Years ago at drama school, I had a boyfriend who was a master wordsmith. He’d summarise plays, articles or difficult concepts into engrossing easy paragraphs while I was still bumbling with, “So there was this Scottish guy called Macbeth, he had a wife who was a bit pushy, and then there were some witches…”
It was impressive (and rather sexy), until we argued. He always won. Not because he was right (he wasn’t!), but because he was eloquent and lightning quick. He won arguments with mic drops. He could twist words, reshape meaning, build logic faster than I could breathe. I’d get tangled in my own explanations, tripped by his logic, left doubting my point. By the time I’d found my point, he’d already moved the goalposts.
I remember at the time saying, can you please not try to win the argument so we can resolve the issue?
Beyond the Words Themselves
Words can build bridges, but they can also become armour. They can both describe truth and disguise it. In arguments, we often defend our version of reality rather than explore the shared ground beneath it. We can argue for hours about the details, or we can strip everything back to the raw core: What’s the fundamental fear here?
We argue because you think I’m lying, but what you really fear is being abandoned.
We argue because you gamble away the rent, but what you’re really chasing is aliveness.
We argue because you drink, but what you really want is escape from your choices.
But this perspective turns the spotlight outward. It puts me in the role of benevolent psychologist; the calm one, the understanding one. It’s flattering, until I realise it’s also a hiding place. Because while I’m busy understanding you, I don’t have to look at me. What do I gain?
We argue because I want to be the one who heals, but what I really fear is being irrelevant.
We argue because I stay calm, but what I really want is control.
We argue because I keep reaching for peace, but what I really fear is being alone with the truth.
Self-Enquiry and the Still Mind
This habit of self-questioning isn’t new; yoga has been teaching it for years with svādhyāya (self-study). Not the Instagram kind of a selfie of me journalling by candlelight, but the brutal kind that asks: why do I keep doing this? What pattern am I serving? It’s less about finding an answer and more about sitting in the discomfort long enough to see the pattern clearly.
In the Yoga Sūtras, the sage Patanjali defines yoga as citta vritti nirodha - the stilling of the mind’s fluctuations. In other words, yoga is the stopping of the mental chatter. That doesn’t mean suppressing thought; it means the mind stops being tossed around by every impulse and reaction. He goes on to say, “Through meditation, subtle patterns are dissolved.” He doesn’t mean they vanish because you’ve “let go” nicely. He means they lose their power when they’re seen without denial or defence. Meditation, then, isn’t about becoming peaceful, it’s about becoming honest.
On the rare occasions that I do have a fight, afterwards I sit and the words still circle like crows. I replay what I said, what they said, what I should have said. My mind edits the script, trying to rewrite the ending. That’s my ego at work. But if I stay, if I breathe through the heat in my chest, the churn in my stomach, and the taste of adrenaline, a small voice whispers through and says, I want to feel safe. Or sometimes, I just want to be loved. And in that moment, I see what I was really reaching for all along. And it is humbling to see that beneath every defence, that is all I was ever asking for.
When the Body Joins the Conversation
Modern psychology echoes what the sages knew. In emotionally charged moments, our limbic system hijacks the rational brain, we argue not to connect, but to defend. The sympathetic nervous system floods us with adrenaline; speech becomes weaponised. This is why no argument ever ends well when we’re triggered; we’re physiologically incapable of listening.
Meditation, breathwork, even pausing to feel your feet on the floor, signals safety to the vagus nerve. Only then can the prefrontal cortex, the part that reasons and empathises, re-engage. In other words, Patanjali’s ‘stilling of the mind’s fluctuations’, is simply the body remembering it’s safe enough to stop defending.
Meditation as Disarmament
Here is a self-inquiry practice, a contemplative approach that questions rather than suppresses. It’s not about achieving stillness; it’s about seeing clearly.
Try this*:
1. Sit down, breathe, and let the argument arise. Don’t tidy it up. Let the body feel the heat.
2. Notice the sensations. Jaw, chest, gut. Let them speak first, before thought tries to translate them.
3. Name what you feel. Not the storyline, the feeling: anger, fear, shame, longing.
4. Ask: What am I protecting right now? What is this feeling trying to protect?
5. Wait. Not for an intellectual answer but for a felt one: an image, a phrase, a memory. Stay curious about what emerges, whether it’s “I want to be understood,” “I feel small,” or “I want to feel safe.” There’s no right answer.
6. Ask again: What would it take to meet that need: without demanding it from anyone else?
(* This isn’t therapy or analysis - it’s an awareness practice. If strong emotions surface, pause, breathe, and come back to the body.)
That’s the heart of both psychology and yoga: moving from other-regulation to self-regulation. The nervous system learns it can hold itself.
Physiologically, this is the vagus nerve coming back online. The breath lengthens, the amygdala quietens, and the prefrontal cortex, the part that can reason and empathise, returns. In plain English: your body stops fighting and starts listening. That’s what Patanjali meant by ‘the stilling of the mind’s fluctuations’.
Writing It Out
If sitting still feels impossible, write instead. Journalling is meditation that moves. It slows the mind enough for honesty to catch up.
Try writing:
• What was I really fighting for?
• What fear sits underneath that?
• What am I protecting?
• What would it feel like if I didn’t have to win?
• What would safety look like in my own hands?
The Drop-Mic Moment That Matters
When I think back to that boyfriend, he didn’t want to understand and I really wanted to master the art of the mic-drop win. Winning an argument might feel satisfying, but does it get you what you truly yearn for?
I’d love to say that I now pause before reacting, breathe through every flare of defensiveness. I don’t. I catch myself mid-argument, thinking what can I say to win this- instead of listening. In the middle of the night, I find myself directing the argument to how I think it should have gone. But awareness comes faster now. When eventually I do shut-up, and find some open enquiry and the echoes fade, something raw and honest begins to speak – the part of me that needs to be seen and heard. It doesn’t fix anything. But it feels real, and that’s enough… for now.
Photo by David Clode on Unsplash