Hi, I am Dr. Caroline Leath and welcome to my podcast, Cleaning Up the Mental Mace.

I'm sure you've had arguments like I have and I'm sure you've got heated in your argument

and said things you wish you didn't say, I've done it and so here are some tips, three

things never to say in an argument and what to say instead that have helped me so much

that are also really good for your brain and that will help to de-escalate and not escalate

an argument.

Three things never to say in an argument.

First thing is personal attacks, okay, so this is where you say something that directly attacks

maybe what a person looks like or mistakes that they've made in the past but you know they're

working on which you know if you say something about them it'll kind of really be a kind of

stab in the stomach you know or something where you are attacking a person's character.

Those will immediately create a defensive response, I mean I'm sure you can put yourself

in that position when someone has attacked you and saying oh you you know what up one of your

mistakes that you've done in the past that you know you've done and very aware of it and you're

working on it can make you so defensive and you know maybe attack your character making you feel

like bad about yourself. It definitely doesn't help in an argument it's going to make things worse

and also it's not fair because you know you wouldn't like that happening to you

and however you or that person is showing up in the argument they're showing up like that because

of something that's going on in their life doesn't make the way they're showing up or the way

you're showing up right but if you don't know how to de-escalate then it's just going to get worse

so personal attacks are like adding fuel to the fire so if you catch yourself stop say sorry

and start again and like let's say that maybe you say that oh you know this is something that you do

...