I want you to think of the most difficult person you regularly have to talk to.
Don’t say their name.
Just picture them.
Now think of a conversation with that person that went off the rails—not because anything outrageous was said, but because something shifted. The tone changed. The air tightened. You felt it in your chest or your gut before you knew what to say. Suddenly you weren’t talking about the topic anymore. You were managing tension.
I’m going to say something I don’t recommend.
If you have the option, don’t choose it (generally speaking).
But it might be the best communication training program on earth.
Divorce.
More specifically: co-parenting conversations after divorce.
Because it’s negotiation meets history meets emotion meets bureaucracy—except the stakes are never abstract. And the conversation can derail over something as small as logistics.
Here’s a composite example. Real enough to be true. Vague enough to keep me out of court.
The topic is simple: a schedule change.
I send a message:
“Hey—can we swap pickup times this Friday?”
The response comes back:
“Sure. If you can actually follow through this time.”
Now we are not talking about Friday.
If I answer the words, I lose.
If I defend myself, I lose.
If I counterattack, I lose.
Because the conversation just dropped into a layer beneath language.
Energy shows up before words—and you feel it first
Before we speak, conversations are already shaped by energy.
You don’t just hear it—you feel it.
A tightening in the chest.
A holding of the breath.
A rush of heat.
A sense of collapse or urgency.
That bodily signal arrives before thought. Before strategy. Before words.
You can notice this energy in form:
- Driver energy pushes—urgent, forceful, directional
- Organizer energy holds—structured, controlled, rule-bound
- Collaborator energy flows—relational, back-and-forth, connective
- Visionary energy expands—future-oriented, abstract, open
And you feel it in tone, through the body:
Tight or open.
Rushed or spacious.
Guarded or receptive.
This isn’t mystical. It’s pre-verbal information. We respond to it instinctively— and then argue about words as if words were the problem.
That gap is what I call energy illiteracy.
Energy literacy: pause, notice, then blend
Energy literacy begins with a simple move:
Take a breath before you respond.
Not to calm down.
Not to be polite.
But to give your body time to register what’s actually happening.
In that breath, you notice:
- what form of energy is present
- how it feels in your body
- what impulse is trying to take over
Only then do you respond.
This is the shift from reacting to blending.
Not agreeing.
Not appeasing.
Not dominating.
Blending.
In that moment, instead of arguing logistics, I might say: “It sounds like you’re worried I won’t follow through.”
No defense. No counterpunch. No collapse.
What usually happens next is surprising: the pressure drops. The breath returns. The conversation can move again—not because anyone “won,” but because the real signal was finally met.
This is like a martial art—but for conversations.
And here’s the unexpected part: once you practice this in the most adversarial, emotionally charged situations, everything else gets easier.
Your boss.
Your team.
Your family.
Even the conversations you have with yourself.
You stop asking, “What should I say?”
And start asking, “What energy is here—and what stance lets me stay present with it?”
That’s the language beneath our conversations.
And once you learn to read it, you don’t just survive difficult interactions—you become someone who can stay centered inside them.
⛩️🌿
