What's the Understory?

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The book is called "Understory" and explores the idea that conflict deepens in a way that makes it more destructive than constructive. Often people who are in the conflict don't even know what the understory is, which is why good conflict mediators ask different questions to try to get underneath the usual talking points. Esther Perel says there's basically three big categories of things that all recurring fights in a marriage are usually about.

Life today can feel like wall-to-wall conflict. And most of us, well, we plain hate the feeling it gives us. Thing is, some conflict is not only good, but necessary and important. While other conflict, high conflict, is pretty much a road to othering, isolation, and devastation. Question is, how do you know the difference? And once you do, how do you step into good conflict with more grace and ease, that both helps you breathe, but also leads to a genuine resolution that leaves everyone better for it?

My guest today, Amanda Ripley, offers her wise counsel as a New York Times bestselling author, investigative journalist, and co-founder of Good Conflict, a conflict meditation business. Her most recent book, High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out, explores the complexities of high conflict through storytelling and interviews featuring a dozen people in three countries who escaped destructive conflicts to gather lessons for the rest of us in our polarized world.

If you've grappled with high-stakes conflict before or wondered how we've all ended up in such a divided state, you'll discover a lot in this episode that'll hopefully help you see the bigger picture.

You can find Amanda at: Website

If you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Susan Piver about the Buddhist Enneagram and how that can help you understand yourself and others in a way that eases conversation.

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