Greetings, friends! Instead of one of my usual blog posts today, I’m excited to provide a link to a podcast conversation I had recently with Jared Byas on his new miniseries podcast, How to Disagree, where we talked about working toward creating healthy disagreement.

I was deeply honored he invited me to talk about the stress, trauma, and conflict communication aspects of interpersonal situations involving deep disagreement. We got into the extra challenges that can come when some parties have been trained that speaking up is unsafe or even unspiritual. We also got into the nuts and bolts of planning for holiday gatherings and church conversations where we know we are likely to run into religio-political situations that involve deep disagreement.

Before I send you off to dive into the podcast–and I hope you do listen and enjoy it and would love to hear your thoughts on it–I wanted to point out that recording this podcast was really healing for me.

Healing? How so?

As you’ll hear us discuss, Jared is a recovering aggressor in discussion situations, whereas I’m a recovering avoider/accommodator. (We’ll define both of those things along the way.) It was a wonderful opportunity to get a chance to have a conversation with him. And it was great to have a chance to provide greater understanding and practical tips for people on both sides of the coin who genuinely want healthier ways of dealing with disagreement.

Without Further Ado: The Podcast Link!!!!!!

How to Disagree episode 2: The Language of Disagreement, with Jared Byas and DS Leiter, of Assertive Spirituality (42 min.)

By the way, during the podcast you’ll hear Jared talk about a time I gently called him on some stuff awhile back and we had some good conversations about it afterwards. He’s referring back to this blog! You can find the blog post where I provided my take on a solo podcast he did on the Bible for Normal People podcast about disagreement right here. (Wow, was that really more than 3 years ago now? Time flies and all that.)

Wait, what? Did someone talk about extra resources? Why, Yes, Yes, We Did!

Oh, and before I go, you’ll hear Jared mention a free Assertive Spirituality Guide to Trolls. Well, all you have to do to get that is to sign up for our email newsletter, either by putting your email in the top bar of this site and hitting submit or by checking the box for that when you comment on any blog post on this blog. Either way, you’ll have to confirm your email address when we send you an email, and the link to the Guide will come to you in the final welcome email. It talks more about the stress responses that pop up with conflict and helps you sort through your options with them regarding conflict.