Today let’s talk about something that is very relevant to all of us which is Conflicts. Each and every one of us experience conflict in our lives. Conflicts at times can be very draining and have a huge emotional impact on you as well as the people you are relating with. Question is, can we eliminate conflicts from our lives? Probably we cant..because it is a part of being human. The real important point is, what do we do when we are in conflict. So whenever you are in a state of conflict and you are feeling emotionally upset and you are in that difficult situation, there are two tips that can make a complete difference in the way you are dealing with conflict.

Most often we tend to react when we are in a conflict. We tend to say things, or we might do things that can create a very negative impact on people on the relationship and on the way we feel at the end of the conflict. The most important thing when we are in that state of emotional upset is to NOT REACT.  So what we need to do a that point is to just take a PAUSE…To stop ourselves from saying or doing something that ultimately we might not feel good about. Only once you have a got a chance to get over that emotional state, you have had a chance to think about the best response, is when you can come back into the conversation

The second thing you can do, that makes a huge difference in the way you deal with conflicts is to NOT TAKE IT PERSONALLY. Often when we take things personally, we tend to feel hurt, we tend to angry, we tend feel upset because when we take things personally it is about ‘us’ or the ‘other person’. So the trick here is to not take things personally..to not make it about us but focus on the issue at hand

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Five ways in which you could be reacting to conflict

#1 – “Let’s not talk about it”

This is when you try to avoid the conflict and withdraw from it mentally or physically. Sometimes avoiding conflict is the best move. Perhaps the issue isn’t important enough to address or you need to allow some time to pass to diffuse tensions. But of course avoiding conflict can also be harmful because the issues continue to fester and become even more bigger and painful over time.

#2 – “Ok I give up”

This happens when you try to accommodate the feelings and needs of other person, sometimes at the expense of yours. You back off from the conflict to protect the relationship and to maintain harmony.

You avoid telling the other person what you are truly feeling because you don’t want to upset the relationship by sharing your thoughts. You focus on maintaining harmony, appeasing he other person and reducing the pain that conflicts create. Often the pain and upset remains inside you and can lead to resentment later. 

#3 – “It’s my way or the highway”

This happens when proving yourself right and winning the argument is more important than the relationship. Aggression is when you regard person as someone you need to ‘fight’ in a conflict. There is a huge need to defend and protect your own viewpoint. You tend to become impatient with others who disagree with you and you may use arguments, criticisms, personal attacks or blame, when things don’t go your way. Aggression can leave a lot of hurt and pain in conflict and eventually damage relationships in the long term. 

#4 – “Let’s be practical” 

Here the focus is on being reasonable, logical, practical and working out a compromise. The idea is to come up with a short term solution, so that the conflict is temporailiy resolved – I give up something, you give up something, and we agree to settle somewhere in the middle. If you constantly tend to compromise in conflicts, you may settle for less and neglect to see the bigger possibilities.

#5 – “Let’s talk about this together”

This is when you decide to keep your perspective aside for a moment and truly have an open-heart conversation. The idea is to listen, share, talk, discuss and come up with a solution that works in the long term. This conversation is build on empathy, understanding and solution focus. While it might take time, it is surely worth the investment.

How do you tend to deal with your conflicts? How is it impacting your life and relationships?