Deëscalation tip #11

 From William Ury's 2024 book, Possible: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict: 

"I noticed my anger rising and I remembered a subtle self-regulation technique I had learned just a few months earlier from an Ecuadorian friend when I had been describing to him my work in contentious conflicts. 

'William,' he had counseled me, 'next time you are in a tough place, try pinching the palm of your hand.'" (p. 42)

Ury wrote that, indeed, he was invited to help mediate some conflicts coming to a boil in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela in 2003 and faced an angry Chavez one late night meeting. The palm pinching helped him "go to the balcony," to observe and listen for emotional content rather than become defensive as Chavez ranted.