 If you are on the end of a very difficult conversation remember that when we're thinking about if there's only basically two emotions love or fear so if anybody even is responding to me aggressively they're coming from that fear-based villain and they're really acting out it is not personal so anybody of us on this call they could be yelling at any of us so they're pushing against the system we just happen to be the person who's picked up that phone it is only words so you know sticks and stones may break my work bones but words I can absolutely choose if I'm going to ruminate over whatever nasty things somebody has said to me or I can if I'm in my gratitude practice if I've set out the day with my am statement I am statement I'm not going to take other people's bad feelings personally I'm going to be as much as possible coming from a place of compassion so somebody can say whatever they want to say to me and I don't need to let it stick I don't need to go home and talk to my dog or my partner about that I don't need to keep on creating more and more drama about that I can be so aware of my own self-care so aware of my own thoughts and feelings that if I am getting triggered I know I need to be playing more with my dog I know I need to be turning the news off I know I need to be listening to a really beautiful podcast or music having a bath I know I need to be playing more in the garden whatever it is that helps your brain come off that reaction space and get into the more how am I going to respond to this trigger when somebody is coming to you with aggression matching the energy can be something that can be useful so if somebody's really yelling at me I might turn my volume I might turn my volume up to actually match them as to be able to say well tiny I'm so sorry that's happened to you that really doesn't seem fair so I'm not making Tony roll and I am agreeing with him so it's very difficult for him to push back at me so again do your own little experiments around this I've already told you that I used to do a lot of well I still do a lot of role play work one of the scenarios I used to play was a patient who was really really angry and we used to play that out with a lot of medical students so I was busy in a backless gown role playing with medical students one time and my mission was to be really angry so I was complaining about the food I was complaining about somebody having died in the bed next door you name it I was complaining about it and this really beautiful young students came in there and sort of sat in the bed and I'm fizzily complaining and he said Deborah I'm so sorry that really does sound like you've had a rough time and it was practically almost impossible for me to kind of ramp it up again because he hadn't pushed back against me he'd been really respectful and he agreed that I was having a hard time so when we're thinking about coming from a place of compassion and actually getting to some sort of capacity to soothe both myself and the other person again these are some of the ways that we can actually make people feel heard which is generally what we what we need to feel if we are feeling like we don't have any power