Assertive Isn’t Selfish: A Catholic Guide to Healthy Love

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By Dr. Gregory Popcak

The Theology of the Body reminds us that Christian love is not meant to be one-sided. While we are certainly called to be generous, sacrificial, and attentive to the needs of others, we are not called to ignore or suppress our own needs. In fact, St. John Paul II taught that the key to healthy, holy Christian relationships is “mutual self-giving.” Love flourishes when everyone involved is committed to giving what they can for the good of the other—and to receiving that love in return.

One of the biggest misunderstandings Christians struggle with is the idea that acknowledging our needs—much less asserting them–is somehow contrary to living an authentic Christian life. But TOB teaches us something very different. God is the author of our needs. A need is not just something required to survive; it is anything necessary for us to flourish as the persons God created us to be. Emotional connection, respect, rest, affection, support, and meaning are not luxuries—they are part of God’s design for human life.

When our legitimate needs are met, we thrive. And when we thrive, God is glorified in our flourishing. This means it is not only appropriate but healthy to expect that the people who say they love us will be responsive to our needs, just as we strive to be responsive to theirs. Mutual responsiveness is not selfishness; it is the very structure of love.
This is where the distinction between assertiveness and selfishness becomes essential. A selfish person is focused exclusively on themselves. They want what they want, how they want it, and when they want it, with little concern for how that affects others. Christian assertiveness looks very different. A responsible, assertive Christian is clear and honest about what they need, but also remains flexible and respectful about how and when that need is met. The goal is not control; it is communion.

TOB reminds us that we were created for intimate communion with God and with one another. Intimacy cannot exist where needs are hidden, denied, or dismissed. True closeness grows when we are able to say, “This is what I need,” and when the other person can respond with generosity and care. Likewise, love deepens when we are willing to hear the needs of others without becoming defensive or dismissive.

Of course, expressing needs does not guarantee they will always be met perfectly or immediately. But consistently silencing ourselves out of fear, guilt, or a mistaken sense of holiness leads to resentment, burnout, and emotional distance. That kind of self-erasure does not reflect Christ. Jesus gave Himself completely—but He also rested, withdrew to pray, asked for support, and allowed others to minister to Him. Mutual self-gift always includes mutual care.

Healthy Christian relationships are not about keeping score or demanding perfection. They are about a shared commitment to help one another become more fully alive. When we learn to express our needs clearly and charitably, listen to the needs of others with compassion, and work together to find solutions that respect everyone involved, we begin to experience the kind of love God intended from the beginning.

In that kind of relationship, no one disappears. Everyone is seen. Everyone is invited to give—and to receive. And in that mutual self-giving, the love of God becomes visible in the world.

If you would like support it making this change in your life or relationships, reach out for personal support from our pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com.

Got a Grinch in Your Life? Take Your Cue from a Who

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Everyone knows the classic story of the Grinch, the green, cave-dwelling misanthrope who spent his days hating the noise and joy of the holidays. He comes sledding into Whoville, determined to ruin Christmas and make all the Whos cry “boo-hoo.”

It’s a heartwarming holiday story…until, that is, you encounter your own personal “Grinch.”

Oh, he or she may not be green or carry a grudge against Christmas. Instead, this particular Grinch may show up as the family member whose irritability makes everyone walk around on eggshells, the coworker whose chronic pessimism and negativity drain everyone else, or the moody, passive-aggressive kid on your couch.

These Grinches leave us feeling heavy, tense, and insecure as their emotional storm clouds fill the room. We might find ourselves mirroring their mood as a defense mechanism.

But as pastoral counselor Rachael Isaac shared on a recent episode of the More2Life radio show, a better approach might be the one modeled by the Whos of Whoville.

Why We Tend to Mirror Our Grinches

During a recent episode of More2Life with Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak, pastoral counselor Rachael Isaac explained that when someone around us is being a Grinch, our natural instinct is to absorb that energy.

“Our nervous system just mirrors what it sees, and our thoughts start spinning, and our confidence dips, and we kind of start shrinking ourselves or bracing ourselves,” Rachael said.

This defensive posture isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s actually a biological response. God wired human brains with “mirror neurons” that are designed to help us empathize with others, which is normally a good thing. But those same mirror neurons can also cause us to reflexively mimic the stress of a hostile person.

The trick, according to Rachael, is to realize what’s going on and take control of the situation.

“Don’t match the mood. Manage your own,” she said.

That simple statement shifts everything. Instead of asking, “How do I get them to stop?”—which leaves us feeling powerless—we can ask, as Dr. Popcak put it, “How can I get myself to a better place so that I can deal with them intentionally rather than just reacting to them?”

Manage Your Own Mood in Four Steps

At the heart of staying steady, Rachael said, is the “internal boundary.” Unlike an external boundary, which might involve leaving a room, an internal boundary is a mental filter. It allows us to acknowledge someone else’s pain or anger without letting it enter our own hearts.

Here are four practical steps for maintaining your calm and protecting your peace when the Grinch comes calling.

1. Pause and name what is happening

Start with pausing to remind yourself that as heavy as the other person’s energy feels, it’s their mood, not yours. As Rachael put it, “this is their feeling, not a reflection of my worth, my competence, or my responsibility to fix it.”

When we stop taking responsibility for everyone else’s happiness, we are free to act out of our own values. We can find our peace in who God created us to be, rather than getting sucked into the storm someone else is projecting.

2. Ground yourself in your body

Hostility triggers a “fight or flight” response that makes us physically tense. Before you respond to a grumpy comment, check your body.

“We want to ground ourselves and our body before we respond,” Rachael said. “So take a second to unclench your jaw. Drop your shoulders. Take that deep breath. Because in that moment, our calm can become our anchor.”

Send up a quick prayer for God to send you grace and strength.

3. Choose your tone intentionally

It is incredibly easy to “inherit” the tone of a difficult person. If they are snappy, we become snappy. However, emotional maturity means choosing our own response.

“We can respond with a steady and neutral energy,” Rachael said. “And that’s not us being fake in that moment. It’s us being intentional.”

By keeping your tone steady, you prevent the conflict from escalating and maintain your own dignity.

4. Maintain the internal boundary

Remind yourself that you can be kind without being a sponge. Say to yourself, “I can stay compassionate without carrying their mood.”

This allows you to remain present and even helpful to the person who is struggling, but you do so from a position of strength rather than insecurity. You are no longer “walking on eggshells”; you are standing on solid ground.

When you maintain your calm, you actually elevate the entire interaction. People feel safer around someone who is regulated and steady. As Rachael points out, “You protect your peace, and you stay in line with your values instead of being pulled into someone else’s storm. And that stability is really our strength.”

Take Your Cue From a Who

Like the Whos in Whoville, you can choose joy and peace even when someone else brings the Grinch energy. You can be the steady light in the room, reflecting the stability and grace that God offers us all.

For more help with managing difficult relationships or performing your best under pressure, reach out to Rachael Isaac or the team of pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com.

Feeling Overwhelmed? Try These Three Simple Steps

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As the holidays approach, are you feeling a little Grinchy? It’s not that you don’t appreciate Advent or celebrating the Nativity; it’s just the stress of holiday expectations layered on top of your normal work and home responsibilities. Anyone would feel overwhelmed, really.

Whether you feel overwhelmed by the holidays or “overwhelmed” is just your default state most weekdays, Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak have a practical three-step plan for coping.

The ‘It’s All on Me’ Trap

When our stress level rises in sync with our to-do list, our natural tendency is to become overly task focused, the Popcaks said. We convince ourselves that we have to power through on our own and that we won’t feel better until every task is complete.

But that’s a trap.

“When I start feeling overwhelmed, I just want to plow through: ‘I’m going to do this all by myself,’” Dr. Popcak said on a recent episode of the CatholicHŌM Podcast. “And it doesn’t always work as well as it sounds like it should.”

When we try to brute-force our way through stress, we become anxious, snappish, and distant. As Lisa Popcak noted, we push people away, telling ourselves we’re not “allowed” to have connection until after everything is done.

This leaves us feeling more like “human doings” instead of “human beings”—miserable and disconnected from the people we care about. As St. John Paul II pointed out during his catechesis on the Theology of the Body, human beings are first and foremost called to be in relationship with God and one another. We are more than just machines whose only purpose is to “get things done.”

The solution isn’t to work harder; it is to reorient how we work.

Three Steps to Move from Overwhelmed to “Perfectly Whelmed”

To move from a state of frantic overwhelm to being “perfectly whelmed,” (as Dr. Popcak put it), we need a plan that prioritizes relationship over efficiency. Here are three steps the Popcaks recommend.

1.    Stop and Connect with God

The first step is to stop powering through on your own. Reach out for help, beginning with the God who loves you.

For example, you might pray, “Okay, Lord, I’m feeling overwhelmed, I’m feeling stressed, I got a million things to do. Help me to approach this the way you want me to.”

The focus here matters—it’s about being your best self through the tasks, not just getting them done. You are giving yourself permission to let God lead you through the chaos, rather than tearing through it and hoping God cleans up the mess later.

In a family setting, Lisa Popcak recommends praying out loud with your family during transitional moments, especially as you’re headed into a hectic agenda. Before you even get out of the car to wrestle with that double stroller, stop and pray: “Lord, there’s a lot going on right now. Please help us be our best selves.”

Besides being genuinely helpful in the moment, this habit teaches kids to lean into prayer rather than anxiety. 

2. Focus on Connection Over Task

When we are stressed, we tend to view our family members as obstacles to our goals, the Popcaks said. The antidote is to ask yourself, “How can I do these tasks while staying connected to the people that I love?”

Let’s say you take on a home repair project like replacing a kitchen faucet. The YouTube DIY videos all say it should take half an hour, but one thing leads to another, and two hours later you’re at the end of your rope. Before long, you are growling, sighing, and snapping at any family member who dares poke their head in the kitchen.

But instead of following your natural inclination to push people away, try pulling your people closer. As Dr. Popcak suggested, you might take thirty seconds to say, “You know, what I could really use right now is a hug!” Just holding your family for a moment allows you to breathe in love and let the stress go. And if you are feeling especially stressed out, you might go even further, asking family members to not only give you a long hug, but also to say a prayer over you.

It only takes a minute, but the benefits can be huge, providing a much-needed reset and releasing hormones that help with stress reduction. As an added bonus, you’ll be able to tackle your stressful situation refreshed and with a new perspective that might help on a practical level.

3. Make a Plan to Get Through This Together

Finally, the Popcaks point out that we often fail because we don’t communicate our expectations to our family members or colleagues before the stress hits. To avoid this, you need to have an intentional conversation about how you are going to get through the situation together.

For example, let’s say that tomorrow is going to be a super busy and hectic day. You might sit down with your family and say something like, “Hey, it looks like tomorrow’s going to be kind of a stressful day. What are some things that we can do to stay connected and take care of each other while we do this?”

The holidays are a perfect example. We know they’re coming, and we know they’ll be busy. Instead of charging into December with vague anxiety, sit down with your family or the people you live with and make a plan. What matters most this season? What can we let go? How will we take care of each other when things get hectic?

This step is all about remembering that the people in our lives—whether family, roommates, colleagues, or friends—matter more than crossing items off our lists.

Stronger and Closer for Working Together

So there you have it: instead of trying to go it alone, bring God into the room. Lean on the love and support of your people, and be intentional about communicating expectations and making a plan.

The goal isn’t just surviving stress, Dr. Popcak said—it’s coming through it “stronger and closer for having gone through this together.” 

For an even more in-depth look at handling stress in your life, check out Dr. Greg Popcak’s book, God Help Me! This Stress is Driving Me Crazy! And if you need one-on one support in handling stress, reach out to a pastoral counselor at CatholicCounselors.com

Here’s How to Set Healthy Boundaries with the People You Love

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Shauna’s mother had been watching her young children a few times a week, but things kept going wrong: the four-year-old was left outside unsupervised; Grandma showed them a horror movie that gave them nightmares; and she fed them sugary snacks, despite Shauna’s instructions.

Not surprisingly, the children regularly come home wired and dysregulated. “They’re just a mess when I pick them up,” Shauna explained on a recent episode of More2Life, the live radio show hosted by Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak on the EWTN Radio Network.

She knew she needed to set some limits, but she worried about damaging her relationship with her mother if she said that her mother couldn’t watch the kids any longer.

Her dilemma is a common one. When it comes to people we love, setting boundaries feels scary. It feels mean. And for many of us, it feels impossible.

Are boundaries “mean”—or loving?

The Popcaks spend a lot of time helping people understand that boundaries are a tool for better relationships. “Setting a boundary is not really about cutting somebody off or punishing somebody,” Dr. Popcak explained. “Don’t think of a boundary as a wall or an electrified fence. Think of a boundary as a door. 

“You put this door so that people can walk through it but they have to knock first, or they have to do something before they come through the door,” he continued. “It’s not just, you’re not being mean by having doors in your house. You’re just saying, well, I need you to do something before you can come into this room.”

All too often, the pressure to “be nice” and accommodate everyone can make us feel selfish for saying no to anything. This pressure can be even more difficult for Christians who are concerned about prioritizing love in relationships.

But look at what typically happens when we avoid setting boundaries: resentment builds, unsafe patterns continue, and we enable behaviors that hurt not only us, but the people responsible for those behaviors.

The theology of healthy boundaries

In order to understand how healthy boundaries can actually enable more authentic love, let’s take a look at what St. John Paul II says in his Theology of the Body.

The doctrine of the Trinity teaches us that God, who is one, exists as three distinct persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each person of the Trinity is fully united in love, yet each remains unique and distinct. Because we’re made in God’s image and likeness, we too are called to live in unity without losing our individuality.

Healthy boundaries help us live this divine pattern. They’re not walls that keep people out. They’re doors that help us decide when and how best to give ourselves fully to each other and to ensure that we are treating ourselves and each other with dignity and respect.

“Love isn’t about losing ourselves in another person,” Dr. Popcak explained. “It’s about giving ourselves freely and responsibly. Boundaries protect the freedom that make genuine love possible. Without them, love becomes distorted. It can become either controlling or enabling.”

As St. Paul reminds us in Galatians 6:1, we are called to correct one another in a spirit of gentleness. Boundaries help us do exactly that, Lisa Popcak said.

“With those who’ve hurt us, setting boundaries can actually be—brace yourselves—an act of mercy, not rejection,” Lisa Popcak said. “Failing to set limits when someone sins against us doesn’t help them. In fact, it often enables harm.”

Authentic love, Dr. Popcak said, is always ordered to the true and good. “Setting boundaries tells the other person, ‘I love you too much to pretend that that particular behavior is okay.’ It’s not a punishment. It’s an invitation to conversion and healing. And when we set healthy, godly boundaries, we create the conditions that allow authentic communion.”

Three steps to setting boundaries that stick

If you’re ready to set a boundary but you’re not sure where to start, here’s a practical framework.

1. Name the specific behavior and its impact

Don’t speak in vague complaints like “you’re too much” or “you don’t respect me.” Name the concrete behaviors that are causing problems and explain how they affect you or your family.

For example, Lisa suggested that Shauna could tell her mother, “Mom, you think that the kids are having a great time. They’re coming back just a mess. I appreciate you trying to be a caregiver to them, but I also need you to be a caregiver to me. I’m your daughter and when my kids are coming back scared, wired up on sugar, not able to do the next steps of their day, you’re not giving me any care.”

This frames the boundary not as an attack on Grandma, but as a request for care. It’s honest about the impact without shaming or blaming.

2. Offer a pathway forward

Don’t just tell someone what you don’t want—give them a clear picture of what would work better. “Tell me what you’re trying to do by acting this way,” Greg suggested. “Let’s figure out a better way to do that.”

In Shauna’s situation, the pathway forward might be: “I know you love spending time with the kids. Let’s do that together—family dinners, supervised visits, activities where we’re all present. But right now, unsupervised childcare isn’t working for any of us.” This preserves the relationship while protecting the children.

The key is framing boundaries as an invitation, not a rejection. If the person can respect the boundary, they can be fully present in your life. If they can’t, they can still be in your life—just in a more limited way.

3. Enforce with clarity and consistency

Once you’ve set a boundary, you have to maintain it. We don’t toss the ball into the other person’s court and hope they maintain the boundary, it’s up to us to keep the boundaries that we set. 

If someone can’t respect your boundary, they can’t be in that part of your life. That’s a door, not a wall. You’re not cutting them off forever—you’re saying, “This particular way of relating isn’t working, so we need to do it differently.”

Sometimes you can’t enforce boundaries fully. Dr. Popcak suggested that if Shauna’s mother is her only childcare option, she should focus on mitigation: prepare the kids ahead of time, identify what works better on good days and encourage those behaviors, and build in decompression time after they’re picked up.

Creating space for real love

In short, when we set healthy boundaries, we create the conditions that allow both people to flourish. We stop enabling harm and start inviting growth. We move from confusion and control to authentic communion.

For more help setting healthy boundaries in your relationships, check out Dr. Greg Popcak’s book, God Help Me! These People Are Driving Me Nuts. And for more in-depth, personalized help, reach out to a pastoral counselor at CatholicCounselors.com.

When “Fixing” Loved Ones Doesn’t Work, What Next?

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Even professional counselors miss the mark sometimes. For Dr. Greg Popcak, that moment came a few decades ago. After several conversations with a friend who was going through a rough time, his friend finally said, “Greg, you’re making me feel like a project.”

Dr. Popcak thought he was doing everything right: listening carefully, identifying the issues, walking his friend through solutions. But his friend’s words hit home, helping him realize that he had made his friend’s problem the focus of their relationship rather than seeing him as a person, a beloved child of God.

“My intentions were good but, there you go,” Dr. Popcak said on a recent episode of the More2Life radio show. “And I think it happens to all of us where we want to be there for another person, but sometimes the way we’re choosing to be there for them just isn’t landing the way we thought it would.”

If you’ve ever tried to help someone you care about only to watch them push you away, shut down, or accuse you of meddling—well, you’re not the only one. Maybe they deny there’s even a problem. Maybe they listen but never change. Or maybe your efforts to help are keeping you up at night.

Whatever the case might be, when helping hurts more than heals, something needs to change. Here are four principles to follow so that your desire to help produces good fruit for both you and your loved one.

1. Prioritize the Person Over the Problem

As Dr. Popcak learned when he was trying to help his friend, when we make someone’s problem the center of our relationship with them, we’re no longer in communion with them. Instead, we’ve reduced them to a puzzle we need to solve, a broken thing we need to fix. That’s not love—that’s control dressed up in compassionate clothing.

The Theology of the Body helps here. As St. John Paul II wrote in his book Love and Responsibility, loving someone means more than doing nice things for them. It means working for their ultimate good, really helping them become the person God made them to be. Everything we say and do should bring out the best in others.

“As my friend reminded me, people aren’t projects, right?” Dr. Greg said. “They’re not fixer-uppers waiting for our renovation plan. And when we treat them that way, even accidentally, we do stop seeing them as persons. True love respects the other person’s freedom and dignity.”

2. Is your relationship deep enough?

One of the core principles the Popcaks emphasize is this: “The relationship has to be deep enough to contain the conversation you want to have.”

“If your relationship is relatively superficial and you’re just talking about current events or what he did this past week, you’re not going to have those deeper discussions about his goals, his life choices, faith, values, those kind of things,” Dr. Greg explained.

The solution isn’t to force deeper conversations. It’s to deepen the relationship first. This means:

  •       spending time together without an agenda
  •       showing up consistently
  •       demonstrating through your actions that you value them as a person

A caller named Valerie shared how she did this with her adult son. Rather than lecturing him about his choices, she focused on practical acts of love. Specifically, she brought him food, cooked for him, or took him out to eat. Those meals became opportunities for real connection.

3. Ask God what he wants from you in this situation

A common pitfall for people of faith, Lisa Popcak said, is rushing into a situation because God has appointed us to help.

While it’s true that God wants us to help those who are struggling, how we do that matters. When we want to help someone—whether it’s a toddler, a friend, or an adult child—it’s important to pause to pray and ponder.

Not every person God brings into your life is someone you’re meant to fix, the Popcaks noted. Sometimes God wants you to simply love them; other times, you’re meant to pray, or to be a good listener. And sometimes you’re meant to let them face the natural consequences of their choices without rescuing them.

Lisa compared our tendency to jump into “helper mode” with St. Francis of Assisi’s initial response when God told him to rebuild his church. Francis started literally rebuilding stone churches, picking up rocks and mortar.

“And God’s like, ‘That’s not what I meant,’” she said. “I need you to rebuild the church with the way I’m teaching you to live and how you’re supposed to reach out to people.”

Before you decide how to help, pause and pray. Ask God what he’s inviting you to do in this situation. What does this person actually need from you? The answer might be very different from what you assume they need.

4. Focus on producing good fruit, not on feeling helpful

Here’s a hard truth: if your efforts aren’t producing good fruit in the other person’s life, you’re not actually helping—no matter how much energy you’re pouring into the situation. Real helpfulness is measured by results, not by effort or intention.

“Sometimes we think being helpful means doing something, right? Fixing problems, giving advice, stepping in,” Dr. Popcak said. “And we tend to tell ourselves that we’re being helpful even when our efforts aren’t producing good fruit.”

In other words, we measure our helpfulness by our intentions rather than by the actual results, focusing on what makes us feel like good helpers instead of what actually serves the other person’s growth.

This requires brutal honesty with ourselves. Are you spending hours worrying about someone but never actually talking to them? Are you giving the same advice over and over while they ignore it? Are you enabling destructive behavior by constantly rescuing them from consequences?

Connect, Show Up, and Trust God

If you’re exhausted from trying to help someone who won’t be helped, or if you’re wondering whether you are actually helping, take a breath: step back and ask God what he’s actually calling you to do in this relationship. Build connection before offering correction, show up consistently without an agenda, and trust that God loves this person even more than you do.

For more advice about helping adult children, consider reading Having Meaningful (Sometimes Difficult) Conversations with Your Adult Sons & Daughters by Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak. And for more one-on-one guidance on supporting the people you love while maintaining your own peace, reach out to the pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com.

Why They Keep Bringing Up the Past (And How to Stop the Cycle)

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It starts with something small—a forgotten chore, a missed text, a minor disagreement about dinner plans. But before you know it, you’re hearing about that time you were late to their birthday party three years ago, or how you “always” do this particular thing that drives them crazy. What began as a simple conversation has become an exhausting replay of every conflict you’ve ever had.

If this sounds familiar, the good news is that you’re probably not dealing with someone who’s simply being unfair or manipulative. According to Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak, there’s a predictable psychological reason why people drag the past into present conflicts—and once you understand it, you can learn to break the cycle.

The key isn’t defending yourself with facts or logic. It’s recognizing that when someone brings up old wounds, they’re not really arguing about the chore you forgot or the ice cream you finished off. They’re telling you that something deeper is happening, and they need a completely different kind of response.

It Started with Soured Laundry…

A recent caller to Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak’s More2Life radio show brought up exactly this situation.

During eight years of marriage, Bill made a conscious effort to meet his wife’s needs and requests. So when she went to visit her sister one weekend, he decided to clean out their chaotic garage, a task that she had asked him to tackle.

By Sunday evening, the garage was cleaned up and organized. But in the middle of all that work, he’d forgotten one small thing: moving a load of laundry from the washer to the dryer. By the time his wife returned at the end of the weekend, the clothes had soured.

When she got home and discovered it, she “lost it,” accusing him of never helping around the house and not respecting her. It didn’t matter that he’d just spent the weekend on a major household project.

This incident had become all too familiar in their relationship. “Whenever my wife and I have an argument over something, she brings up a mistake or a slight that I’ve made in the past that might be slightly related to the present argument, but she uses it to prove that I’m ‘always’ against her or that I’ll never change,” Bill said. “It’s defeating, I feel run down, I don’t feel particularly loved, and I don’t know how to get her to break this habit.”

Why Your Good Points Don’t Matter (In the Moment)

A good starting point for addressing this dynamic in a relationship is to understand where the other person is coming from.

First off, it’s helpful to know that when someone’s emotional temperature spikes, their thinking brain goes “offline.” In the midst of this emotional flooding, the person’s “child self” takes over.

Second, when someone habitually brings up past issues, they are often tapping into every similar disappointment they’ve ever felt, Lisa Popcak said—sometimes stretching back to childhood experiences that have nothing to do with you at all.

In this state, your logical arguments feel dismissive of them. If Bill pointed to the clean garage to prove he wasn’t “always” failing her, his wife probably wouldn’t hear “Look how much I care about you,” but “Your feelings don’t matter” and “You’re being unreasonable.”

That’s why the pattern escalates. The more you defend with logic, the more emotionally flooded your partner becomes. And the more flooded they get, the further back they reach for evidence that supports how they’re feeling right now.

Dr. Greg acknowledged that this can be really frustrating; many people wonder, “Well, if I can’t respond to what the person’s actually saying, then what am I supposed to do?”

The Empathy-First Response That Actually Works

The Popcaks recommend a completely different approach: respond to the feelings first, not the accusations. Then, gently redirect the conversation toward finding solutions.

For example, instead of pointing to his work on the garage (a defensive move), Bill might say: “I can tell you’re really frustrated right now, and I’m sorry you’re feeling this way. What can we do together to get to a better place right now?”

This pivot from defensiveness toward empathy and solutions probably won’t have an immediate effect, the Popcaks note. But acknowledging the other person’s emotions and asking them to pivot to shared solutions at least keeps the argument from escalating.

“You’re not arguing back,” Dr. Greg told Bill. “You’re not trying to discount what she’s saying. You’re just validating the fact that she’s in a bad place and that you’re sorry that she’s there and you want to work with her to help her feel better.”

If the other person continues to be emotionally flooded and keeps bringing up past grievances, keep gently acknowledging their feelings and redirecting toward problem-solving.

This approach does something powerful: it validates the person’s emotional experience without accepting blame for things you didn’t do wrong. You’re not agreeing that you “never help” or that you’re “always like this.” You’re simply acknowledging that they’re in pain and offering to work together toward a solution.

Building a Buffer Against Old Wounds

While this “pivot towards solutions” is useful in the heat of a conflict, the Popcaks also suggest two other practices to prevent this unhealthy cycle from happening again.

Debrief and Plan

Once you’ve navigated a tense exchange and emotions have cooled, revisit the conflict in a calm moment, Dr. Greg suggested. Open the conversation with words like these: “Now that we got through this, how could we handle things differently the next time something happens that makes you feel this way?”

As Dr. Greg explained, your success with the empathetic solution-focused redirection approach outlined above gives you the credibility you need to have this conversation. And by inviting the other person into creative, collaborative problem-solving, you are shifting away from a competitive, winner-takes-all conflict style to a more cooperative, “we’re a team” approach.

Foster a Positive Perspective

Lisa Popcak suggested another practice that can help reduce conflict. Each evening, sit with the other person; each of you should write down three to five things you appreciated about the other person that day. Exchange the lists so each person can read the other’s. Then, at the end of the week, get together and review the list you’ve accumulated that week.

This practice creates what psychologists call a “positive sentiment override”—a mental bank account of goodwill that makes it harder for old grievances to completely take over during conflicts. When someone has a running record of your care and effort, they’re less likely to slip into “you never” and “you always” thinking.

Goodwill Makes Healing Possible

If someone in your life keeps reopening old wounds, remember: you don’t have to let the past dominate the present. Start with empathy. Invite them into solutions. And keep building the goodwill that makes healing possible.

For more practical tools for transforming your relationships, explore the Popcaks’ books at CatholicCounselors.com, including How to Heal Your Marriage & Nurture Lasting Love. Or, for one-on-one support, reach out to one of our pastoral counselors today.