Episodes

  • The Neuroscience of Human Connection with Sarah Peyton

    The Neuroscience of Human Connection with Sarah Peyton
    Sep 30 2024
    Sarah Peyton is a neuroscience educator, Nonviolent Communication trainer, and, as a good friend of mine calls her, “brain whisperer.” Her live events, online courses, and bestselling books have transformed my coaching work and have helped my clients and me unstuck from many limiting personal and interpersonal patterns. We talk about the neuroscience of blame, guilt, shame, rage, and demonization, the difference between left-hemisphere and right-hemispheric thinking and why it matters for resolving conflict, and how to heal our brains and our relationships with empathy guesses. Sarah’s work has changed my life and my client’s lives, and I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Show Notes Episode Summary: Unlocking Empathy: Neuroscience of Human Connection with Sarah Peyton Sarah Peyton is a neuroscience educator, Nonviolent Communication trainer, and, as a good friend of mine calls her, “brain whisperer.” Her live events, online courses, and bestselling books have transformed my coaching work and have helped my clients and me unstuck from many limiting personal and interpersonal patterns. We talk about the neuroscience of blame, guilt, shame, rage, and demonization, the difference between left-hemisphere and right-hemispheric thinking and why it matters for resolving conflict, and how to heal our brains and our relationships with empathy guesses. Sarah’s work has changed my life and my client’s lives, and I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Key Topics Discussed: Transformational Power of Nonviolent Communication (NVC): Sarah shares her personal journey into NVC, including how it helped her overcome emotional barriers with her adopted son. She explains how empathy guesses—linking emotions and needs—can create powerful relational shifts and foster deeper understanding. Empathy in Conflict Resolution: Sarah elaborates on how empathy guesses differ from strategic communication. She highlights how focusing on feelings and needs can resolve conflict more effectively, especially in social justice and movement spaces. Relational vs. Instrumental Brain: We delve into the neurobiology of empathy, examining how the left hemisphere is task-oriented, while the right hemisphere supports relational thinking. Sarah explains how high-stakes situations push us into the instrumental brain, reducing our ability to empathize and connect deeply. Joyful Activism & Releasing Unconscious Contracts: Sarah introduces the concept of “unconscious contracts,” promises we make in childhood to "save the world" at any cost. She encourages joyful activism, where we work from a place of joy and passion rather than burnout and sacrifice, leading to more effective social change. Neurobiology of Demonization in Conflict: Sarah explains the neurobiology of demonization, where our brain's reward system fuels the tendency to other and blame people in conflict. By shifting focus to what we love—like justice and equity—we can channel rage into constructive, healing actions. Healing Trauma with Resonance: Sarah describes the process of healing trauma through resonant language and relational neuroscience. She explains how resonance allows the brain to process trauma and transform it into life experience, helping individuals move beyond their pain. Practical Self-Compassion Tools: For those feeling isolated or lacking support, Sarah offers a practice called “self-warmth,” encouraging listeners to start with one breath of self-compassion, building a foundation of emotional resilience through small moments of self-awareness. Recommended Resources: Books by Sarah Peyton: Your Resonant Self: Guided Meditations and Exercises to Engage Your Brain's Capacity for Healing Your Resonant Self Workbook: From Self-sabotage to Self-Care The Anti-Racist Heart (co-written with Roxy Manning) Other Resources on Nonviolent Communication (NVC):
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    1 hr and 4 mins
  • Welcome to Conflict Decoded!

    Welcome to Conflict Decoded!
    Sep 30 2024
    Hello and welcome to Conflict Decoded, where we explore the hidden dynamics that keep us stuck in conflict in our workplaces and communities and share practical guidance to help us break free. My name is Katherine Golub. I’m a coach, mediator, city councilor, activist, mother, and the founder of the Center for Callings & Courage. I live on the ancestral lands of the Pocumtuck people, recently known as Greenfield, Massachusetts. In this first episode, I want to share with you what called me to create this podcast and what you can expect from it. Show Notes Why I Decided to Create this Podcast About twelve years ago, I launched my professional coaching practice with the aim of helping social changemakers prevent burnout by taking better care of themselves. However, I quickly realized that my clients were coming to me already burned out and longing to get clear about what was next in their work lives. And so, career clarity coaching with changemakers became my focus. Although I used to believe that burnout came from working too much, doing this work now for over a decade, I’ve realized that even more people burn out due to conflict and challenging interpersonal dynamics. I also discovered that by helping my clients transform workplace conflict along with other patterns that gave rise to their burnout, about half of my clients end up falling back in love with their work and deciding to stay. While I’ve been able to help hundreds of clients realign their lives with what matters most to them and, in many cases, transform their workplace conflicts, it nevertheless hurts my heart to watch so many unaddressed conflicts, fractured relationships, and ineffective interpersonal dynamics bring committed people down and derail even the most promising efforts toward change. So, after over a decade of supporting my coaching clients to heal burnout, I’ve decided to focus my work on helping changemakers transform conflict in their workplaces and communities—the root cause of so much burnout—and learn to collaborate well, even in the face of great difference and complexity. I created this podcast to learn from some of the most brilliant minds I know on the forefront of conflict transformation and to share these conversations with you. This podcast is for you if you — Work hard to do your part to bring forth a better world, in your unique way and your corner of the world. Feel drained, disheartened, frustrated, baffled at why humans can’t just get along, uncertain about how to resolve things, and worried about what might happen if you don’t figure it out. Conflict or disagreement or just a lack of effective collaboration are thwarting your efforts toward change in your workplace or community. You want to understand what’s really going on with people, regain a sense of clarity and confidence, and develop skills and structures to help you collaborate well. Value love, liberation, learning, friendship, and wholeness and long for more of each of these in your life and in the world. Here’s what I know to be true— Conflict is a crucible—an alchemical space where different elements interact to create something new. Whether we like it or not, conflict will transform us. In situations with an abundance of difference, complexity, trauma, and strong opinions—which all of us who are working toward a better world face every day— conflict is inevitable. What’s not inevitable, is how we respond to conflict. Without the right skills or support, conflict can drain our energy, undermine our efforts, burn us out, and put an end to our most promising efforts toward change. With the right support, skills, structures, and strategies, conflict can be an opportunity to see things we haven’t seen before, strengthen our relationships, and create the changes we long for. What emerges from conflict can be horrendous, or it can be amazing. When we approach conflict as an opportunity to under...
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    8 mins
  • On Holding Conflicting Values & Realities

    On Holding Conflicting Values & Realities
    Feb 28 2024
    Have you ever heard a self-help teacher or friend say the words—Don’t should yourself…? As if should were a nasty word? If so, what do you think about this phrase? For a long time, I’d hear people admonishing themselves for saying the word should, and it would rub me the wrong way, but I didn’t quite know why. Then I discovered that the English word should comes from the same root as the Dutch and German word schuld, which means both guilt and debt. According to YourDailyGerman.com: “(For) some two thousand years, Schuld was simply about a sort of obligation that you had toward someone. Like…bringing the smith a boar because he fixed your ax or giving the chieftain a barrel of ale because he won the last drinking competition.” As a white person with multiple proximities to systemic power living on stolen land, I believe that I have a schuld— a debt rooted in unearned privilege, an obligation to pay reparations and to work to dismantle imperialism and white supremacy, the systems that give rise to my privilege. I believe there are some things I really should do. And yet, many people also use the word should to judge themselves into complying with dominant culture’s expectations, and this sense of obligation to the status quo does not serve most of us well. The inherent tension in the word should points to the deeper tension that most of us who care deeply about social justice and collective wellbeing grapple with— How do we simultaneously hold our obligations to the collective and our obligations to ourselves? If we show up for others and not for ourselves, we risk slipping into saviordom, which can perpetuate top-down dynamics, rob people on the margins of systemic power of their agency, and burn us out. On the other hand, if we only show up for ourselves but not for others, we abdicate our responsibility to the collective, and our complacency perpetuates injustice and collective dis-ease. And so, I believe we have a responsibility to learn to navigate the both-and, dancing between the polarity of self-care and collective-care over our days, weeks, and lifetimes. But because dominant culture does not train us to hold the both-and well and instead, teaches us to view the world as opposing binaries—good guys or bad guys, us or them, right or wrong—it can feel uncomfortable and challenging to hold the tension of conflicting values and realities. And so, most of us have a tendency to cling to one side of a polarity at the detriment of the whole. This either-or approach to life leads many people to all-or-nothing behavior—either working 24/7 or binging Netflix, either doing a daily self-care practice or none at all. And yet, the fact is that when we look closely, we can see that all of life expresses itself in polarities—apparent opposites that need each other to form a whole—night/day, birth/death, cold/hot, soft/hard, chaos/order, knowing/not knowing, yes/no, yin/yang, global/local, nature/nurture, receiving/giving, holding space for pain/holding space for joy, this is a nightmarish time / this is an extraordinary time. To bring forth the word that we long for, we must learn to perceive, honor, and skillfully navigate the polarities inherent in our work and in all of life. It is true that those of us who are committed to showing up on the front-lines of life and liberation are unlikely to find any perfect balance or to escape the tensions inherent in the conflicting realities we face. And yet, we humans do have the inherent potential to cultivate the capacity to hold the tensions in ways that make us proud. We can learn to show up for social change and take good care of ourselves, give and receive, say yes and say no, act and rest, be effective and have fun. Like all of creation, we are designed to honor the full expression of life living through us. For instance, one of my core values is solidarity, and this value often demands long hours of me. And yet,
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    11 mins
  • How to Set Right-Sized Commitments to Yourself

    How to Set Right-Sized Commitments to Yourself
    Feb 14 2024
    Would you love a dedicated practice of proactively setting clear goals, priorities, and commitments to yourself? If so, I wrote this for you. Most of my clients don’t have a practice like this when they first come to me. Many spend their days putting out fires and reacting to the next request/demand that comes their way. Others are in the habit of prioritizing other peoples’ needs while rarely checking in with themselves about their own. And yet other clients come to me feeling called to make a big change in their lives—either in terms of contributing more to their communities or taking better care of themselves—but they have yet to set specific benchmarks for how they’ll make their callings a reality. Without a regular practice of setting and keeping clear commitments to themselves, most people end up feeling like they’re letting themselves or other people down. At the heart of radical discernment is the practice and skill of making choices—in other words, right-sized commitments—that honor our needs. And with that in mind, I want to offer you five principles today to help you set clear, right-sized goals and commitments to yourself. To do that, I’ll share with you my version of the SMART goal acronym. Here’s how I use it: Specific Monthly(ish) Actionable Realistic Trustworthy Let’s explore each of these now. One: Specific. Here are some pointers for setting specific goals: Be as precise as possible. Instead of saying “Go to bed on time” or “Don’t stay up late,” a specific goal sounds like “Be in bed reading a book by 9:30pm every weeknight for the next two weeks and turn off the lights by 10pm.” Ask: Would this be clear to my future self? If your goal is specific, when your future self looks at it in the future, they should be able to know precisely and immediately what you meant when you set it. Catch yourself using tentative language like I guess I will… or I’ll try… or I’ll see…, ask, What am I actually able and willing to commit to?If you find yourself using language like this, edit your commitment until you can honestly say I will… or I commit to doing my best to… (fill in the blank). Decide when you aim to complete your goal, and write it down. If your goal is to engage in an ongoing practice, be realistic about how frequently you’ll practice and how long you commit to practicing for. For example, rather than committing to practicing every single day, committing to practicing daily(ish) or five out of seven days of the week can make sticking with a practice more doable. And rather than committing to doing the practice indefinitely, commit to a defined period of time like two weeks. Then, at the end of this time, check in and decide whether you’d like to continue the commitment. Two: Monthly(ish). Over the years, many clients who struggle with goal-setting have told me that they want to start a practice of choosing goals every morning. However, I’ve found that this practice often backfires. When clients set goals every morning, as opposed to goals that cover a longer time-span, they often experience decision fatigue and have a harder time discerning how to respond when interruptions inevitably arise mid-day. Likewise, some clients come to me with a longer-term vision but no shorter-term goals to help them implement it. Without shorter-term benchmarks, people often struggle to create concrete change and feel frustrated with their lack of progress. In contrast, I’ve found that monthly(ish) goals are the most helpful-sized stepping stones between what we can accomplish today and what we long to achieve in the long-term. The month(ish) is a forgiving, flexible, and yet practically useful-sized chunk of time for deciding what I can realistically say yes to and what I just do not have the capacity to get done. The precise timeline for your monthly(ish) goals may change each month, depending on what you’re working on. For example,
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    12 mins
  • How to Feel Your Fear Without Getting Sucked in

    How to Feel Your Fear Without Getting Sucked in
    Feb 7 2024
    A client of mine recently discovered that she’s pregnant and shared this question with me this week: “I really hope that everything is safe and sound with my pregnancy. I’m trying my best to stay positive, but I have moments of anxiety. I am wondering how to feel my fears while not being consumed by them and how to remain positive while not getting sucked into worst case ‘what-if’ scenarios. Suggestions?” Now, you might not be pregnant with a new baby (though, congratulations if you are!), but if you’re like most of my clients, you’re working hard to bring something you care deeply about into the world—a new policy, a new program, a new relationship, a new business, or something else. Whatever it is, you’re apt to have fears. So how do you acknowledge your fears without getting sucked into them? In today’s episode, I share four practices that I shared with my client. Listen in!   CLICK HERE TO READ THE SHOWNOTES A client of mine recently discovered that she’s pregnant and shared this question with me this week: “I really hope that everything is safe and sound with my pregnancy. I’m trying my best to stay positive, but I have moments of anxiety. I am wondering how to feel my fears while not being consumed by them and how to remain positive while not getting sucked into worst case ‘what-if’ scenarios. Suggestions?” Now, you might not be pregnant with a new baby (though, congratulations if you are!), but if you’re like most of my clients, you’re working hard to bring something you care deeply about into the world. This might be a new policy, a new program, a new relationship, a new business, or something else. Whatever it is, you’re apt to have fears. So how do you acknowledge your fears without getting sucked into them? Here are four practices that I shared with my client: 1. Remember that Worry is the work of pregnancy. Fifteen years ago, shortly after my son, Kai, was born, I became a childbirth mentor and birth doula, and one of my favorite quotes from that time was from Pam England, creator of Birthing From Within, who writes: Worry is the work of pregnancy. In other words, you are normal. If there’s something you care deeply about, something you long for, something you’re working hard to bring into the world, and you have a lot at stake, the odds of success are uncertain and the outcomes are not completely within your control— Of course, you will feel worried at times. My most recent source of worry is related to my son, Kai. He’s a sophomore in high school, thinking about colleges, and I want him to have a future in which he’s content and contributing. He’s doing really great, but his future is largely out of my hands, and so occasionally, I worry. Now, when friends tell me that of course he’ll be fine and that I should not worry, it honestly doesn’t feel very helpful. But when they acknowledge that it makes complete sense that I would worry a bit, I feel heard, and my nervous system settles. Until recently, most self-help teachers taught that stress was bad for us and that we needed to get rid of it. But as Stanford health psychologist Kelly McGonigal teaches, stress is simply what we feel when something we love is at risk. While chronic stress can be harmful, momentary stress and worry are a normal part of reaching toward what we love. 2. Write down your worries. Now, one factor that makes a huge difference in how we relate to our stress are the stories we tell ourselves. And while we may not be able to completely eliminate our fears, we can shift how we relate to them. A key practice for turning down the volume on our stories—including the “worst case, what if scenarios” my client mentioned—is to write them down. Journaling helps us do what developmental psychologist Robert Kegan called the subject-object shift. When we’re subject to our thoughts, we’re so close to them that we assume they’re true and don’t notice or question th...
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    12 mins
  • How to Quiet Comparison-itis & Start Feeling Better About Yourself

    How to Quiet Comparison-itis & Start Feeling Better About Yourself
    Jan 31 2024
    This week, a client in my mentorship program who’s leading the development of a brand-new community center, shared that while things are going really well, she’s also noticing a lot of uncomfortable feelings coming up in response to the work. She wrote: “Things are good, and I have waves of self-doubt and fear that make me anxious - Like, how can I possibly actually do this? Often it comes in the form of a negative self-comparison to an imaginary other person who would be doing all this better. What practice could I engage in to keep me out of comparison mode?” In today’s episode, I offer six practices to soothe the inner voice of comparison. If you sometimes hear a voice of comparison, self-doubt, and fear arise as you reach toward your goals, this is for you.   CLICK HERE TO READ THE SHOWNOTES This week, a client in my mentorship program who’s leading the development of a brand-new community center, shared that while things are going really well, with more and more organizations getting involved, she’s also noticing a lot of uncomfortable feelings coming up in response to the work. I’ll share with you what she wrote to me, and I invite you to see if it sounds familiar: She wrote: “Things are good, and I have waves of self-doubt and fear that make me anxious – Like, how can I possibly actually do this? Often it comes in the form of a negative self-comparison to an imaginary other person who would be doing all this better. I’m wondering what practice I could engage in to keep me out of comparison mode, especially as more people get involved and I anticipate an increase in self-doubt/judgment coming up for me if I don’t pay attention?” Now, in case you, too, hear voices of comparison, self-doubt, and fear arise as you reach toward your big goals, I want to share with you what I told my client and offer you six practices to soothe your inner voice of comparison. Let’s dive in. 1. Instead of trying to stay out of comparison mode, expect that your brain will automatically compare, especially when you’re facing a new challenge. In her book, Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown writes that research demonstrates that our human brains are physiologically designed to compare, but we have a choice about how we respond to the comparisons that arise. Brown writes: “The bad news is that our hardwiring makes us default to comparison—it seems to happen to us rather than be our choice. The good news is that we get to choose how we’re going to let it affect us.” 2. Give your inner voice of comparison a name. When a part of ourselves is struggling, it can be as though we’re looking through a mask without realizing the mask is there. But when we give names to the struggling parts of ourselves, it’s like we take our masks off and can come into a conversation with them. With that in mind, I invite you to give the part of yourself that compares or doubts or judges you a name. Make sure to choose a name the part would want to call itself, a name that is free from judgment. I call the comparing part of myself the Monitor, which is a name that I learned from Emily and Amelia Nagoski’s book, Burnout. They write: “The Monitor is the brain mechanism that manages the gap between where we are and where we are going… Technically, it’s called the ‘discrepancy-reducing/-increasing feedback loop’ and ‘criterion velocity,’ but people fall asleep immediately when we say that, so we just call it the Monitor… The Monitor knows (1) what your goal is; (2) how much effort you’re investing in that goal; and (3) how much progress you’re making. It keeps a running tally of your effort-to-progress ratio, and it has a strong opinion about what that ratio should be…[1]” So perhaps you’d also like to call your inner voice of comparison the Monitor. Or maybe, like Don Miguel Ruiz does in his book, the The Four Agreements, you’ll call this part the Judge. RuPaul calls hers the Inner Saboteur.
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    11 mins
  • For When All the Gates Feel Locked

    For When All the Gates Feel Locked
    Jan 17 2024
    Sometimes along the journey through life, we come to a place where it feels like we’re pounding on a locked door. Maybe we come really close to getting our dream job, but they hire someone else. Or our partner leaves us unexpectedly. Or we pour our hearts into a campaign and lose. The time I most felt like I was standing at a locked gate, unable to open it, were the long years we spent applying for my son’s dad’s visa. We were married, had a child, made the best argument possible to prove our hardship, gathered every possible document, hired a lawyer (an enormous privilege), and spent countless hours preparing our application. And yet, the final decision lay in the hands of an anonymous administrator using arbitrary criteria over two thousand miles away. The first time we applied, we were denied. The second time, they told us we needed more documentation. It took us over six years to finally win the green card. Many people do not have it so good. During that time, I took refuge in an image of myself navigating the twists and turns of a high-walled unicursal labyrinth, with one path into the center and one path out. Of course I was disoriented, unable to see more than a few feet ahead, uncertain of how far we’d come. All those years, I could not choose our outcome. My only choice was to do my best. Sometimes, all the gates we wished were open to us are closed—we keep getting rejected from potential jobs, relationships, or opportunities we wish we had—and the best we can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other in the hopes that we’ll find a new door or path we have not yet imagined. As Rebecca Solnit writes, “Hope is not a door, but a sense that there might be a door at some point, some way out of the problems of the present moment even before that way is found or followed.” So, as you journey, please be kind to yourself. Do not try to convince your disappointment or frustration to go away. Countless travelers have felt the same way you do now. Remember that sometimes, we need to lay down and rest a while, sheltered by the labyrinth walls. The Spanish word for wait—esperar—is the same word for hope. There can be power in waiting, knowing that if we keep showing up, unexpected gifts may emerge. And, when you feel ready to get curious and face the chasm between where you are now and where you long to be, I invite you to ask yourself the following questions: When in my past have I faced locked gates but made it to the other side? What helped me then? What gifts might be presenting themselves to me now, even though most of me might really not want them? What do I love so much that I’m willing to keep assuming responsibility for it? What possibility am I willing to take a stand for, even though there are no guarantees and the odds may not be in my favor? What does the part of me that knows what to do even when I don’t know what to do want me to know now? What itsy-bitsy, teensy-tiny step might I take in the direction of my longings? Then, choose one step toward honoring your needs. Your next step might be making popcorn, wrapping yourself up in a warm blanket, and watching a movie. It might be giving yourself a hug, taking deep breaths, or drinking a glass of water. It might be setting new goals, making a phone call, or clicking send on that email. Whatever your next step may be, please know that I’m rooting you on. It is an honor to be by your side.
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    6 mins
  • Soothing the Voice of Doubt

    Soothing the Voice of Doubt
    Jan 10 2024
    When facing a big decision or life transition, have you ever heard a voice in your head saying any of the following?: What if you’re not ready? What if you regret your decision? What if you have no time left for anything else? What if it wrecks your relationship(s)? What if you burn bridges? What if you never find something as good as what you have now? What if things turn out shitty like they’ve always been? What if your calling isn’t a calling after all but just an old habit speaking? What if you're just repeating your parents' mistakes? What if you really shouldn’t give all this up? What if you lose your job, have no way to pay the bills, and become homeless? What if you die? What if there’s backlash? What if nobody likes your ideas? What if people hate you for it? What if no one even cares? What if it’s just a waste of time? What if none of this matters? What if you give it your all and still, you fail? What if there’s something more important you should be doing? Are you really sure this is a good idea? Isn’t there another way forward? If you’ve heard yourself asking any of these questions, you’re not alone. So have I. In most great stories, after the traveler hears their call and before they embark on their journey, they pass through a phase that mythologist Joseph Campbell named the Refusal of the Call.[1] During the Refusal of the Call, community members, specters, and voices in the traveler’s own mind confront them with fears of unexplored lands and dangerous creatures that live outside the village walls. Although our callings promise something valuable to those who dare proceed, the journey is risky and without guarantee. None of us can predict with certainty whether we’ll reach our destination or survive the journey. We never know when we may encounter a landslide, rabid animal, or sudden sandstorm. And so, in this phase,  we encounter a Voice of Doubt. An inner Voice of Doubt is the part of ourselves that cries Yeah but… and What if…? in an attempt to keep us safe.[2] An outer Voice of Doubt is a person we care about who does not understand our calling and tries to convince us not to go. The greater the risk and the more we care, the louder the what ifs. Doubt, anxiety, and all other flavors of fear are universal experiences—our body’s normal, physiological response to risk and the unknown. They’re signs we’re on the edge of something new. Doubt itself is not the problem. What keeps us stuck in the face of doubt and fear are the ways we react to doubt and fear. Here Are Some Ways That People Commonly React to Doubt Get curious about whether you see yourself in this list: Charging forward without proper discernment. Rather than giving the Voice of Doubt a chance to share its concerns, the traveler pummels past the quiet whispers that say something might not be right and dives headfirst without taking a good look at the obstacles ahead or considering strategies that might better meet their needs. They invest lots of time and energy before they’re confronted with the downsides of the path they’ve chosen. Avoiding the Call. The would-be traveler occupies themselves with distractions, attempts to resuscitate projects and relationships that are no longer alive, and expends lots of energy avoiding their call. But the call does not desist. As much as the traveler tries to push their doubt into the shadows, it bounces back, often as floating anxieties, confusion, and reactions they later regret. They suffer from what Joseph Campbell called a dull case of the call unanswered.[3] Worrying, and worrying about worrying. Most of us have been raised with the myth that the only thing to fear is fear itself and that we should somehow get rid of our fear. And so, when the Voice of Doubt spins in worry about what might happen, another part tries to convince them to stop worrying, saying their fears are irrational,
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    14 mins