The Hidden Climb in Every Conversation

"The higher we climb the net of conclusions, the farther we drift from connection."

-James McPartland

Every conversation we have is a chance to connect or to protect. Sometimes we walk in ready to listen, learn, and partner. Other times, we show up guarded, afraid to be too honest or vulnerable. We tell ourselves we are just being smart, but really, we are keeping ourselves safe.

What is wild is how fast all of this happens. Before a single sentence is finished, your brain has already made a judgment in about seven hundredths of a second. A chemical switch flips. If your body senses threat, cortisol kicks in and your heart speeds up. If you feel safe, oxytocin releases and you start to relax. Without realizing it, your body is already deciding if you can trust this person or if you need to protect yourself.

That reaction triggers a feeling, a quick internal sense of this feels good or this feels off. From there, your mind starts spinning a story to explain what is happening. Thoughts form, meaning gets created, and before long you have built a whole belief around the moment. Once that belief takes root, it hardens into a conclusion. And that is where things get tricky, because once we have reached a conclusion, we tend to stop listening.

I like to think of it as climbing a cargo net of conclusions. We start at the bottom with a simple conversation, and then we move rung by rung through reaction, feeling, thought, belief, and finally, conclusion. By the time we reach the top, we are hanging onto our version of the truth so tightly that we cannot see what is really in front of us.

You can probably feel it when it happens. A tough conversation triggers stress, your body releases cortisol, and suddenly, you are not really hearing the other person anymore. You are defending your ground. On the other hand, when someone agrees with you or seems to understand you, your brain releases dopamine and oxytocin. You feel good, connected, and open. That is partnership.

So the question becomes, how do we notice where we are on the net?

It starts with awareness. When you feel yourself getting tense or defensive, take a breath. Ask yourself, am I protecting or partnering? Am I reacting or relating? Sometimes that small pause is enough to change everything.

When we pause, our chemistry shifts. Our heart rate slows. Our mind opens. We start hearing again, not just the words, but the intention behind them. We move from needing to be right to being willing to understand.

The higher we climb that cargo net of conclusions, the farther we get from true connection. But when we stay curious, when we are willing to come down a few rungs and see things from another point of view, that is where real communication lives.

In the end, every conversation gives us a choice. We can protect ourselves, or we can partner with another human being. One keeps us safe. The other helps us grow.

Mac 😎