how to get over your fear of conflict
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8/18/2019 How to Get Over Your Fear of Conflict
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How To Get Over Your Fear Of
Conflict Because social cohesion is so important to us at a primal level, most
of us have at least some measure of resistance to conflict. But some
of us are debilitated by it.
We spend our lives trying to keep everyone happy, trying to be nice,
trying to conform and fit in, trying to pacify everyone and trying not to
rock the boat. The result is, we are secretly deeply unhappy. We spend
our lives trying to avoid what we don’t want to have happen, instead of
living according to our own sense of what we do want and the individual
values we do hold. We lose our integrity in the name of trying to keep
other people happy. The result of losing integrity is that our self worth
plummets. We can’t live out of alignment with our own personal sense
of integrity and feel good about ourselves at the same time. To not feel
good about ourselves is a problem when we have to live inside our own
skin everyday.
How does this fear of conflict begin? Like everything !t begins in our
earliest years on the planet. !n the ideal family, each member of the
family is loved and accepted for who he or she uni"uely is. To use a
metaphor, the family is regarded like an !ndian curry dish. #ach uni"ue
flavor that goes into the dish is thought to enhance the dish. $o the
coriander does not want to convince the pepper to become coriander and
the ginger does not want to convince the cumin to become ginger
because it is the differences between the flavors that when combined,makes for the beauty of the dish. !n this kind of household, differences
are acceptable.
!n many families however, especially in families where parents seek to
be validated through their children, difference is not acceptable. When a
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child in this kind of home tries to e%press his or her differences, they are
shamed, critici&ed, withdrawn from or likewise punished. They are met
with disapproval instead of acceptance and thus the child stands to lose
love as a result of being different. These families usually revolve around
one dominant or even narcissistic adult, an adult who makes his or herhappiness or lack thereof the direct responsibility of everyone else. !f
this kind of family was an !ndian curry dish, the most dominant flavor in
the dish, say ginger, would be trying to turn every other flavor into
ginger and there would be conse"uences to not becoming ginger.
'onse"uences like shaming and even getting kicked out of the dish
completely. $o if we grew up in this kind of household we develop a fear
of opposition of any kind. We have learned there are serious
conse"uences for non(conformity. We e%perience a traumatic reactionany time there is conflict of any kind.
!n relationships, if we have a conflict, this is considered a rupture in the
relationship. )nd when we find a way to come back together and heal
the rupture after it happens, that is called repair. *uptures are inevitable
in relationships. There are going to be those times in any relationship
when we +ust don’t see eye to eye or we mistakenly say something that
upsets the other person. What really matters in relationships is not ourability to avoid rupture, it is our ability to create repair once rupture has
happened. This is what gives us a sense of relationship security. !f we
fear conflict, we have had limited e%perience with relationship repair.
ost often what we see is that one parent in our childhood or both, were
unconcerned with creating repair in the relationship. When a rupture
occurred, they did not seek to solve it with us. Love was a power
struggle and so they e%pected us to be the ones to yield and create the
repair we so desperately needed by conforming to something they were
wanting from us. $o we had no relationship security. We spend our lives
trying to avoid the rupture in all of our relationships because we feel no
security that if there is rupture, there will be repair. The security of the
relationship and therefore our emotional safety was entirely at the mercy
of our ability to never upset this parent. !n adulthood, we panic
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whenever a conflict arises because we’re convinced there will be no
repair to the relationship. $o we begin to scurry around doing anything
we can to pacify all parties involved. We think we are doing this for their
benefit, when in fact- we are +ust doing this so we can guarantee our own
emotional safety, inner peace and security.
!f we are truly afraid of conflict, we will avoid types of situations
/. 'onflict that involves people being upset at us
specifically. This is scary because of the conse"uences we
think are going to come as a result of it. Things like
permanently losing connection, feeling bad about
ourselves, losing love, or being emotionally or physically punished. ost of us who fear conflict are afraid that if
someone disagrees with us, especially if they challenge
us, it means they don’t like, love or approve of us. )nd
since we are a social species that registers as a threat to
our survival.
. 'onflict that doesn’t directly involve you but is between
other people. This is scary because we feel we are beingforced to side. )nd by doing so, put ourselves at risk of
someone being upset at us specifically and thus
e%periencing the conse"uences we are afraid of if
someone is upset with us specifically. This makes us feel
emotionally unsafe whenever people are upset. )nd we
cope by trying to avoid or escape the situation.
'onflict is inevitable in life. We are all living our lives throughindividual perspectives and so we e%perience differences in opinions,
e%periences, preferences and ways to deal with situations. $o, what we
find is that we cannot avoid conflict and in fact whenever we try to
avoid it, we end up deeper in it. We attract people into our lives who
seem to stir up conflict. This is of course the universe’s way trying to get
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us to face and heal our issue with conflict so we can live a more
fulfilling life. 0ut when we are tiptoeing around in life, trying to avoid
conflict and can’t, we set ourselves up for failure. We cannot live a life
of authenticity and integrity and we cannot e%perience relationships that
are healthy. We lose all self(respect. We also lose the respect of others.We are ironically hurting ourselves for the sake of trying to stay
emotionally safe.
)lso, a little known fact is that we are hurting other people by avoiding
conflict. There are so many ways that we hurt other people by avoiding
conflict, but !’m going to list +ust a few of the ways for you here. 1irst,
we are setting them up to be unhappy with us by misrepresenting
ourselves. !f our prerogative is to e%press who we genuinely are andwhat we genuinely think instead of to tell people what they want to hear,
we will end up surrounded by the people who love us for who we are
and who are happy being around us. !f however, our prerogative is to tell
people what they want to hear, we run the risk of people who love a
fa2ade and when we can’t keep up the fa2ade, we will have deceived
them potentially into being in relationships they would not have gotten
into if they would have known our true preferences and opinions and
feelings.
When we avoid conflict, we avoid being real in relationships and so real
love is not possible. We also fall prey to being very passive aggressive
and there is hardly anything worse for people that to be with someone
who is passive aggressive.
)lso, when we avoid conflict, we often make people feel abandoned. We
leave them to deal with problems alone. We are like the person who runsthe minute that war is declared, leaving them on the battlefield alone. We
cannot remain present with the people in our lives. This is hardly loving
behavior.
There is also a little known pattern that we fall into with the people we
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love if we are afraid of conflict. !t is the classic story of the 3turn coat’.
We sacrifice the people we love for the sake of avoiding conflict. Here’s
how it goes !f we have someone in our life that we have been with
long enough to e%perience a lot of rupture and repair, we now have a
sense of emotional security with them. We know we run less of a risk oflosing our connection with them. $o, if that person in our life gets into a
conflict with someone else, we will side with the opposition and throw
our loved one under the bus so to speak because the opposition is the
one we cannot guarantee that we are emotionally safe from yet. 4ikes55
6ur loved one that we do have emotional security with becomes a pawn
we use to avoid conse"uences from others we don’t have emotional
security with.
$o, now that you understand what creates a fear of conflict, what are you
supposed to do about it?
/. !f you fear conflict, you have got to make a serious
practice of developing healthy boundaries. 4our
boundaries are too weak. 1or this reason, ! want you to
watch my video titled7 8How To 9evelop Healthy
0oundaries:.
. 4ou’ve got to see that you are going to be emotionally
uncomfortable no matter if you face the conflict or avoid
it. This enables us to make the decision that is the most
self(loving. There are serious costs to avoiding conflict
that we are not making ourselves aware of yet. We need to
see that by avoiding conflict we may be temporarily
escaping the discomfort of being opposed to someone wewant to be in coherence with and we will avoid our fears.
0ut if we avoid the conflict, we will most likely end up in
a situation that feels less than desired by us. We will
spend our time complaining, feeling resentful, ruminating
on what happened, and feeling bad about ourselves
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because we have abandoned ourselves or others and thus
are aware that we are not living authentically and with
integrity. $o the "uestion to ask ourselves is 8!f there is
going to be discomfort either way, is avoiding the conflict
worth it?:
;. 4ou need to begin to see conflict as an opportunity
instead of as a disaster. 'onflict is an opportunity to
become clear about yourself and your values and beliefs
and desires. 'onflict is the perfect breeding ground for
authenticity. #very time a conflict arises, we can see it as
an alarm bell that tells us Here is an opportunity to
really know yourself. 'ontrast <which is really all conflictis= is the only way that we can gain clarity about anything.
Without the comparative e%perience, we would have no
understanding at all. 6pposition or polarity enables us to
gain understanding.
When conflict arises, you need to use those conflicts to
ask yourself What do ! really believe? What do ! really
want? Why did ! really do this thing or say this thing?What do ! really think in this situation? )nd beyond the
understanding, it is also an opportunity to take action to
line up with your integrity and by doing so, to give
yourself the message 8! am going to stand by my own
personal truth:. >et ready for a boost of self(confidence
and self(esteem because doing this greatly deepens and
improves the relationship you have with yourself. !t will
lead to self(trust. 6n that note, because self(trust is such astruggle for those of us who have a fear of conflict, ! want
you to watch my 4ouTube video titled7 8How To Trust
4ourself:.
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. When you e%perience conflict, use the immediate fear or
resistance you feel in your body as an alarm bell to alert
you that you have been triggered. )nd now, you need to
really become aware of what it is e%actly that you are
afraid of. The most obvious thing to ask yourself aboutfear of conflict in general is7 8What would be so bad
about upsetting someone?:
4ou also need to become aware of what it is you are
afraid of in the specific conflict and directly e%press that
fear instead of running away from the conflict. 1or
e%ample, if someone tells you that you have to come with
them to something you don’t want to go to and you arefeeling the fear come up and are tempted to say yes +ust to
avoid the conflict, ask to have a minute to decide. Then,
use that minute to decide what you are afraid of about
saying @o. 4ou might discover that the fear you feel is
that if you say no, they will become disappointed and
withdraw from you so you lose the connection. Then
challenge yourself to e%press that truth directly. Like this7
8! really don’t want to go, but !’m afraid that if ! don’t go,you will be disappointed and withdraw from me.: This is
an authentic e%pression so you are in a space of integrity
and if the friend is worth having, they will respond to that
honesty with something that will reassure you of the
connection. They will not re"uire you to abandon yourself
for the sake of the relationship. The more reassured you
are that the conflict will not lead to permanent rupture, the
easier it will be to dive right in when conflict arises. )nd
yes, !’m asking you to be brave enough to be vulnerable
like that.
A. 9evelop empathy for people. We need to deliberately look
for the vulnerabilities and fears of other people and see
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their pain in order for us to not take peoples reactions
personally. !f we avoid conflict, we tend to take
everything personally. $o when conflict arises, ask
yourself, 8How is this person hurting?: )nd meditate on
that long enough to see below the surface of the conflictthat is arising.
B. To get in touch with what is active in your subconscious
mind, you can do a practice when you feel the fear of
conflict arise, where you write a letter from your child
self to your adult self. 0ut the hand you dominantly write
with is wired to your adult conscious mind. $o you must
use the hand you do not write with. !nvite your inner childto arise within you and to hold the pen and to say what he
or she needs to say. !f you want, you can ask your inner
child "uestions and the inner child can answer them. 1or
e%ample, if ! ask 8Why are you feeling so scared right
now:? The inner child might say, 80ecause if they are
mad at me, ! will be put in my room all alone:. 0ecoming
conscious of these suppressed fears can really enable us to
be willing to consciously face conflict and see that we are being ruled by childhood fears that are irrational in our
adulthood.
C. The avoidance of conflict is all about feeling emotionally
unsafe. !nstead of running around manipulating other
people into be happy so you can feel emotionally safe- be
brave enough to take the direct route to emotional safety.
*epeat after me7 !t’s ok to want to be emotionally safe. $oask yourself 8What would make me feel emotionally
safe.: $urvey your life and think of all the things that
make you feel emotionally safe. aybe it’s the
reassurance that you’re not going to lose someone if you
voice your opinion. aybe it’s a comfort item you have
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around the house. aybe it is being touched by someone.
The point is that sometimes the very thing we need in
order to be able to face conflict instead of to avoid it, is to
ask ourselves or to have someone else ask us 8What do !
need in order to feel emotionally safe enough to face thisconflict instead of avoid it? )nd repeat after me7 ! am not
emotionally safe with myself if ! keep sacrificing myself
and compromising myself to keep other people feeling
happy and pacified.
D. >et in touch with your feelings. !f you struggle with
conflict, you are not in touch with your emotions and
honestly have not learned how to deal with emotionswhen they arise. This is especially true relative to conflict
because your emotions were not dealt with ade"uately by
the adults in your childhood e%perience. 4ou do not yet
understand that conflict does not have to be the
frightening, destructive, e%plosive or aggressive situation
you are picturing in your head. 4our early social training
was not supportive, it was punitive. 1or this reason, when
you become emotional, you have no idea what to do withit and when other people become emotional, you have no
idea what to do with it. !n order to learn what to do with
your own emotions and what to do with the emotions of
others, ! want you to watch two of my 4ouTube videos. /.
How To Heal The #motional 0ody. . #motional Wakeup
'all.
E. 9evelop your communication skills. The easiest way toresolve conflict and to become confident about conflict is
to become confident about your ability to communicate
with others. Ferhaps in the future ! will do an episode on
how to communicate. 0ut until then, a simple tip is to ask
as many "uestions as you can. Guestions often result in
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"uick resolution. Guestions imply openness and so they
do not inspire defense. #specially focus on "uestions that
narrow down e%pectations. any conflicts arise as a
result of unmet e%pectations, differing needs or needs that
were not met. !f we can identify the needs that we havethat were not met, we instantly have the opportunity to
find resolution- we +ust have to figure out how to best
meet those unmet needs.
@ow is the time to end the cycle of sabotaging yourself and others by
spending your life in avoidance mode. When it comes to conflicts, time
will not make it better. $leeping on it will not make it better. 'onflicts
will not go away- in fact they will only fester. The more you faceconflict, the less afraid you will feel of it. 4ou will e%perience the good
that comes as a result of it. 4ou will e%perience relationship repair. )lso,
the better you will feel about yourself and the better your relationships
will be because you will be learning how to be completely present with
yourself and with others.
0y becoming comfortable with conflict, you will finally be able to stand
by your own personal truth s"uarely enough that your life will reflectyour authentic self and your life e%perience will become one that you
really want to show up for every day. )nd it is more than possible, it is
in fact how it is supposed to be, that instead of causing us to lose our
connection with others, conflict can cause our connection with others to
deepen and become even more secure