Giving in to Get Your Way: The Attack-Tics System for Winning Your Everyday Battles

I read this book a long time ago and found it one of the most valuable books on handling many communication challenges, conflicts, and aggressions. It is based on the philosophy of Aikido. This is where you use the force of your opponent to neutralize your opponent and ideally leave them also unharmed in the process. Part of the understanding of Aikido is that everyone is innately good and when they are aggressive and attacking, it means that they have lost harmony with life. By doing "aiki" drawing their energy into a vortex, we can return them back to their center and help them find inner peace. In martial arts, it is sensing when a person enters your "sphere", harmonizing with their energy, and then circulating their energy around the circle until the attack is neutralized and the energy is brought home. In conversation, it means staying centered and not reacting to what is happening, and then waiting for a "pause" where the person runs out of steam in their verbal attack or communication. What I learned from the book was to wait for this pause and that before then the other person cannot be easily redirected and usually conflict happens. In the redirection process, you first harmonize with what the person is saying without submission to the attack. You can say something like, "I can understand why you would feel that way" and help them to flow back to their own center by having them hear what they are saying. It is similar to the feedback approach of Carl Rogers in this regard with more tactical awareness. I began to notice that if I acted without awareness of the pauses that it would sometimes feed the tensions rather than dissolve the tensions. Later on, I learned to wait for the pause and work within the pause. This book helped me to sensitize to this. I have not found any other communication book that talks about this pause and therefore I commend the authors on sharing about this. I found the book very practical.