Tuesday’s Trench Truth

Happy Tuesday and thank you for stopping by Chicklit Power and Trench Classes United for Coffee Hour & Tuesday’s Trench Truth and invitation, too! Come on in.

God has such a sense of humor! It seems to me that the more I talk about resolving conflict, the more conflict He allows in my life to resolve!!!!

One of the biggest struggles in resolving conflict is realizing and maneuvering through what the other person brings to the conflict in terms of their receiver. What I mean by that is everyone’s life experiences play a significant role in how they participate in the whole conflict resolution arena. Let me give you an example:

Jane Doe comes from a chaotic childhood where she was not loved healthily, so as a result she has had to unlearn those relational forms of communication and relearn healthy ways of communicating and loving others. But in the process of reprogramming her receiver, the way she receives messages, she is still broken, and anticipates what others think about her if she were to say this or that, what others will say about her if she does such and such…

This whole cycle adds to the conflict, but the crazy thing about it is most of the time the other person involved doesn’t even know about it!

Such a conflict has happened to me several times, and as recently as just a couple of weeks ago. When we talked about it, all this stuff came out about what she thought if she were to say…what she thought I was going to say or do if…and even the notion that I wouldn’t be her friend anymore if…In other words she had built up this whole case against me in a crazy sort of way without really realizing it, and as a result made it difficult for me to penetrate through her emotional walls.

Conflict can be resolved a whole lot quicker if we are honest with ourselves and own what we are feeling as a result of what has happened to turn the situation into a conflict because all we have the power to change is ourselves.  

Perhaps we should stop trying to anticipate what the other person is thinking as a result of something we need to say and just ask honest questions and share honest feelings. Conflict can then become a character developer and not a crippler.

Love,

Evinda

P.S. Join me on Thursday for Coffee Hour Live on Facebook at 10:00 PST for more of the Loving the Unlovable series, Step 10! www.facebook.com/EvindaLepins