Civil Discourse: 5 Steps to Reduce Conflict & Manage Anxiety

Is Civil Discourse the lost art of Human connection we need to restore? 

Coach Megan Devito explores how to have confident communication without constant conflict. Drawing on her years as a teacher setting up student debates, Megan highlights what’s missing in conversations today: respect and the ability to disagree with the idea without discounting the person.

This episode is vital for High-Achieving Women who need practical, actionable tools to handle big feelings like anger and anxiety. Megan explains how conflict makes people feel defensive, creating a massive divide in relationships and ruin family connections. We address the digital overwhelm of seeing polarizing posts and how it affects face-to-face communication.

Learn what civil discourse is (maintaining respect and seeking mutual understanding) and what it is not (it's not agreeing or silencing your beliefs).

5 Steps to Practice Civil Discourse (Especially During the Holidays):

1. Spot the Signal: Recognize physical signs of anxiety or defensiveness. 

2. Pause: Use a slow, deep breathwork exercise to bring the energy down and calm your nervous system. Remember: when your emotions are high, your thinking is low.

3. Get Quiet: Remind yourself that arguing doesn't make you more right; it just makes the other person more resistant to your opinion. Focus on your emotional wellness.

4. Find Common Ground: Shift your focus from stating your view to seeking theirs. Use active listening skills and ask questions to find shared values.

5. Acknowledge Their Experience: Validate that they operate based on their unique life experiences. (This is an essential communication skill for having difficult conversations and building resilience.)

Ready to stop overthinking and master effective communication techniques? 

🌟 If you want to go deeper and learn how to set healthy boundaries that stick, check out my Calm Communicator Guide. This guide, which helps you with communication boundaries and includes 10 go-to scripts, is available exclusively inside the Black Friday bundle until the end of the month. 

🌟 Ready to knock out stress and overwhelm before the New Year? You can also skip the line and book a coaching call to tackle a specific relationship or upcoming event.

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Transcript

Hey everybody, welcome back to More Than Anxiety. Today I wanna talk about something that feels like a lost art in our modern world, civil discourse. 

If we've not met before, I'm Megan Devito. I'm a certified coach who helps successful, motivated women break free from burnout and anxiety so that they can feel calm and confident and set boundaries that actually stick at home and at work so they're present and enjoying the life that they've worked so hard to create. If you didn't know,

Before I was a coach, I was actually a teacher for somewhere between 15 and 20 years on and off. my favorite subjects that I taught were history and government. And you might be rolling your eyes and think, ⁓ Lord, how? I love it. It's like storytelling to me. It's really great. So even if I was teaching World War II or how Congress worked, I had this one technique that I really, really loved and it surrounded civil discourse. 

What I did inside my classroom as a teacher was set my students up to debate how they felt about certain topics, whether it was something that was going on in current events, whether it was what they believed was right or wrong in World War II or anything else. I wanted them to debate. wanted them to learn the art of civil discourse so that they could have touchy conversations with their friends, with me, and still come out valuing the other person and their opinion even if they didn't agree with them.

I loved watching my students, even the ones who had wildly different opinions than me, learn how to present their arguments with respect, in structure, they learn to listen and to respond to the idea, not the person. And honestly, watching them reminded me of what is so often missing from our conversations today. Look around. Whether it's politics, our personal lives, or even just sports, the default seems to be to attack or argue with anybody who doesn't agree with us.

We're all walking around convinced that we're right. But I think it's important to remember that so does the person who doesn't agree with you. That's where we need to start. But instead, we tend to start with how we feel. One of the things that I do with my coaching and I teach you on the podcast or on the blogs is how to handle big feelings. What do I do when I feel angry? What do I do when I feel really anxious and I can't think straight?

Often I talk about stress and anxiety more than anything, but whatever it is that I'm teaching you, you can take that to your own kids, to your nieces and nephews, to your coworkers, to your best friends, and teach them how to regulate their emotions, how to think clearly. And today I want to teach you how to teach them to use civil discourse. So when we talk about the emotional toll of the constant conflict, this constant emotionally charged arguing, brings up some really big uncomfortable feelings like anger and disappointment that you might feel when someone that you love dismisses your viewpoint on what's happening in the world or maybe the football game or maybe in your home. 

Whatever is going on, you might feel anger or disappointment. You might feel anxious or afraid of speaking up at all.

It might be an overwhelming feeling of embarrassment if you're around others and you feel like you got publicly shut down and everybody was looking at you. Maybe you think everybody who was listening disagreed with you and you're embarrassed that you even said anything. And the result of all this is that it often just makes us feel stupid or we're making someone else feel stupid or unheard or unseen and they feel instantly defensive.

And once someone feels like they're fighting for their intelligence or their dignity, the conversation's over. And too often the relationship ends with it. This dynamic is creating a massive divide, not just in our politics or I'm recording this on November 4th, we're in the middle of a government shutdown that's set to be the longest government shutdown we've ever had, but also in our personal lives. Because the more we argue, the more we interrupt, the more we cut people off the further apart we get. And we start to ghost the people that we care the most about. Our friends, our family members, our community, the people that we need the most, we push them away because we disagree. We end up with no way to compromise and no way to have space to care for the people who need us and who usually we agree with on more issues than we disagree with. 

It's just that the issues that we disagree with cause us to feel all kinds of negative emotions, and we let those take over. We have to cool things down. And I know that we've heard this before. We have to cool the temperature. Everybody's arguing. Congress can't make a decision. Kids are fighting over politics. When did fourth graders start knowing about politics? And is that even OK? You can have an opinion on that too, and that's all right. But if we look at what's happening online and what's happening in our real lives, there's an intimidation factor there.

And this problem is only magnified by social media. So how many times have you been scrolling and you've seen a post from somebody that you know? Maybe it's a relative or a friend and you stopped and thought, who is this person? Like, how could I possibly be friends with or be related to this person who would think that, my, they're horrible. They're horrible people. Are they really?

You've loved them for most of your life and suddenly one political post caused you to think, I absolutely have to cut this person off. Don't get me wrong. We are in some really unchartered waters here, aren't we? I mean, even if we think about other points in history, and I will not bore you with an entire history lesson on what we've seen before and how history repeats itself, but even in the place that we are in America right now, there are other parts in the world that have been in similar situations. 

So whatever your viewpoint is or whatever the perspective it is that you have of what's going on around us. Other people have experienced similar things. But if your blood is boiling and you react on that quick emotion, we've created another problem outside of the things that are outside of our own homes, our own lives, our own communities. So now want you to fast forward to running into that person who you saw on social media at the grocery store. Because it happens. 

I'm from a small town, and where I live, I'll see somebody's post on Facebook and think, my god, and a day later run into them in the grocery. It's the first thing I think about. And if it happens to me, I bet it happens to you too. But let's say you see them at the grocery store. Or what if it's somebody that you love who's in your family and you have Thanksgiving coming up, or Christmas, or Easter, or whenever you're watching this episode. You have to see them at a holiday or a family reunion. 

You have a preconceived notion. You've already judged them based on a sound bite or a post or some meme that they retweeted, that feeling that you have, whether it's intimidation or discomfort, it's real. We're not going to pretend like we're not upset. We are. We disagree passionately sometimes. And it's a direct result of letting online arguments or a lot of times at this point AI that we don't fact check, we don't know if it's real or not, cloud our in-person connections.

And then we're hesitant to even say hello because we've already had that fight in our heads that hasn't even happened yet. Have you done this? I've done this. I'm totally guilty of these things. I'll read something and I'll think, you're kidding me, right? Like you shared that. I can't believe you shared that. And then it turns into this scenario that my brain creates. If I ran into them somewhere, what I actually want to say to them that I wouldn't say because I know how to manage my emotions.

But you know the feeling, right? The next time I run to them, I'm going to tell them exactly what I think. But what we want to do is instead we want to pause and we want to go back to the idea of civil discourse. And you might think, I don't even know what this is, Megan. I don't know what civil discourse is. So let's just go ahead and clearly define it. Civil discourse is not agreeing with the other person. I'm letting you off the hook right now.

You can see somebody's post and be like, that is garbage and I cannot even believe they think that. You are allowed to disagree. You're going to disagree with as many people as you agree with. It's also not letting someone walk all over you or silencing your own deeply held beliefs. It's none of those things.

Civil discourse is engaging in a conversation about a controversial topic while maintaining respect for the other person, whatever their experience is, and their humanity. We are re-humanizing people and recognizing that they have a different life experience than us. They didn't grow up in our house. They didn't grow up with the same parents or siblings or family dynamics. They have different pasts.

They have different perspectives on the future, and that's okay. Being different doesn't make us wrong. Civil discourse is just a willingness to listen to them, to try to understand them, and not just to prepare what you're going to say back. Not to create a counter argument to every thought that they have. The goal isn't to make them agree with you. It's to have a mutual understanding or a respectful agreement to disagree don't agree with you. just I don't see it that way at all. 

But you are a person who has a different experience, and I can let you have your experience and your opinions. It's about recognizing that you can absolutely hate the idea and what they are saying. I absolutely hate what you're saying. That's OK. You're allowed to feel that. But that doesn't mean that you have to hate them as a person. You can actually still love the other person and not agree with anything that they said. I do it all the time. I do, I literally do it all the time. I live, as I told you, I live in a very small town. There are a lot of people who have very different opinions than me, and I still love those people. 

So how are we gonna make this happen? Because those feelings are big. And definitely the political climate is crazy. I mean, we can't even have a conversation about somebody like Taylor Swift without wanting to like throw somebody into the pit of hell. How could you even like her? This blah, blah, blah. Because they like a different kind of music of you. I would argue the same thing for bands that a lot of other people like that I can't listen to.

So let's talk about the steps to practice civil discourse starting right now because you guys, the holidays are coming. I want you to be able to go to a holiday dinner with your family and absolutely stand your ground or keep your mouth shut, whatever you decide to do without having to leave wishing that you had a different family. I want you to be able to enjoy the time that you have to be present and to have a civil, rational conversation with people that you don't agree with.

And this skill is a skill that you can practice and master before Thanksgiving, even though it's November 4th. And since we're heading into the holidays in Q4, this is prime time for differing opinions. We're going to be together with people who we don't agree with. So here's the five steps that I coach my clients on and that I coached my students on in the past to help them navigate those difficult conversations from this moment into the future, all the way into 2026 and beyond.

So the first thing we wanna do is recognize the physical signs inside of your body when you are starting to feel defensive or angry or shut down. Pay attention to how your body feels. Is your jaw clenching? Do you feel like you're on fire, like you're bursting into flames? Can you feel that rage inside of you? Is your heart racing? That feeling inside of your body is your signal to pause. 

The thing that I learned years ago ⁓ was that, and I, you know, it's one of those things that you hear and you realize after you hear it, like, obviously that's true, but you just don't think about it beforehand is that I was working our high school. We had a referendum to build a new high school several years ago. And I was on the group of people who went out and campaigned for this referendum to build this new high school.

And one of the things that we were trained in when we were talking to people about, so I was pro high school, there's another group who's anti-building the new high school. When I'm having conversations with people who were very against building a new high school and I was very for it, the plan wasn't to convince them.

There was no way I was going to be able to present them with facts and statistics that were going to change their mind. It wasn't my job to change their mind. It was my job to talk with them and hear their point of view so that we could address those emotions or we could address those fears in a different conversation so that they could change their own mind. Because my guess is nobody's changing your mind. You're not going to change theirs either. And yelling and screaming isn't going to get you there. So when you notice that you feel anxious,

Pause, take that pause, mentally check yourself and immediately take a slow deep breath and use that breath to bring the energy down. You cannot think clearly or listen effectively when you are in that place of really high emotion. When your emotions are high, your thinking is low. You got to breathe and pause. And then what you want to do is remind yourself that yelling or arguing to the hilt

Your opinion does not make you more right. And it doesn't make the other person more likely to agree with you. It only makes you louder than them and makes them more resistant to hearing what you have to say. So shh, bring it down a minute. When you notice your voice is getting higher or louder or more intense, pull it back. And then what I want you to do is to shift your focus from stating your opinion to seeking theirs. Ask questions.

Ask things like, help me understand why you feel that way without counter arguing them. Or what outcome would you like to see? This is a great one. When I said that you're going to find that you agree with more things than you disagree on, the outcome is usually the same. It's just the ways that we think we need to get there. And that's where we have to learn to compromise. So what outcome would you like to see? Look for common ground. Force your brain to find the common ground like a shared value for safety or a good education and then acknowledge their experience. 

Remember that they, just like you, are operating based on their own unique life experiences. They've got different data points and different history and different values that lead them to their own conclusion. You have to validate the fact that their path is different, even if you don't like their conclusion. And you can even say, I can see that you've put a lot of thought into this. You actually have.

I can see that even though I don't agree, I get it. This process is about finding connection over conflict. So when you master this whole idea of civil discourse, it changes everything. It helps mend relationships that maybe have been broken in the last several years. It calms your nervous system down. Wouldn't we all like to feel less triggered all of the time?

And it also gives you a really powerful voice without the drama. I don't know about you, but I'm kind of over all the drama. So if you're ready to stop walking on eggshells every time you run into somebody who you saw their post on social media, or you heard them talking to a friend, and you want to learn how to confidently navigate really difficult conversations without losing your mind or your connections, I've put together a really complete framework for you.

So if you're ready to go deeper and to turn these steps into a skill that you can use on the fly, you're gonna wanna check out my Calm Communicator Guide. it gives you 10 go-to scripts that you can use at your holiday parties or in the office or anywhere else that you find yourself. You can get this guide exclusively inside the Black Friday bundle until the end of the month.

It ends on the day after Black Friday. It's $47.

Or you can skip the line and you can book a coaching call with me right now and we can talk about tackling a specific relationship that you're dealing with or an upcoming holiday event. So you can go to the link that's in the show notes or in the episode on YouTube and grab the guide or schedule time to talk with me. And until next time, let's all try to be a little bit more civil in our conversations, find some common ground so that we can all enjoy the holidays, have a successful Q4.
and be excited for the future that we're setting ourselves up for. You guys, I hope this was helpful. I hope that you'll use this, and I'm really looking forward to talking to you again next week. Take care.