how to get over your fear of conflict

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8/18/2019 How to Get Over Your Fear of Conflict http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/how-to-get-over-your-fear-of-conflict 1/10 HowToGet 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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Page 1: 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