 Frequently asked questions
(Scroll down for responses)
* What kinds of conflict can you help with?
* What if the other person doesn’t want to talk or be involved?
* What if the person no longer wants anything to do with you?
* What if I just can't get past the way they have treated me?
* What if the other person has died?
Q: What kinds of conflict can you help with?
There is a core of skills that are needed to resolve conflicts and once learned they can make a difference with all people and all situations.
- Getting over a breakup or separation
- Internal conflict about ending a relationship
- Dealing with unresolved hurt
- Anger management
- Work place conflicts
- Relationship issues
- Organisational issues
- Issues with parents
- Issues with other family members
- Bullying
- Racial and religious issues
- Conflicts with children and teens
Q: What if the other person doesn’t want to talk or be involved?
In my experience, when it has not been possible to talk directly with the person, I have been able to deal with a big part of the conflict simply by working on my skills or my attitudes to the person or the situation and putting these into practice.
In each case, after I did that there was a significant shift in the relationship and it completely changed. The conflict either disappeared, was able to be actively resolved, or became an ok part - sometimes even an amusing part - of shared memory with the person.
The stress and anxiety were no longer there in the same way - though we were still the same people!
Q: What if the person no longer
wants anything to do with you?
You can’t make them change, but you can work with the impact the conflict has had on you and heal the damage that has been done. Sometimes what you learn in the process of doing this actually changes the dynamic - though nothing has been said.
Q: What if I just can't get past the
way they have treated me?
This answer contains a number of stages. There are processes I use for these which can be worked with in a session. You can do them alone also or with support:
In my experience the first step needed at these times is to stop and take charge of your pain by taking care of the part of yourself that is feeling this. Until you do that, you will be wanting the other person to compensate for the pain you feel and you will be stuck in a place of blame.
You may be fully justified blaming them for what happened - it may have left you traumatised or very shaken or angry - but the place of blame leaves you with no way out of your pain except by getting the other person to own what they did, to pay or at least apologise.
Sometimes when you express your feelings to them they will respond with concern and empathy and apologise, wanting to make amends.
Often though the person will instead only pick up on your feeling of blame, get defensive, and feel an even stronger need to justify their position. So it’s a stand off.
This is why it helps if you take charge of your pain - this means you will feel heard and supported from within yourself and so much stronger. You can do this completely independently of what the other person is doing. It's like the oxygen masks on a plane - attend to yourself first! Then you'll be a lot more able to deal effectively with the conflict.
Taking charge of your pain means:
- Own it as your pain.
- Take it seriously by sitting with it, alone or with an empathic person who is a good listener.
- Let out the initial steam level in a safe but expressive way. For some it can take a while to feel safe enough to do this.
- What’s underneath that? Feel it, be empathic towards yourself.
Our tendency, initially to help us cope with the hurt, can be to either take it to the complaint or outraged ‘story level’ and rant and rave about them verbally to anyone who will listen, sometimes for many years, or, on the other hand, to minimise it, stuff it down and stick with sadness and resentment instead.
Even when we are very unhappy and capable of crying our hearts out, we can get stuck at this level and continue to repeat the story, but make no progress beyond it. Which is a very tough place to live from.
The fastest way through is to allow yourself to feel it deeply, right where it is in your body, connect with it, especially the more vulnerable layers underneath the outrage - like hurt, loss, rejection, inadequacy, fear, abandonment, grief, numbness, shock, despair.
This is not easy to do, and many people need an elder or a professional person to help them do this. But when you can take care of your own pain in this way, you will come to a place, sooner or later, where you realise that although that awful stuff happened you are getting back to ok again. You are not the same, but you are stronger, truer and back in your own power. This can take a while to get to, especially if you are tempted to swing back to the far more comfortable place of blaming.
In our blame stories we are always 100% right and it can feel very satisfying and powerful. But it’s a very empty power and it changes absolutely nothing!
So when anger comes back try not to suppress it but at the same time, after a little more steam blowing, return to sitting with the feelings that are there underneath the anger.
Give yourself the compassion and support that you so wanted that other person to give you. This will return you, as you practise it, to a self respect, self esteem and inner strength that exist beyond the war zone of the story. Now you can act with both effectiveness and wisdom.
The ancient Sufis have a saying "The wound is the gift." The hard earned gifts in this case are strength, love and wisdom, and ultimately what becomes available is to feel joy in your life again.
Q: What if the other person has
died?
Many of us are left with regret, guilt or anger as well as grief after someone has died. Often we are left with the confusion of contradictory feelings or can be cut off from previous feelings of love, feeling only the grief or pain. Even in these circumstances we can work gradually and honestly to let these very difficult feelings emerge, to express what needs to be expressed and to heal, reconnect with love, regain our strength and get a feeling of closure.
To inquire or book a session email mailto:kris@conflictadvice.com?subject=Inquiry%20re%20Conflictadvice
or call +61 7 5442 3676
m: 0408226353.
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