelings was really creating so much more conflict than necessary.
[10:59.9]
And, you know, negotiator, the fight language tends to show up to protect a secondary fight language inside. So I had that amplifier who wanted to be understood. I was suppressing that to then try to, negotiate all the tension with everyone else.
[11:16.9]
I fully understand where you're coming from. You know, it's an avoidance, and it's because we, I think the, the makeup of people like that who are negotiators is to avoid conflict.
[11:32.6]
Right. We don't like it. Our bodies shift we get tense, we start to sweat. We're just not good at it. And, you see, the goal of your work isn't to end conflict, but to make it productive.
[11:52.1]
So what makes conflict necessary, I'll underscore and potentially productive way and creating new ways to solve problems and form deeper connections. Because most people would say, nah, nah, nah, nah, we don't want to, we don't want to do this conflict.
[12:09.4]
And you're saying no, yes, do it because that's where you're going, to form a new connection. Well, and so to take a big step back on that. Most of us have never been taught how to handle conflict productively. Right. We've been taught that conflict is something that, you know, us negotiators are out there trying to avoid at all costs.
[12:29.2]
Or we've been taught that conflict is something that you have to win. You know, this is now a, fight to the death. Then you need to be the one that comes out on top. So we've never even had the opportunity to approach conflict as this is an important conversation to have.
[12:45.1]
And that's what I feel like. If you look at the root of any sort of conflict, somebody is telling you what's important to them. So it's either important to them this stance that they have something that they're very passionate about and they believe in. It's important to them to protect the relationship and stop the conversation.
[13:04.0]
It's important to them to protect themselves and, you know, create a space of safety. So if we could look at each fight that we have as they're telling me something important about them right now, again, it shifts the conversation.
[13:20.5]
And so often we make conflict mean something about us. This is what I see more than anything, even in big corporations that I work with and small family units, is I'm making your feelings mean something about me. When honestly, they usually have nothing to do with each other.
[13:38.8]
Someone's telling you, this is how I feel. I want you to understand me. And someone else is saying, well, your feelings mean I'm a bad person and you hate me or you think I'm dumb and you know, like, totally dismissing how I feel. So when we start to separate those, we can see, oh, not only is this something you feel passionately about, this is important to you.
[14:01.4]
You are doing the best you can to tell me about you. And that's, you know, it might not be a very good job they're doing, but it's the best that they have access to right now. Yeah, it's a, it's a way to hear somebody. And I get that in corporations, it's really about inclusion and being hear.
[14:20.3]
And I think one of the things I was taught in my psychology is, you know, this is what I heard you say. So you repeat back, so that people aren't misunderstood when they're speaking with you or they've raised their voice. You know, you categorize conflict into red, yellow and green flags.
[14:42.2]
For most people, conflict lives in yellow flag space, kind of in between. Right. What's the single most important action one of our listeners here could take to move their yellow flag conflict toward a green flag experience?
[14:59.6]
Yeah, I mean, the single most important action, I think every time, no matter where we're at, is hitting pause and pivoting. So hitting pause is the most effective thing we can do. We know once we get in that really elevated space space and we're in the fight or flight and you know, we're now in, we're reactionary.
[15:20.4]
We're not going to have access to all the creativity and the creative, thinking, the critical thinking that we will at a different time. So by acknowledging the experience you're having saying, whoa, I'm getting really reactive right now. This is clearly important to me and you're important to me.
[15:37.7]
So I want to have a thoughtful conversation about this. I'm going to hit play pause. Can we pick it back up in 10 minutes? In an hour? Maybe we need to sleep on it tonight. So just that will stop our yellow flag conflict where we start getting into spaces where we're pulling out those knee jerk reactions, we're getting passive aggressive, we're rolling our eyes, we're ignoring someone because we just don't even know what to do anymore.
[16:03.8]
It's not the red flag where we're actively causing harm to someone, but it's a yellow flag where we're certainly not supporting the longevity of this relationship or the productivity of the conversation. So if we can hit pause. I need, I need a break.
[16:19.6]
And what I find fascinating is that most people, when they're in that. Whoa, I need, I'm, getting really reactive right here. I don't want to speak to you this way. I need to take a break. It's literally 10 or 15 minutes and they're able to pick that conversation back up again.
[16:35.9]
We know that an emotion lasts for 90 seconds. If we don't keep finding proof of why we should feel that way and inflate that feeling. So if we can take a minute, you're going to find that is so effective. To so many conversations.
[16:50.9]
And I know in the past for me I would worry like, but it's never going to get brought up again now. It's never going to get resolved. And that just would drive me crazy. And what I found is far more true is that 15 minute pause. Now that conversation, you can return to it.
[17:06.5]
Everyone's cooled off a little bit now. We're able to say, okay, no, this is still really important to me. So are you, and I want to find a way through this with you. That's a very sound, advice. You know, as you were speaking, I was thinking about fight, flight or fear.
[17:22.5]
You know, it's kind of this, this emotional reaction towards something. And that fight one is the one that I think a lot of people go, no, I'm just going to flee, I'm going the other way. Or this makes me fearful.
[17:39.1]
So I run the other way, versus taking the head on. I'm just going to charge and go for it. Now the core concepts, you've got these types. You've got an amplifier, you got an extinguisher, you got an analyzer, you got an igniter.
[17:57.0]
So if you would kind of go through for our listeners, those what I want to call labels, tags that you've created, and maybe a little more of the characteristics of each one of those.
[18:13.2]
Sure. So I always start with the igniter because this is who we think of as that typical person that just explodes. And they're so angry in a fight. So the, the thing they're going to grab first is anger every time. And igniters always have a really smart reason that they're doing this.
[18:31.8]
This is what I say about all the fight languages. The way they're reacting makes sense. And so igniters tend to come from a background where they saw exactly how damaging conflict could be, whether it was physical or emotional, mental. And so they are highly invested in stopping conflict before it harms the relationship.
[18:51.6]
Unfortunately, the tool they have at their disposal is a grenade. And they're going to use it judiciously to explode things. But the underlying goal is to stop the fight. So this means that our igniters, while they explode in anger and rage and they might, you know, throw something and we can look at them and we're like, this is a problem.
[19:14.1]
You should not be doing this. This is terrible. But the goal of the igniter is to stop the fight. And the way they go about it with that explosion is to take all the responsibility on themselves. So they're always the bad guy when it comes to conflict. They're always the one afterward that has to apologize, feel this guilt and this shame because they lost their cool again and they exploded again, and it's always their fault.
[19:38.9]
If we looked at it as a terrible way to protect a relationship, we could then say, okay, your anger is great information, and I want you to tell me when you're getting frustrated or irritated rather than when you're feeling rage.
[19:54.7]
The igniters I work with, we start thinking about it as a scale because they are so used to shoving anger down and waiting until they simply can't, and it explodes that there's a lot of information there at irritation. That's when to hit pause. Now, you. You. One of the things I want to, put pause in here for a second because I think, yes, we have these ones we've identified, you know, amplifier, extinguisher, analyzer, igniter.
[20:22.1]
But you and I think it'd be a good time to talk about this. You introduced the idea of multiple fight languages. And I think, you know, even though I read through this and I understand it, you're not always one of these things all the time.
[20:39.9]
Or in other words, you've given us a way to navigate this landscape, to understand where we are, but that doesn't mean that we can't Maneuver. Right. So you say. I'd like you to really kind of share, because it's probably a good time.
[20:57.9]
A practical example of how you recognize the secondary fight language, like an amplifier kicking in after the negotiator fails or helps you manage a conflict more productively. Because I think this is the best way people can use your tools to really better understand how these secondary, fight languages come about.
[21:22.9]
Yeah. And so rarely is anyone speaking the same fight language every time. And also consider you fight differently at work than you do at home, than maybe you do with your siblings or parents. So we already understand, like, I'm not showing up the same way every time.
[21:40.4]
So we tend to have at least two main fight languages that we deploy as needed, and the first one comes up when things feel manageable. This is the better version of ourselves. You know, for me, that was the negotiator. I can show up, and I'm very calm, and, you know, I'm never losing my cool, and I just want to understand what's going on, and I just want to fix this, the situation.
[22:06.2]
And with that first fight language, it usually is more productive. Right. Because we are giving it our resolved effort to try and fix this situation. But if the other person isn't Meeting us with like, great. I too also want to calmly figure out, you know, if it's the analyzer, I want to understand your logic.
[22:26.7]
If it's the extinguisher, Yes. I too want to set this conversation down. So if the other person doesn't meet us there, which rarely they do because they're having their own experience and their own feelings, then we move to our secondary fight language. And this tends to be more of our core fight language.
[22:43.6]
This is our knee jerk reaction. This is our. We've probably been doing it since we were a kid. So for me, that was the amplifier. And the amplifier fight language would show up and collapse into tears. I call it like the wounded baby deer, where they're so sad and so nobody understands me and nobody cares about me.
[23:05.0]
And I'm going to go to the bed and I'm going to cover my head and sob until someone comes. It really changes the direction of the conversation at that point. And each of the fight languages has the ability to really focus now.
[23:20.4]
The resolution needs to be on them and fixing whatever it is they see as the problem. So the igniter might not be a fight language. That often comes up as the initial one. People don't first come to the conversation just ready to explode.
[23:37.1]
But it is often a secondary fight language where that analyzer who's not being heard and understood and nobody's considering the very valid points they're making, will turn into. Will shift towards the igniter and blow up and explode.
[23:54.2]
Because this isn't productive. And now I'm just going to end things. Yeah. And I think it's like anything when your emotions get involved in it and it's very hard not to have emotions and they continue to not be heard, it then escalates into, you know, you blowing up, as you said.
[24:14.4]
And I want to talk about this because, I think this is something that everybody struggles with. And that is. You dedicated a whole section in the book to internal conflict, noting that we are often our own biggest antagonist.
[24:34.0]
Which, you know, it's, mind chatter. It's constantly going on. It's saying, we're not good enough, we're not this, we're not that. So I would say, well, that's a lot of the ego for someone struggling with this relentless gremlin voice, as you say, how does naming the internal conflict in the case, I.
[24:57.5]
E. An amplifier, minimizing feelings become the first step toward a productive internal dialogue? I mean, you know, people used to say, well, do you hear voices? And it goes, yeah, but the question is, do I actually speak to those voices? I think we all hear the voices, you know, the question is, do we actually work with them?
[25:19.0]
Because I know how strong the subconscious, is in actually having people reprogram much of this. But I, think this internal conflict is probably one of the bigger ones. Absolutely. And I feel like anyone that I'm working with, one on one, as they're helping sort the relationship out, that feels problematic in their life.
[25:40.7]
Where we're going to get to very quickly is how they handle that internal conflict for themselves, because that's really what we're seeing sort of spill over into our relationships. So if it's the amplifier, anyone that has the amplifier fight language, I can promise that they are the ones that are denying their emotional experience more than anyone else in their life.
[26:03.1]
They're saying, oh, my gosh, why are you like this? Why are you doing this? Why are you upset again? Can't you just be calm? Which is when they hear it echoed from the outside or anything that might even sound like that, they're having this strong reaction to.
[26:18.2]
Because it's really hard to fight with ourselves. Right. It's that constant chatter, the gremlin that maybe we're not even aware of, or we're certainly not checking in place and saying, you know what? I don't think that's true. So when someone gives us an opportunity to fight back against it externally, man, that feels way more satisfying.
[26:38.9]
Or we might have our analyzers. They're the ones that are going to be holding themselves to a really high degree of proof all the time. Yeah, but is that really true? Did that actually happen? Can I find fault in it? Because if I can do that to, me, then I feel like I'm protecting myself from someone else doing it.
[26:57.1]
But actually, you're just the one fighting with you relentlessly sometimes. And that can be. I mean, that's an intense internal space to live in. And then it has us seen everything from the outside through that filter of. You're the analyzer. They're saying, well, prove it.
[27:13.2]
You know, it's the extinguisher. Well, I'm going to keep pushing on you. You can't back away. You always try to run away. You should lean into this when really they just need a break. Yeah. You know, I believe this, that, you know, we kind of, not kind of.
[27:31.3]
We do. We live in a world of MSU making stuff up, then believing what we make up and then living what we make up without actually even questioning what we made up. Because that's delusionary. It's really quite delusionary. And you have this analogy of the neural superhighway brilliantly illustrates how hard it is to change conflict habits.
[27:55.9]
What is one specific physical or somatic, pivot that you recommend to instantly interrupt the deep seated? What you call cruise control defense? Reaction. Because, you know, in somatic breathing, we're breathing, we're stopping, we're being mindful, we're meditating, we're doing something to break the pattern.
[28:21.8]
Right. So I'd love to get your ideas on this because I think before people react, they should try reprogramming the neural superhighway, which is like, okay, well, I'm programmed this way.
[28:38.0]
This is just the way I'm going to go, right? Yeah, absolutely. And so I do love the analogy of thinking of it as the superhighway. This is the easiest thing to do. You literally don't even have to think about it.
[28:53.3]
This is where we have cruise control on and we've all driven that way, where suddenly we like wake up and we're like, wow, I feel like I'm miles down the road and how did I get here? It's effortless. If you didn't do anything at all, this is the path that your brain would go when it comes to.
[29:08.7]
Yeah, it's just like you're on, you're, it's autopilot. You know, they say, I just flew to New Zealand and the plane was on autopilot the whole way. Right. Even including the landing. And you keep thinking to yourself, wait a second, what are the pilots for? You know, and my, my point is that's like our brain, the pilot is there, you just need to turn him, him or her on, right?
[29:33.3]
Yeah. And so what I'm asking people to do when it comes to conflict, I feel like is the equivalent of taking the exit and then looking at this really, you know, jungle filled hill. And I'm going to get it, hand you a machete and you're going to hack your way to the top.
[29:50.2]
Like, it's difficult and it would be far easier to just get back on the superhighway and continue on autopilot. But it doesn't get us to the destination that we want to go. So that's where, number one, just the understanding of showing up differently in the tiniest way, doing anything differently, this is a huge win.
[30:10.9]
Right? We have gotten off the highway, we have made a little bit of a trail up the mountain. Deeper we are. Yeah. But now it's we get to cover that trail a little bit more easily next time. So this is like you're going to the gym. Yeah. You're not lifting the 50 pound weights right out of the gate.
[30:28.5]
You're working up to it. So I think people often get frustrated when they find themselves in those old patterns. But with the fight languages, if you can recognize those, you know, red flags that you have or those common things, that is huge.
[30:44.9]
Just the recognition where we're not falling back into the old pattern with really no thought given to it, that's an enormous win. So recognizing, oh my gosh, I'm crying. Wait, this. I'm an amplifier.
[31:00.0]
If I'm crying, I've passed my exit to get off. Oh, I'm an igniter. I'm getting really angry. Oh my gosh, Wait, if I'm getting angry, I've passed my exit to get off. I need to head back to the hill. And that's where we're going to take that pause. And for each of the fight languages in the book, I, give something different to do because not everybody needs the same thing.
[31:22.3]
If you're an igniter, doing something physical, literally doing push ups, going out and walking around the house, moving your body is going to help shift that anger that's building inside of you. If you're an amplifier going and listening to a song that has that emotional component where you can acknowledge, yeah, man, I'm feeling really sad right now, or I'm feeling really misunderstood and I have this book or this song or something that evokes that emotion for me.
[31:50.6]
If you're an extinguisher going to take a nap with a weighted blanket, like, okay, I'm safe. I'm not in a war zone right now. My nervous system can calm down. For the analyzers, what I found was fascinating is that the most, like, relaxing thing an analyzer could do to calm their brain down when it was elevated was to do a logic puzzle like sudoku or, you know, a crossword or something that they really had to focus on intently.
[32:20.5]
Help them come out the other side in five minutes like, oh, actually my brain feels way more calm now. Whereas no one but the analyzers feel calm after doing that. Yeah, those are, that's great advice for each one of those, individuals that you've talked about, wherever they're going to categorize.
[32:41.9]
Like I said, I think I possess a combination of all of those. I know I first started as the negotiator, but I've realized that that wasn't working just like you. So, you know, I kind of am like a chameleon.
[32:57.1]
I can move around and change color. So let's talk about repair. Why is repair the attempt to mend, harm after a fight where the potential for the deepest connection and trust is actually built in a relationship?
[33:14.6]
So, you know, it's like, okay, we've had this argument and now we've got this biggest, opportunity to make a connection. It's like in love life, I think John Gray says, men are from Mars, women are from Venus.
[33:32.2]
He's coming on the show here, in the next couple of weeks. And the reality is that I remember reading his books from way back, and he continues to write books about this. And I think at this deepest point is where couples, we'll say couples, or even people at work, but couples in particular, can make a huge, shift in a relationship.
[33:56.6]
Absolutely. Because someone's being heard. That's exactly it. And now we've come together as a team to figure out why did this go off the rails? What happened here? How do we actually want this to go next time? And we're both going to own our parts of it and make a plan together.
[34:16.5]
So repair is one of the least recognized parts of conflict that I wish was really, like, number one. This is where we hold the most potential to have that meaningful connection. And it usually gets ignored because, I mean, I've heard so many people say, like, man, I got out of the war zone.
[34:36.9]
I don't want to go back. I don't want to bring it up again. And I really don't want to admit it where I was wrong. If I don't know for sure that they're going to do it. Now I look like I'm the jerk and I'm standing here by myself, or I feel embarrassed and I feel shame.
[34:52.7]
Shame. And I don't want to bring it up again and have this person, you know, point their finger at me. So each of the fight languages can avoid repair for a lot of different reasons. Right. The extinguisher says, listen, it's okay now, let's just let it ride. I don't want to stir things up again when what's, far more true is if we waded into that conversation, it might cause a conflict again.
[35:15.8]
Absolutely, absolutely. And then you're going to say, hey, okay, here's what I'm noticing. I want to hit pause. You're important to me. This topic is important to me. Let's pick it up again. And as we do that, we're going to get to a point where now, okay, we have some sort of resolution and now we need to repair the conversation.
[35:33.7]
We need to repair this relationship. And simply wading in to say, hey, I don't like how that went. That didn't feel good to me. I'm imagining that didn't feel great to you either. Here's what I felt like went wrong. What did you notice?
[35:49.2]
I literally script out what each fight language can say to start that conversation because I know how difficult it is. And recognizing, like, hey, we're coming from a place of vulnerability that's miles away than wherever we were when we started the argument.
[36:05.2]
And we're coming with a sense of, I want to understand you, I want to feel understood. But we're not in the intensity of the conflict. So the potential to feel understood in repair. Huge, Huge.
[36:21.0]
I mean, you are going to have such a more clear understanding of what felt important to this other person. And ideally, we're both in a vulnerable space and they're able to do that for you as well. Yeah, I think, look, we didn't get in the core of this, but I'm going to leave that for people that go take the quiz at your website to learn more and to go.
[36:43.2]
If you've clicked the notes below, you'll see a link to Amazon for the book. So I want you to go and get that book. The other thing is go take the quiz. It's right at the top of Lena's, website, lenamorgan o R-G-A-N.com and it's called find your fight languages.
[37:05.3]
Take the free quiz. I encourage, my listeners to do that now in wrapping up this interview. Your background as a conflict resolution specialist is the key to this framework. Right. So what is one core belief?
[37:20.9]
You hope that every person who's listening to us today or watching us on YouTube today can take away from fight languages that really forever could change the way they perceive and, and engage in arguments.
[37:38.4]
I think the core thing would be the realization that not everybody's having the same experience. Right. Like just that alone. A anytime we can bring curiosity of like, okay, if they're not speaking my fight language, what fight language are they speaking?
[37:54.4]
That opens the door to empathy and we've changed the conversation. Also the recognition that you and this other person, whether you're at work or at home, you're in a relationship. And if 50% of that relationship changes, if you change the way you're showing up even with that question, okay, they're different than me.
[38:12.8]
How are they different? The whole relationship changes. Right? We have a totally different dynamic, and half of it has shifted. So when, you know, we have two people that are in an argument recognizing not everybody is feeling the same way, the igniter feels like they are just having a conversation, and the negotiator feels like someone's yelling at them.
[38:35.8]
You know, like just that awareness. Very different conversations happening all the time. And if both sides could have that thought, wait, what do they think is happening right now? Man, we'd see a lot of conflict shift. And the analyzer is saying, what just happened?
[38:52.4]
No, just kidding. That didn't make sense. Yeah, exactly. Well, Lena, you definitely have imparted some wisdom about people looking at how they communicate, how actually the fight language can actually lead to more connection.
[39:15.2]
And I think that's important for people to realize. And I think once people have an understanding of these descriptors, and I'm going to encourage them to go get the book, go take the quiz, that they too, then can use these at work or at home or with their kids to understand where they are.
[39:34.1]
And I think frequently it's about finding that mutual ground where people are so they can be understood and heard. And I think in work, in particular, we talk about inclusion. That's what people want. They want to be heard, versus someone talking over them or, you know, saying, hey, look, this is the way it is.
[39:56.5]
And, you know, you work with, the CEOs of these companies as well, and actually, usually they are the ones that have the biggest issue about not hearing people inside their own company. So.
[40:11.9]
Absolutely. We all really like our own point of view on things, especially when you own the company or you're running it. That's true. Yes. Yeah. Well, blessings to you. Thank you again. Namaste. Thanks for being on Inside Personal Growth and sharing this.
[40:29.5]
And again, go out and buy the book. You'll see the links below to Amazon, you'll see the links below to her website. You'll see the links below, on YouTube on this for the quiz as well. And her website is wealth of Knowledge.
[40:44.6]
You can look at it. It's got all kinds of cubicles, and I like the way it's designed. So it's a good. It's a good website to check all this out. Thanks so much, Lena. Have a wonderful rest of your day. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you for listening to this podcast on Inside Personal Growth.
[41:03.7]
We appreciate your support. And for more information about new podcasts, please go to inside personal growth.com or any of your favorite channels to listen to our podcast. Thanks again and have a wonderful day.
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