n.
1. A state of open, often prolonged fighting; a
battle or war.
2. A state of disharmony between incompatible or
antithetical persons, ideas, or interests; a clash.
3. Psychology A psychic struggle, often unconscious, resulting from the
opposition or simultaneous functioning of mutually exclusive impulses, desires,
or tendencies.
4. Opposition between characters or forces in a
work of drama or fiction, especially opposition that motivates or shapes the
action of the plot.
intr.v. (k
n-fl
kt
)
con·flict·ed, con·flict·ing, con·flicts
1. To be in or come into opposition; differ.
2. Archaic To engage in warfare.
(www.thefreedictionary.com)
I have never handled conflict well. And I define conflict as anything that interferes with what I want or what I believe I am entitled to. Since generally people are not walking around at all times thinking about what I may want or need, I am in conflict a lot.
I am ironically a social activist by heart. I am always involved in something to try to correct injustices and change policy. But the big stuff is easy for me. Standing up on issues of racism, for example, are no-brainers. It’s the other stuff that gets a little more gray for me.
Also, by nature, although I am (too)
opinionated I am also a people pleaser at heart. I don’t want people to feel bad. I don’t want to cause suffering or. I want people to feel encouraged and
strengthened by my interactions with them, not cast down. And I don’t particularly like being on the receiving
end of someone’s anger. I don’t like
feeling the discomfort of being around someone who is unhappy with me. So if what I believe that what I want is
going to make someone else feel bad or angry, then I tend to avoid it.
Honestly, sometimes avoiding it works – or seems
to work anyway. My feelings eventually
go away and the situation resolves itself or blows over. But usually this isn’t the case, and I
usually end up changing my circumstances (i.e., quitting a job) to end the
conflict.
I don’t know where I got this
fantasy, but I truly believed that there was a certain set of circumstances (a
perfect job, marriage, friendship, living location) that would give me only
occasional, rare conflict. I’m okay with
every now and then. Sometimes changing circumstances has actually minimized conflict for me. But I have now finally accepted that I will forever
be plagued by conflict. It surrounds me
daily from people who are trying to cut me off on the road, to people shoving
in front of me in checkout lines, to coworkers overstepping their bounds, to
mine and my husband’s different perspectives on things.
I have never really gotten a good
grasp on what to do with it. Don’t get me
wrong – I’ve read entire self-help sections at the bookstores, gone to a counselor,
talked about my problems to friends and family until I’ve beaten them into the
ground, gotten everyone's advice and then followed none of it, and done a slew of introspection exercises. But at the end of the day, all
anyone can give me is some overly broad set of idealistic principles – not the
practical solutions that I need.
Being
told to “speak in love” is a great principle, but how do I do that? Does that
mean I change my voice to sound like some t.v. evangelist; or do I preface
everything with, “I’m saying this with love,”; or do I ask to hold hands and sing
kumbaya; or do I have to get to a place emotionally where I’m feeling warm
fuzzy feelings instead of anger before I speak?
I am on a mission to finally figure this out. I have a good life, and I want to fight for
it. I don’t want to be run off from
things that I love anymore because things get too difficult to handle.
My
plan is to document the conflict in my life and my responses to it to try and
determine what worked and what didn’t. I am really nervous about this journey. It's kind of like the saying 'you don't speak its name if you don't want to attract it's attention.'
These are the questions I am going to be trying to answer as I let my life be an open experiment, and I hope that my struggles, failures, and successes can
benefit someone else. (Sidebar: I do realize that some of these questions overlap and are variations on the same theme, but part of this for me is to let go of self-censorship and put it down as it comes out.)
1. How do you feel angry but speak
with love (and mean it)?
2. How do you decide which battles to
fight and which hills to die on?
3. As the saying goes good fences
make good neighbors. How do you build
fences without building walls?
4. How do you function in a healthy
way when someone is angry? How do you handle
yourself when someone is upset with you and you have to continue to be around
them (such as work)? My tendency is to
want to smooth things over – does that send the message that I’ve given up on
standing my ground?
5. Doing the right thing and then
feeling at peace inside yourself after you do it are two separate things to
me. Even if I do the right actions to
handle the conflict appropriately, how do I live with the internal upheavel it
causes inside of me (feelings of worry, stress, reliving the event, feeling
bad, not being able to get out of my own head, sometimes regret, sometimes
shame, feeling alienated, isolated, rejected, scared)?
6. How do you change your nature –
your people pleasing tendencies? Should
your nature be changed? Can your nature
be changed?
7. Are there different types of conflict? If so, what are they?
8. How do you decide if something is
personal or not? If it’s done to me
(intentionally or indirectly) it feels personal. How do you learn not to take things
personally?
9. How do you let things go?
10. When I learn that someone is upset
by something I’ve done, that alone is enough for me to want to adapt my
behavior or at least have a conversation about it. I care how people feel. How do you handle people who do not care how you
feel or how you are being affected?
11. Is it true that there are only two
kinds of people in this world: predator
and prey? To not be prey do I have to
become a predator?
12. Does love really work? Sure, it sounds great, but are there some
people who only respond to intimidation, power, and force?
13. How do you handle conflict with a
bully?
14. When (if ever) is it okay to jump
into conflict with other people as a third party?
15. How do you swallow your pride when
you feel that you’ve been defeated in a conflict situation?
16. Is conflict all about power? Is it essentially determining who is right
and who is wrong? Who has power and who
is weak?
17. Shadowboxing. How do you handle passive aggressive behavior
– the person who is outwardly pretending that there’s no conflict but acting
antagonistically behind your back and refusing to own it to your face?
18. Even if you are in the right, and
what you want to say is the truth, how do you decide when to speak it?
19. How do you (or even can you) accurately
predict what the consequences of your actions will be? In deciding whether or when to address something,
can you accurately gauge what the consequences will be to determine if it’s
worth it or not?
20. What are good reasons to engage in
conflict and what are not?
21. Are there basic objective steps to
follow when deciding what to do, or is it always a subjective internal dialogue?
22. Does love mean that you avoid
conflict? Do the concepts of forgiveness turning the other cheek mean that
you avoid conflict?
23. How do you live with yourself and
the other person after conflict?
24. How do you decide if conflict is
worth it or not?
[I invite (respectful) feedback.]
