by Lorraine Segal | Sep 14, 2020
Understanding fault lines and property lines can help us resolve conflicts. Fault lines—as a Californian I’m familiar with fault lines, the locations where tectonic plates meet and can shift, creating earthquakes. I live right on one of the smaller ones, the Steven’s...
by Lorraine Segal | Aug 17, 2020
Fight, Flight, Freeze—that what neurobiologists say are our ancestral (and current) unconscious response choices in a threatening or conflict situation. I recently came across a similar expression in a spiritual recovery book: blaming, running, or freezing. In my...
by Lorraine Segal | Jul 15, 2020
Being open to difficult feedback, even about racism, can help you grow. Receiving feedback without feeling defensive or triggered is a challenge. I work with my students and clients to increase their resiliency and ability to get the best from feedback of supervisors...
by Lorraine Segal | Jun 15, 2020
“The beauty of anti-racism is that you don’t have to pretend to be free of racism to be an anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And that’s the only way forward.”—Ijeoma Oluo Anti-racism brings hope....
by Lorraine Segal | May 16, 2020
Amidst all the pandemic grief and fear, people step up in big ways to help each other Three years ago, I wrote a blog post called The Kindness of Strangers: Wildfires, Empathy and Conflict, about the many ways people helped each other during the devastating 2017...
by Lorraine Segal | Apr 17, 2020
Impatience can be a big contributor to conflict, and an obstacle to effective conflict resolution. I started writing a post about this impatience/conflict connection long before so many of us were stuck at home, working or not, impatiently wondering when we’ll ever be...
by Lorraine Segal | Mar 14, 2020
Don’t over-explain in difficult conversations–it tends to backfire. I’m going to make a generalization—Women and sensitive men tend to over-explain. We all want to be understood, and it is natural to want to explain our perspective to someone we...
by Lorraine Segal | Feb 17, 2020
Are you waiting until relationships are broken to deal with workplace conflict? Tip: this is not the most effective way to deal with disagreements and problems! Recently I had a conversation about this with an old friend of mine who now has a handyman business. I was...
by Lorraine Segal | Jan 19, 2020
Overwork can add fuel to conflicts. Are you feeling angry and put upon at work? Are you having negative interactions and conflict over relatively small matters? Overwork may be the culprit. I have had a number of coaching clients whose conflicts were intertwined with...
by Lorraine Segal | Dec 13, 2019
Reframing is a powerful tool to manage or dissipate conflict at work or anywhere. Our key to transforming anything lies in our ability to reframe it.—Maryanne Williamson I first learned about reframing in my initial training to be a mediator. When one of the parties...
