What our strongest words are trying to tell us

We weren’t five minutes into the call before I heard about the business partner who never shows up for meetings, always avoids conflict, and who everybody distrusts.

I hear this almost every day.

I call it the Always/Never Trap.

All-or-nothing language creates contrast. It widens distance. It tells the nervous system that the situation is no longer inconvenient or frustrating, but urgent. It is drastic, unmanageable, out of control, extreme.

I used to think that the always/never trap was designed to make the person in front of me appear righteous, clearly the one looking for a solution. Not part of the problem. But I’ve come to view that differently.

People come because they want to do their best and they feel daunted. They want healthier relationships, stronger leadership, better communication, more effective businesses, more connected marriages. They are usually highly motivated and genuinely ready for change.

And, they feel like they’ve tried everything. They are actually feeling quite defeated and overwhelmed. They are desperate for help.

The Always/Never Trap appears in every setting.

• “My team never follows through.”
• “My husband always raises his voice and makes me feel small.”
• “My patients are always calling after hours.”
• “Every conversation turns into a fight.”
• “Nobody listens.”
• “Everybody thinks…”

Notice what happens to the picture. The colors become more saturated, more vibrant. The contrast becomes sharper. The problem grows larger than life, and is heavy.

If I take those words literally, I can spend the next thirty minutes proving that the statement isn’t technically true.

“Really? Every single patient?”

“But surely there was one meeting they attended.”

I used to think bringing attention to the absolutist language lessened the overwhelm. But it’s almost never helpful. This approach telegraphs minimization or a lack of empathy, it isn’t clarifying.

To me, always, never, everyone, nobody, completely, and every time are not facts to debate. They are clues.

Like a medic arriving at the scene of an accident, I start to “emotionally triage” the damage site. The loudest person isn’t even the most seriously injured often, but they’re telling me where to look first. Absolute language is emotional triage.

It tells me where the nervous system feels overwhelmed, threatened, or exhausted. It tells me where disappointment has accumulated, where resentments lives. It tells me where someone’s internal experience has become so repetitive that their brain has stopped noticing exceptions.

I don’t focus on correcting their language. I focus on the pattern underneath the language. And when I start to describe the pattern with empathy, everything shifts. The always/never trap loses its grip and something interesting happens. Exceptions begin to show up.

“My team never follows through,” Is qualified by…”Well…except for Sarah.”

“My husband always raises his voice,” shifts into…”To be fair, it’s acutally not always. It’s mostly when he’s feeling cornered.

“My patients are always calling after hours,” becomes…”Not really all my patients, but those three or four high touch patients who are anxious and don’t know another way to seek reassurance.

The absolutes soften because the brain has the capacity to see, not because we’re minimizing the problem. We’re making it more accurate. And when its more accurate, it’s less daunting, less overwhelming to the system. Another thing that accuracy does is create options.

When everything is happening all the time, there is nowhere to intervene. When we can see the pattern clearly, we can begin to see the beginning, the middle and the end of the process.

I’m not interested in arguing people’s absolutes. But I AM interested in asking what those absolutes are trying to protect and how those absolutes serve. Because the nervous system rarely (not never, but rarely) exaggerates without a reason.

The words aren’t the problem. The patterns beneath the words are.We weren’t five minutes into the call before I heard about the business partner who never shows up for meetings, always avoids conflict, and who everybody distrusts.

I hear this almost every day.

I call it the Always/Never Trap.

All-or-nothing language creates contrast. It widens distance. It tells the nervous system that the situation is no longer inconvenient or frustrating, but urgent. Suddenly, everything feels drastic, unmanageable, out of control, extreme.

I used to think that the always/never trap was designed to make the person in front of me appear righteous, clearly the one looking for a solution. Not part of the problem. But I’ve come to view that differently.

People come because they want to do their best and they feel daunted. They want healthier relationships, stronger leadership, better communication, more effective businesses, more connected marriages. They are usually highly motivated and genuinely ready for change.

And, they feel like they’ve tried everything. They feel defeated and overwhelmed, sometimes even desperate for help