How To Diffuse a Tense Situation

How do you diffuse a tense situation or a disagreement?  That’s an important question!

It’s no fun to feel upset and walk around on eggshells. It also feels awful to clam up and not say a thing when someone asks, “What’s wrong?” Often the response is, “Nothing, everything is fine,” when it is definitely not fine at all. Sound familiar? We all face some disagreements, so you probably have been involved in some similar situations. You might agree that life is too short to carry these uncomfortable feelings, so we’ll share a couple of ways we have used to diffuse a tense situation and feel better.

In last week’s article and video, we talked about taking time to see a potential disagreement from the perspective of the other person. This creates an opportunity to understand each other better and, hopefully, to come to some resolution. Now, let’s look at another way that can bring harmony back to a relationship when faced with a tense situation.

We’ll share an incident that taught us how helpful this somewhat unusual strategy can be. Here’s what happened. You are not going to believe this (wink) but the first year we were married we had a disagreement, a “slight miscommunication”. In fact, I decided to leave the house for a few minutes to get some “fresh air”. When I came back, I noticed that Doug was peeking out from behind a doorway and he was holding a yardstick with a white handkerchief attached to the end of it.  At first, I wondered, “What in the world is he doing?” Then it dawned on me – he was waving the “white flag” as a sign of peace.  Actually, he said it was “complete surrender”.  Whatever it was, it worked.  All I could do was laugh! His humor and playfulness caused me to let down my guard and change my mood instantly. How could I stay angry at someone who was being playful and sending up a peace signal?

So, you probably figured out by now that this strategy is to use “humor” as a way to diffuse a tense situation.  Notice that it is playful humor, not sarcasm, not digs, not those sidewise comments. It’s good playful humor that can work.

Mark Twain had a quote that is appropriate to this situation.  He said, “Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute that it crops up all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes its’ place”.  That’s great!

Yes, it’s good when humor can be used to sooth a tense situation. We invite you to try it.  The next time that you run into a tense situation or one that could result in a disagreement, we encourage you to use humor but also to use it wisely. It helps when two people know each other and there is a sense of trust that the other person also would like to have the relationship be better. Take time to assess the situation and the people involved. You can recognize when humor seems appropriate or when people are so angry that they are not of a mindset to think anything is funny.  We hope that this message is helpful. We would love to hear from you as to how you used humor or other ways to diffuse a tense situation.

© Lynn Nodland 2017
Chanhassen residents, Doug and Lynn Nodland are owners of The Balance Center. They can be reached at WeCare@SharingLifesLessons.com