Conflicts are essential to the health of a relationship. For example, in a marriage it has been said that if you aren’t having healthy conflicts with your marital partner, then your marriage is either dead or dying. That’s a rather powerful statement.
If you’re like me, you may have a personality that is conflict adverse. In the past, I found myself doing many things to avoid conflicts with others, even suppressing my own potential (not recommended), keeping my feelings to myself, and avoiding conversations that really needed to happen (can you relate?)
To stand boldly in a relationship as the highest vision of yourself that you can imagine not only takes courage but is bound to create conflicts within the relationship. And this is one of the biggest reasons to learn how to be in conflict in a healthy way: so you can courageously live the best of who you are, and so that your partner can live the best of who they are.
So, what is your relationship to conflict? Do you welcome it? Invite it? Or do you resist it? Avoid it at all costs? And how is your relationship to conflict affecting the quality of your relationships and life?
Here are some major reasons why learning to resolve conflicts in a healthy way is important:
- Living your potential will cause conflicts
- Freeing yourself of the past will cause conflicts
- Caring deeply for others will cause conflicts
- Living a commitment to personal growth will cause conflicts
- Creating a healthy marriage will cause conflicts
- Developing real, authentic love will cause conflicts
- Fulfilling your career aspirations will cause conflicts
- Challenging others to be their best will cause conflicts
When you learn how to stand in a conflict in a caring and confident way – then you no longer have to fear them. You can welcome them. Even invite them into your relationships. You can live with greater freedom, power, self-expression, and peace as a result! Therefore, I’ll have a lot more to say about conflicts in future posts. For now, though, let’s look at a simple thing you can do – and practice – beginning today to help you resolve conflicts in a healthy way.
Conflicts and Ego States
When you find yourself in a conflict, take a moment to become mindful of the “ego state” in which you find yourself: parent, child, or adult. Are you in the parent state treating the other as a child? Are you feeling like a child because the other is in the parent state? Or are you standing in the relationship as an adult treating the other as an adult? Whatever ego state you are in will trigger the ego state of the other. If you show up in the parent ego state, you will in most cases trigger the child ego state in the other. If you show up as a child, you will trigger the parent ego state in the other.
Resolving conflicts from the parent or child ego state is extremely challenging. So, a powerful thing you can do is to step into the adult ego state, acting like an adult and treating the other as an adult. This shift in who you are being in the conflict can turn an unhealthy conflict into a healthy one in which both of you can learn and grow!
If you would like to learn and be coached around resolving conflicts in a healthy way, please feel free to contact me to explore working together in a coaching relationship. This one skill can radically change your life and provide you with the confidence you need to live boldly while creating Relationship Fitness. My number is (812) 299-0214 or you can reach me by e-mail at denver@relationshipfitnessonline.com.
Filed under: for Couples, for Work Teams | Tagged: conflict resolution
