You live with conflict long enough, you find yourself drawn to it. You create an environment with the people who bring conflict.
In order for us to healthily deal with conflict, we ought to be clear on what the goal is with each conflict we want to resolve. Do we want to repair the relationship? Do we know whether we have a part to play in the conflict in question?
Whether or not you wish to maintain or sever ties, the general rule is to do so while maintaining respect for all those involved.
Some of the ways in which we deal with conflict that are not productive is we ignore the problem or person we are in conflict with, we deny the fact that we were wronged and are hurting, we place blame on others, we force people into doing the things we want them to and we walk away from meaningful connections whenever a conflict arises.
Where do unhealthy patterns come from?
Most of us are learning communication in adulthood and so it is no surprise that solving conflicts is a task for us.
Some of us grew up around trauma and were conditioned into believing that raising our voice or picking a fight was the way to get things to work in our favour. In some cases, as children, we were taught to downplay our needs and concerns growing up in order to make everyone around us comfortable.
We might have grown up in homes where there was violence and unhealthy ways of dealing with conflict that we adopted shutting down as a coping mechanism and continue to use it in adulthood.
The fact that we do not know how to deal with our feelings healthily affects how we solve conflict with others. This can result in us acting on our anger in unhealthy ways and escalating the issue in the conflict. Not being self-aware and aware of the way our feelings affect our actions could have us shift from “How can I solve this problem?” to “What can I do to punish you for making me angry?”
Lastly, I believe that sometimes we choose the wrong conflicts to deal with. Mostly because we feel the need to control everything. As children, we may have taken on the role to save our siblings or parents who were going through things that were beyond us. As adults, we find ourselves stretching ourselves thin to make sure everyone is okay at our expense which leads to undesirable feelings such as resentment towards the people we feel we need to rescue.
How do we start to properly deal with conflict?
Awareness and healing
I believe we can start by healing the parts of us that were not trained to deal with conflict healthily and realize that we have been doing wrong. This realization is not for us to beat ourselves up but to see how the negative effects of our old ways affected us and those around us. Self-awareness will help us realize what we need to work on.
Intuition
We could also realize that sometimes people are not in the right space to deal with conflict healthily and we cannot force or fix them. They have to want it for themselves and so if there is a pattern and there is no changed behavior, then we have the obligation to remove ourselves from such situations however hard that may be.
Identify the problem
If you don't know the problem you can't fix it. This is what happens when we find ourselves bringing up past mistakes and making personal attacks at people. We haven’t really identified the problem and so we are not clear on what exactly needs to get handled.
Most of the time when we are going through conflict, we feel angry but this is a secondary emotion as demonstrated below. We need to figure out the primary emotion so that it gets easier to know what we need to get to a better place.
Another quick tip to help us identify the problem is by active listening.
Clear communication
We need to be clear about what hurts us and how it affected us. Communicating our needs is part of solving disputes healthily. If we do not first know how to let our needs be known, we will harbour resentment, act out unhealthily through non-verbal cues, spend a lot of time stressed and also not get others to realize where they have gone wrong. However, we also have to be careful to note when we are having the same disagreements and no different outcomes.
Balance
In disputes, we need to find a balance between emotion and logic. The reason is as important as emotion and if we lack either in conflict resolution, then chances are one party will feel that they are getting the short end of the stick. If we are not using reason in our arguments, chances are some of our heightened emotions may get in the way and have us say or do things that we cannot take back. If we are solely relying on logic to solve disagreements then chances are we will not be gentle or understanding with those we are in conflict with.
Timing
Time is very important in solving disputes. We have to be careful to find a balance so that we are neither waiting too long to resolve conflict or acting on every impulse we get. This is part of being self-aware.
Skill
We may be on the right side of things but if we do not apply tact, then chances are the message will not be received as we hope it would. How we communicate that there is conflict and how we try to solve it is very important. How we speak our truth should contribute to us getting out of the conflict in good terms. Most of the time we let our egos get the best of us and we decide to pass the hurt we are going through to the next person and this makes the solving process even harder to do.
Separate issues from people
We have to remind ourselves that we are not our mistakes and we are not what we feel. To reason this way will close us off to change. We may feel fear but we are not fearful people. We may feel anger but we are not angry people. We are not the mistakes we made in the past. There is more to us.
If you find out that whenever you are in conflict you jump into making personal attacks at people instead of focusing on the issue at hand then you are among the many people who deal with conflict in an unhealthy way.
We need to learn to accept people and focus on the problem. If not we risk causing shame, hostility, and defensiveness.
Own up
Take full responsibility for your behaviour.
Our behaviour isn’t “conditional” on the other person’s behaviour. And it’s preferable if our behaviour isn’t a reaction to the other person’s behaviour. We can be responsible for our behaviour even if the other person isn’t behaving responsibly
Take note
In order for us to keep growing the skill of solving disputes the healthy way, we need to take mental notes of things that were brought to our attention during our arguments. If it is pointed out then we need to work on it and appreciate that we acknowledge what we did and how what we said or did was received. This could be a great way to know whether we need to work on our communication skills and the ability to reason rationally and take responsibility for the role we played if any.
Criticism must be positive and done respectfully.
End goal
What do you want to achieve at the end of the conflict? Is there any common ground that could be reached? Is there a way everyone could get their needs met?
I believe that in most cases those we want to resolve conflict with are people we care about or spend a lot of time with at work or in various spaces. In solving disputes healthily we have considered the needs of all parties in dispute. We need to fight the urge to take things personally and be open to various solutions.
However hard we try, we cannot avoid conflict. We, however, have control over how we choose to handle it. If there is still work you could do to make sure that your future disputes are handled respectfully and that the needs of everyone involved are met, then I believe these tips will help you. Remember that it will take time, effort and a lot of discomfort in getting this skill right. We are all learning as we go through life and we deserve kindness even when in dispute.
Feel free to share what area you need to work on while solving disputes and how you intend to get better at it.
Love,
Sabali