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August 29, 2025 15 mins

Conflict isn’t a detour. It’s the road itself.
And if you’re out there making ideas real, you’re going to hit it—whether you like it or not.

This week on the Bloom Your Mind Podcast, we’re wrapping up our 3-part conflict resolution series with a quick-and-dirty cheat sheet. Think of this episode as your prep guide before a hard conversation: the moves that give you and the other person the best shot at resolution, connection, and growth.

We’ll cover:
 
✨ A lightning recap of the last two episodes (why the problem is the problem—not the person—and the five things conflict is really about).
 ✨ The mirror listening tool, and how to use it so people actually feel heard.
 ✨ An eight-point cheat sheet for walking into conflict as your best self. 

What you’ll learn in this episode: 

  • Grounding tips for entering a conversation with a still mind, a calm body, and lead by the outcome; you and I against the problem 
  • Using a mental talking stick to keep our inner interruption beast at bay 
  • What it means to stick to one topic at a time, even when our topics are vendiagrams
  • How owning our own experience, impact and subjective experience increases connection
  • How ditching generalizations can bring us together, and how to recognize the sneaky ones that we use without realizing it. 
  • How to sort out when we’re coming from attachment vs. coming from love (and why boundaries matter).
  • Manage your mind—how to watch your thinking and stay curious before during and after, so that your mind doesn’t regenerate the same conflicts again and again. 

By the end, you’ll have a go-to conversation checklist you can use now, or years from now, to turn conflict into a tool for building stronger ideas, deeper relationships, and a more resilient you.

Your homework: Pick one current or past conflict, and run it through the cheat sheet. Where could you have shifted from “me vs. you” to “us vs. the problem”? Which step would have changed the tone?

Mentioned on this episode: 

How to connect with Marie:

JOIN THE BLOOM ROOM!
We'll take all these ideas and apply them to our lives. Follow me on Instagram at @the.bloom.coach to learn more and snag a spot in my group coaching program!

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to the Bloom your Mind Podcast, where we take
all of your ideas for what youwant and we turn them into real
things.
I'm your host, certified CoachMarie McDonald.
Let's get into it.
Hello everybody, and welcome toepisode number 142 of the Bloom

(00:32):
your Mind podcast.
Today's episode is created tobe a quick resource for you.
It's a very short episode thatgives you a conflict resolution
cheat sheet.
Keep this episode in your backpocket for when conflict arises.
It is the third of ourthree-part conflict series.
This is this quick guide thatyou can have ready today,

(00:55):
tomorrow or 10 years from nowwhen you most need it.
So in our first conflictresolution episode, we talked
about the art of resolvingconflict, based on the book by
Betty Prize called the SpaceBetween Us.
Then last week, we zoomed in onone big shift that you can make
in conflict resolution, whichis making the problem the

(01:16):
problem instead of the personthe problem.
We even talked about the fivethings that conflicts are
generally about.
The five root causes ofconflict.
We think they're about theother person, but in general,
they're usually about one offive things resources, history,
structures, values orcommunication.
That list was highly helpfulfor me and you can go in and

(01:41):
check out what all of those fivemean by listening to one of the
past two episodes.
We've introduced mirrorlistening before on the podcast.
You can check out that tool bylistening to.
Listening is Sexy.
That's the episode.
And then today's episode ties alot of those tools together
with a practical step-by-stepcheat sheet that you can use to
prep yourself before headinginto a conflict resolution

(02:02):
conversation.
Because when you're out theretrying to make your ideas real
which we are all about you'regoing to run into conflict.
You're going to have internalconflict we have lots of tools
for that on the podcast butyou'll also have conflict with
other people.
You'll have interpersonalconflict.
It's not a glitch in the system.
When that happens, it is thesystem.

(02:24):
We don't really exist outsideof relationship to one another,
and how you handle conflictdetermines whether your ideas
thrive and really make it intothe world, whether you keep
going to make more ideas real,whether your relationships
deepen and whether you walk outof that conflict having grown

(02:46):
and evolved.
It is always an opportunity forthat, and conflicts really
create a space for us to learnmore about ourselves, about
others and about healing, so wecan do a lot of good in the
world.
All right, here is yourconflict resolution cheat sheet.
These are eight I believe tipsthat I've come up with to help

(03:07):
you and be a quick resourceanytime you need them.
Number one before you go into aconflict resolution conversation
, ground yourself with theoutcome in mind.
Before you start talking, pause.
Use one of our tools tocomplete the stress cycle, to
regulate yourself.
You can listen to the episodecompleting the stress cycle.

(03:29):
If you'd like more tools onthat, you can take a walk.
You can breathe.
You can use the animalisticbehavior of shaking it out.
That's my favorite one.
Sometimes you'll see athletesor public speakers jumping up
and down and shaking their body.
It's totally normal, eventhough your brain tells you it's
not.
Shake out the stress.
Do whatever you need toregulate yourself and then

(03:49):
picture the outcome that youwant.
It's not to be right.
It's not to have the otherperson understand you.
It's not to prove that you'rethe one that was in the right
the whole time.
The outcome we want is for youand I to be against the problem,
you and I on the same team.

(04:10):
The outcome we want is tounderstand one another and come
out of the conversation with awin-win, with something that
works for both of us.
Number two when we're speaking,take turns talking and don't
interrupt.
This is where that tool ofmirror listening comes in.
So you can even use themetaphor of a talking stick.

(04:31):
You can literally imagine thatwhen one of you is talking, the
other person does not get totalk about their experience.
When the other person istalking, you can imagine that
they're holding a talking stickand your job is to not interrupt
but just to listen, tounderstand, ask follow-up
questions if you want.
That will help you understandwhat they're saying and then

(04:55):
reflect back what you heard.
Okay, so here's what I'mhearing and you reflect back
what you think you heard so thatthey can correct you if you're
getting it wrong.
All too often we walk away fromconversations holding on to
what we think the person meantand sometimes we get it wrong.
So let's be really clear thatwe're understanding what the
person meant by repeating itback to them, and nothing shuts

(05:19):
down a fight faster than whensomeone feels truly heard.
Once they're finishedexpressing what they need to
express, it can be our turn.
We can take the talking stick,but let's really hear the other
person out first whenever that'spossible.
Number three this is soimportant and I think it can be
hard to recognize sometimes Stayon one topic at a time.

(05:43):
Here's an example of this.
Let's say we're like two peoplein a couple and one person says
we're always late.
Whenever we leave the house,we're late.
And it's really embarrassingfor me and I really can't stand
it because it feels stressfuland I'm not enjoying myself once
I get there because we've beenrushed and we're leaving the
house mad at each other.
We've been rushed and it's beena stress.
You know, we're leaving thehouse mad at each other.

(06:03):
I wanna talk about why we'realways late.
Let's resolve that.
And let's say the other personresponds by saying well, the
reason that we're always late isbecause there's so much
unfinished stuff that you leavearound the house.
You're always leaving thingsunfinished, right, that is a
different topic.
Yes, it is very related, butthey're two different problems

(06:27):
to solve.
So solve one problem at a timeby staying on one topic.
You can even verbally agree hey, I want to talk about the fact
that there's so much left undonein the house and that's why I
think we're late.
But I don't want to changetopics before we finish talking
about this and they're slightlydifferent.
So let's talk about being late.
And then I really want to talkabout one of the things that I

(06:49):
think helps us create theproblem that makes us late,
which is having too manyunfinished projects.
But we'll handle them one at atime.
Let's go back to being late.
Stay on one topic at a time andyou can solve them, instead of
sprawling out and interweavingmultiple problems.
Number four and this is one ofmy two most important tips is to

(07:11):
own your own experience.
When we are talking about aspecific thing that happened,
we're going to say this is theexact scenario that happened
when you interrupted me.
This is the experience that Ihad and this is the impact that
it had on me.
This is the impact that Iexperienced.

(07:31):
When we use a specific exampleand then follow it up by talking
about what we experienced andthe impact that we experienced,
we're owning our own experience.
There are infinite differentways that people react to
situations and circumstances.
The example of someoneinterrupting someone else

(07:53):
someone might not care at all.
Someone might get louder andinterrupt the other person.
Someone might feel small anddefeated.
Someone else might feel likeyou don't care about what I have
to say.
We all have different reactionsto different circumstances.
So when we can say the specificcircumstance.
When I'm in the middle of asentence and I get interrupted,

(08:15):
for example, and then follow itwith, I experience frustration.
I experience a feeling thatwhat I have to say isn't as
important.
That's what the impact that I'mexperiencing.
We're acknowledging that it'sour experience and we can even
say I'm not saying it was yourintention to make me feel like

(08:38):
that.
I'm just saying that's what Iexperience when I get
interrupted.
So I'm hoping that in thefuture we can minimize
interruptions for one anotherand maybe even have a phrase
that we say to help us remembernot to interrupt one another.
That would be really helpful tome.
Would that work for you?
So we're owning, we're using aspecific example, owning our own

(08:59):
experience and maybe evenmaking a really specific request
for what would work better inthe future.
All right, number five nogeneralizations.
We basically wanna banish thewords.
Always, never.
You're the kind of person whothis is how it always goes.
Those types of statements throwsomeone onto their heels, they

(09:20):
are nuclear, they turn asolvable conflict into a
personality issue and a wholebig thematic issue, with lots of
examples that come into play.
So we want to keep ourstatements specific, objective
based.
In fact, whenever possible,keep it about the actual
conflict moment that you justexperienced.

(09:42):
Number six when you realize,when we realize that we're
making a person a problem, pauseand turn it into a problem
problem Instead of deciding thatthe other person is the problem
.
Go to the resource of the lastpodcast episode and see which of

(10:04):
the five conflict roots is thisactually about?
Is this actually about history?
Is it about structures?
Is it about values,communication, resources?
When we are focused on theproblem, you and I can sit on

(10:24):
the same side of the table andtalk about the problem.
When we're focused on eachother, we are going to get
kicked into our lizard brain andbe in fight or flight or
freezer fun.
We're going to get triggeredover and over again and that
will really inflate conflictsreally quickly.

(10:45):
Okay, the next one is to manageyour mind.
This is the second of the two,most important.
This is the big one.
Your external circumstanceswill never be what creates your
internal state.
There will always be hardthings.
We will always want more.
Our old stories from our livesand our history will always

(11:05):
resurface in shiny new costumes,in conflicts, in challenges
that we face.
We're in charge of ourawareness around that.
So before, during and after aconflict, our job is to watch
our own mind.
Notice when it's trying to makeus the good guy.

(11:26):
Notice where your brain'strying to make you right and the
other person wrong.
Notice when our brains aredigging trenches to find
evidence that only proves ourside right.
Our brains are great at doingthat.
We're going to have animpulsive reaction to something

(11:47):
and then our brains are going toget lots of evidence, go around
gathering tons of evidence tosupport that immediate reaction.
We want to pause, notice thatour brain is trying to make us
the good guy, slow down ourthinking and ask hmm, what if
there's no good guy here?
What if there's no right andwrong?

(12:07):
There's no one person that'sright and the other person is
wrong.
What if we're both right?
What if two things could betrue at one time?
Get curious instead of certain.
How could I listen tounderstand what this was like
for them?
How could it be so differentthan what it was like for me?
Let's get curious about this.

(12:29):
When we can understand that twothings are true at once, two
people can have the sameexperience and experience them
totally differently.
That opens our curiosity in ourmind.
We're all humans, we're allcoming from the same place.
Deep down, we're all comingfrom a place where we want to do

(12:50):
good, we want to be good.
When we can remember that, ourdeep connection to one another
and manage the automaticthinking that happens, conflict
is so much more resolvable.
And when we need it number eightwe can take time away, we can
pause, we can cool down toregulate our system, just say,
hey, you know what I need totake a beat and think about this

(13:12):
for a minute.
Let's talk again in fiveminutes, let's talk again
tomorrow, whatever you need.
Time away can help us benon-reactive and increase our
self-awareness, our ability tomanage our minds and our
reactions.
So it's always okay to take abeat.
So there you have it, myfriends the conflict

(13:34):
conversation cheat sheet.
Use it as prep bookmark it, keepit as a resource for when
tensions rise, because conflictis not here to destroy you, your
idea or your relationships.
It's here to help you grow.
It will always show up and ifwe get really good at navigating
it from a place ofunderstanding that we're all

(13:54):
humans, we're all having anexperience and it's never about
another person.
The problem is always theproblem Then conflict will help
sharpen our ideas, deepen ourconnections and help us grow
into the people we really wantto be.
So go, make your ideas real andlet conflict be part of the
process and the thing that growsyou along the way.

(14:16):
That's what I've got for youthis week and I will see you
next week.
If you like what you're hearingon the podcast, you gotta come
and join us in the Bloom Room.
This is a year-round membershipwhere we take all of these

(14:39):
concepts and we apply them toreal life in a community where
we have each other's backs andwe bring out the best in each
other.
We're all there to make ourideas real, one idea at a time.
I'll see you in the Bloom Room,thank you.
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