We live in a time where conversations often feel like battlegrounds. Politics, identity, belief systems—so many of our interactions are charged with fear, defensiveness, and the relentless need to be right. It’s exhausting. And more than that, it’s counterproductive.

For a while, I tried to engage the way most people do—responding to comments, defending my viewpoint, believing I could change someone’s mind if I just explained things well enough, if I could just back it up with enough evidence, if I just say it louder and with more confidence. But I’ve come to understand something deeper: arguing at the surface level rarely changes anything. In fact, it usually just reinforces the divide.

Lately, I’ve been trying to practice something different. When I’m in a conversation that feels heated or tense or like someone is trying to bait me into argument, I don’t focus on the words being said. I don’t react to the emotion coming at me. Instead, I try to drop into a different place—a quieter, more grounded place—and speak to the part of them that exists beyond all that noise. The higher self. The soul. The place where love still lives in all of us.

Sometimes that looks like saying silently in my mind, I see you. I see what’s underneath all that emotion.

Because let’s be honest: most people aren’t arguing because they’re evil or ignorant or broken. They’re arguing because they’re scared. Or hurt. Or trying to belong to something. They’re repeating the loudest voice in their echo chamber. They’re trying to make sense of a world that feels out of control. And when we meet that pain with more resistance, all we do is mirror it back to them.

But when we meet it with calm, when we hold a frequency of grounded compassion and confidence, something shifts.

This doesn’t mean we agree with harmful views or stay silent about injustice. It means we stop letting our reactions feed the fire. It means we lead from a different place—one that doesn’t need to dominate or convince, but instead seeks to connect and reflect.

It’s powerful to say, “I hear you,” even when you don’t agree. It’s powerful to ask, “Where does that belief come from?” instead of, “How could you ever think that?” And sometimes, it’s powerful to simply not engage at all—not out of avoidance, but because you’re choosing not to play in the mud when your energy is needed somewhere else.

I think we’re all craving something deeper right now. A break from the noise. A return to soul-level seeing.

So that’s my practice lately: speak to the higher vibration in people. Even if they’re not speaking from that place yet. Especially when they’re not. Because someone has to hold the thread of connection. Someone has to remember that there’s something sacred under the surface.

And maybe—just maybe—that presence is more transformative than any argument ever could be.