Blogs about Conflict

See also www.krishines.blogspot.com

June 27 2010   Conflict:
Who Pushes your Buttons?

For me, the people that drive me nuts the most are the ones I can’t resolve things with in my head. When I say can’t I usually mean won’t.

As is quite well known in the ethers these days, according to Carl Jung the concept of projection lies beneath much of our conflict.  This means that when we have disowned or pushed under aspects of ourselves we see them in others and their presence disturbs us. We may have disowned them because there is childhood suffering of some kind associated with that way of being. These disowned experiences, qualities and feelings are the buttons.

For example, we may have had a very critical parent who we could never please. This left us feeling inadequate, helpless, and in order to survive we bury (disown) the feeling and might develop, for example, as its opposite a highly organised way of being (In Voice Dialogue language this would be called a Primary Self). 

When we meet our shadow helpless self in another we will either be hooked into trying to rescue them or be driven nuts and be very critical of them, inwardly or outwardly.  I personally think this is the biggest source of bullying behaviour.

Whichever key ways we have developed to survive, it will be those people who contain our disowned opposites that get to us the most, even if they have not actually done anything to harm us. They just push our buttons.

One personal example is that in order to help manage the emotional turmoil of my late teens and twenties I developed a way of being which was about learning and understanding psychological knowledge. It helped me to become super-aware of my feelings and behaviour and the things that seemed to cause them, and in this way to try and regain a form of control over my life. This proved to be very useful in both my personal and professional life.


But it has a shadow side (according to Jung everything does - there's no escape!). Its shadow might show up as someone who doesn’t learn from their traumas and upsets and goes on repeating them over and over.This would mean I would find myself inevitably in the presence of someone like this, who embodies their own version of this disowned energy. Note that it is often a very particular someone - we will not necessarily hook into everyone like this.  


This is where the conflict comes in: instead of being able to be compassionate, helpful or detached, I have the pleasure of being driven nuts by them! I will feel driven to want to help them, change them or criticise them. The key word here is driven. I will find myself unable to let this particular dog lie. Though dog may not be the word I use!

So back to the original choice I mentioned - will I or won’t I resolve this? The degree to which I don’t want to know about this vulnerable, stuck, imperfect part of myself is the degree to which I will be really keen to just keep criticising and trying to change the other person. The more disowned, the stronger the drive to project it outwards onto the other person and thus stay hooked into the conflict. 

It can be so simple!!! When I choose to really allow myself to feel these uncomfortable feelings inside me - like feeling inadequate, panicked, overwhelmed, confused - I begin to set myself free. Not only will I have more compassion and TLC for myself, but I will begin to experience the other person differently - maybe even see them as a person instead of someone created to make my life difficult!


The other person gets set free too, whether they consciously know about the conflict or not. (But they’ll know!) So, I may as well choose freedom. I’d better get busy. Watch this space….. Aaaaagghh!!!

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