Welcome to the latest Grok Tool article. This latest article will be on conflict and how healthy conflict can raise your level of self awareness. Be sure to check out all of the previous Grok Tools to find ways to raise your self awareness.
How you show up in conflict, whether you back down to somebody else’s position, or whether you blow up in a fit of rage, may be an excellent indicator of how you show up in life. How you deal with conflict often shows your level of self awareness. Do you know why you were triggered in the first place? If you do not, you will be living in a state of reactivity instead of pro-activity or creativity.
The truth is that even if I spent thousands of words going over every type of conflict there is and all the various methods of seeking resolution, I would barely scratch the surface. I would rather focus on how three common types of conflict can help you grok yourself better. After all, this is a Grok Tool, so lets go deeper with the grokking.
Your Relationship with Conflict
There are two evolutionary responses to conflict: fight or flight. Sadly, even after thousands of years of evolution, we are still often slaves to these instincts. We find these responses in all types of conflict.
There are three main forms of conflict you encounter in daily life: intrapersonal , interpersonal and group conflict. They all present various difficulties and will challenge you in different ways. Let’s take a look at what each of these conflicts are, and how fight or flight applies in each case:
Intrapersonal Conflict
You’ve been battling with yourself over an important decision. I find that this applies for me most often when I have to make a choice between two excellent options or two equally poor options. Intrapersonal conflict can also occur when you second guess a decision that you have made. This conflict is all in your head. The quality and frequency of this conflict is heavily dependent on your relationship with yourself and the level of self awareness you have.
- Fight: You berate yourself for a choice you make; you may get angry at yourself for actions you took; you may even beat yourself up over the fact that you are having trouble making a choice.
- Flight: You have a tough choice to make, so you decide to just let it simmer for awhile. This often turns into not taking responsibility and just letting the world happen to you.
Interpersonal Conflict
I’m sure that this is the type of conflict that you are most familiar with. It can happen any time you interact with other people and probably happens the most often in your closest relationships. Interpersonal conflict can also cause you the most pain of any of these conflicts, as your emotions are usually tied into them. The more emotions that you have invested, the more you are open to heartache. Romantic relationships, families, professional relationships, acquaintances and chance meetings with strangers are all opportunity for interpersonal conflict.
- Fight: You get angry! You stop thinking clearly, and you begin to react irrationally (which of course does not seem irrational at the time) instead of acting from love or openness. You argue about one thing, but secretly(in a way that you are both aware of) refer to some other issue that is neither here nor there, just causing more pain.
- Flight: Even if you stay in the argument, you may check out and stop responding. You stop being real with the person you are communicating with, and all this becomes is fodder for the next time. Or if it is resolved, it is unsatisfactory because you were not open and honest, and this dissatisfaction breeds resentment.
Group Conflict
Group conflicts happen on the small and large scales. You can find yourself embroiled in them in a small setting at work while attempting to manage a project. On the large end, think democracy in the U.S. Even within a “group” such as the Democrats or Republicans, you will find internal discord. These conflicts are not the source of the most emotional strife, but will often be some of the most difficult to resolve. The point of a group is usually achieving a specific goal. When egos, values or methodologies collide, you have conflict. Social dynamics are intense in one to one relationships, but can become exponentially more complex when the number of people expands beyond two.
- Fight: Fighting in group conflicts can get intense and ugly. It isn’t just mono y mono anymore; you can create “sides” even when everyone is on the same team. Most often a few red herrings get tossed around, feelings get hurt, and the issue isn’t even addressed. Lines are drawn, battles waged and productivity or love is lost.
- Flight: Pretty similar to the response in interpersonal conflict, you just check out. You choose that you’ll go with whatever the “group” decides and you stop offering your full self to the group. This is just as bad as the pain involved in fighting because the potential of the group drops with each person that stops being open and willing to go head to head if needed.
Healthy Conflict
This would be so much easier if everyone just went along with what you thought right? I doubt it – you would quickly grow bored and emotionally void if you just got your way all the time.
Being able to conduct conflict in a healthy way will allow you to grok yourself more deeply by finding experiences that trigger you. What does healthy conflict look like though? Isn’t conflict something that is “bad”?
First, lets get the myth that conflict is a bad thing out of our mind. Yes, war is bad. People being manipulated, emotionally or physically hurt, or in any way damaged is bad. Most of these are products of our inability to have healthy conflict; instead we choose to degrade into unhealthy and sickening unconsciousness when we are in conflict.
Second, what does healthy conflict look like? At the center of healthy conflict is respect. Love too if you can manage it (love seems to be the center of everything if you keep digging). But without full respect for the person or people you are in conflict with, you won’t be able to grow from being in conflict. You must honor the situation for what it is: a challenging and at times uncomfortable opportunity to grow. A healthy conflict is a situation in which boundaries are set and honored by each party, respect and love are given, honesty and openness are present in the communication, and everyone disagreements can be explored without taking it personally.
If you aren’t able to respect the situation and are not open to having an honest dialogue, you should tell the other person/people involved in the conflict that you are not currently at a place where you can participate in it. Set a boundary and ask that they respect it until you are ready to hash it out. Do not use this as a method of checking out or avoidance. Actively work to reach a point where you can address issues in a healthy manner.
Here is a list of questions to help you know if you are in a place to be involved in a healthy (interpersonal and group) conflict; answer them honestly:
- Am I able to give respect to those that I am in conflict with?
- Am I able to focus on the issue at hand and not raise secondary, tertiary, or completely unrelated issues?
- Am I able to be open and honest around my position in this conflict?
- Have I set CLEAR boundaries with others in this conflict?
- Have I been clear on my position?
- Have I been in integrity with myself up to this point in the conflict?
- Is there something else bugging me that has lead me to cause a conflict?
- Does this conflict need a mediator to provide an unbiased opinion?
- Am I able to listen openly, calmly and respectfully to the other party?
- Am I here in the Now instead of in some previous conflict?
- What fair solutions do I see for this conflict?
If you answer those questions, you will have a much stronger awareness of where you are coming from and if you are even ready to be involved in a conflict.
Fighting to Grow
The greatest chance to grow from being involved from conflict is by being aware of yourself. You can how and why you are being triggered. You can learn where your fuse is short and how to give respect to others even when upset. When you learn what upsets you or causes you to be in conflict, you are gaining power over yourself and teaching yourself to become less reactive. Knowing what upsets you gives you the ability to make a choice in any moment you encounter that trigger – do I choose to let myself react to this, or do I choose to consciously find a better path?
When you are involved in conflict, listen openly to others – but also listen closely to yourself.
If you often find yourself embroiled in conflict across all areas of your life, there are resources out there that can teach you different methods of conflict resolution. Each strategy has different strengths and weaknesses. Here is a short list of methods and sites I have recently found helpful in learning about conflict:
Mind Tools – Resolving conflict rationally and effectively
Don’t be afraid of conflict in your life. All conflict is an opportunity to grow. When you consciously engage in conflict with an open heart, you will be giving yourself and those around you in conflict a great gift. By being open hearted, you will be making space for these people to be safe. When people feel safe while in conflict they are more open themselves.
Did you enjoy this post?
Then subscribe via RSS or get updates by Email and share it with someone you know!
Please help spread the word.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
This is a great piece. I think that too often, people avoid conflict or try to escape from it. “All conflict is an opportunity to grow.” – I don't know that it's exclusively an opportunity to grow. Some conflict is unnecessary, irrational, and unwise, and from it, you can learn very little. Then again, I don't believe in a ton of absolutes. Nevertheless. Good stuff!
This couldn't have come at a better time: I'm currently attempting to deal with a group project meeting that blew up before anything really got done. The moment insults were thrown at me, I lost respect for the person on the other side of the argument and had to leave the situation. I have been trying since then to get back to productivity, but don't exactly know how to go about it in a healthy manner, because I strongly feel that I deserve an apology before anything, and if I were to just go about moving on with the project solo my efforts would not be appreciated due to the nature of the insults (apparently I'm incapable of writing an A paper. Who knew?) so I don't want to waste my time. You have definitely given me a lot to think about here. Thank you.
Eric – I think that while some conflict can indeed be unnecessary, irrational, and unwise, you CAN still learn from it, even if all you're learning is to prevent the same irrational conflict from happening over and over again. Not everyone will actually learn from every conflict, but I believe that the opportunity is always there.
I know what you're trying to say. I love it as a concept. I just don't necessarily agree that EVERY SINGLE CONFLICT always serves a purpose or can teach you a lesson. Some conflicts do teach you nothing but pain. It's best to try to embrace that pain so as to improve yourself and not repeat mistakes, I agree, but sometimes you need to embrace the irrationality of the conflict and the idea that things are random. I guess it boils down to the idea that either “everything happens for a reason” or “nothing happens for a reason.” I think we can make the best out of every situation – absolutely. But I can also think of conflicts, not initiated by my own actions, where I learned nothing – literally nothing – from the conflict or from reflecting upon it later. Not disagreeing with the concept, just pointing out that there are some (though certainly not many or most) “worthless” conflicts.
Hey Eric,
Thank you for your comments. I agree that not every single conflict will always serve the purpose, but I do believe that with the correct mindset you can glean lessons from nearly any conflict you're involved in. Even if “nothing happens for a reason,” and we are stuck in the universal random, inexplicable events, it is completely within our power as individuals to learn from every encounter or experience that we have.
Even in those, “worthless,” conflicts, if you're able to really examine yourself and the situations you might learn something about yourself. You might find the answer to the questions: “Why do I feel that this is worthless?” “Why am I participating in a conflict that I feel is worthless?” “Why do I feel that this is worthless?”
Basically, even if life is a series of random events, we can grow from any event, even conflict, if we have a subjective perspective that would be inclined to do so.
Thanks again for stopping by. I really appreciated your input.
Sure thing re: the input. I hope I'm coming across clearly. I don't mean that “everything has meaning” or “nothing has meaning.” I find that there are few, if any absolutes. So I don't think you can say “nothing has meaning,” nor “everything has meaning.” You can make a generalization. When I say, “why do I feel that this is worthless?” – What if the answer is simply the definition of worthless? There was no value to the conflict and no substance to the aftermath – and I didn't participate willingly. Maybe that's part of the “flight” you mentioned above. I don't know – but nevertheless, it wasn't my intention to take away from the piece itself.
I do agree that there are no absolute — there is always an exception to the rule. I do feel that if you are participating in a conflict and you are doing so unwillingly, then you need to evaluate if you are setting clear boundaries or not.
I definitely don't feel like you are taking away from the PC anyway — I feel that when people contribute in the comments they are filling in the gaps of what I may have missed or simply rounding out the discussion more with their own experiences. All that appreciated and I respect everyone that comments here and what they have to say.
this piece is completely appropriate for where I'm at… ssssoooo much conflict and I actually feel really good about it even tho' it's a very weird feeling. As an avoider of conflict up until now – good girls don't argue – I've gone with the flow, agreed and kept the peace… it's got me the same results tho' and I got really tired with the familiarity of equilibrium. I was on flight mode most of the time and the hidden resentments eventually caught up.
hhhmmm… I thought, time to look a few monsters in the eye and resolve some issues in a healthy way. I discovered I'm really bad at conflict resolution, and I'm actually good at causing conflict… that's why it was really easy to leave uncomfortable situations, I wasn't willing to acknowledge my participation in the conflict I seemed to be getting caught up in.
Now I am and it seems to be everywhere, and I'm learning to deal with it…. fighting to grow. Birth is after all a conflict of interests, baby gets pushed out pretty forcefully, mother screaming… it doesn't look like a pleasant experience… unpleasant and necessary.
The thing that caught my eye the most in your comment was the phrase “Good girls don't argue.” The woman I am dating has raised my level of awareness regarding how women are 'taught to behave' (and feminism in general) and it makes me angry to think about how it happens. Its extremely frustrating that society has trained nearly everyone to fit into a mold and how limiting that has been – especially for women and minorities. Men have our own molds we are trained for, but they are generally more beneficial. Still frustrating though.
</tangent> I'm really excited for you that you're staring those monsters in the eye and addressing conflict! Have you learned any good strategies for dealing with conflict you could share?
In one specific example at work I did documenting a few conversations however can see that having had a journal would have made a really big difference… to track moods, events and conversations. I eventually requested the services of a mediator to get a clearer sense of the whole big picture… should have done that earlier AND involved somebody to hear what was going on for me the moment I sensed a hint of conflict. ‘The good girl’ thought she could handle herself and didn’t want to get anybody else involved… now that is a very familiar paradigm for me. Having lived with an alcoholic who didn’t want anybody to know what went on behind closed doors trained me to be very careful about what I said to friends.
NOT speaking up the moment something is upsetting me is the area I’m focussing on, really clear that bottling up upset is a prime ingredient for issues getting out of control. It’s really really difficult to pinpoint where exactly I do get a hint of potential upset, I’m so used to avoiding being manipulated and avoiding conflict that it’s ‘normal’ to walk away without saying anything. It’s only on reflection that I can pinpoint a trigger, going back to that point seems to be like living backwards… however, if that’s what it takes, then that’s what it takes.
The dilemma of untraining or learning fresh… to learn or unlearn?
In one specific example at work I did documenting a few conversations however can see that having had a journal would have made a really big difference… to track moods, events and conversations. I eventually requested the services of a mediator to get a clearer sense of the whole big picture… should have done that earlier AND involved somebody to hear what was going on for me the moment I sensed a hint of conflict. 'The good girl' thought she could handle herself and didn't want to get anybody else involved… now that is a very familiar paradigm for me. Having lived with an alcoholic who didn't want anybody to know what went on behind closed doors trained me to be very careful about what I said to friends.
NOT speaking up the moment something is upsetting me is the area I'm focussing on, really clear that bottling up upset is a prime ingredient for issues getting out of control. It's really really difficult to pinpoint where exactly I do get a hint of potential upset, I'm so used to avoiding being manipulated and avoiding conflict that it's 'normal' to walk away without saying anything. It's only on reflection that I can pinpoint a trigger, going back to that point seems to be like living backwards… however, if that's what it takes, then that's what it takes.
The dilemma of untraining or learning fresh… to learn or unlearn?