My Conflict Averse Self – Part 1

**Stay Tuned, There is a Part 2 to this post**

I see an amazing mindfulness therapist each week and the breakthroughs we make together are astounding. They never come in the hour I spend with her, it is the 6 days in between appointments when I am able to process the information that we discuss. Being engaged in therapy is difficult and exhausting. But I personally believe that therapy is for everyone. Find someone great who enhances and challenges your ideas on life and I promise it will give you an advantage in how you see yourself and how you exist in the world.

That being said, at my visit yesterday we got into a very interesting discussion about different personality types and their response to conflicts and challenges. I have what is called a “conflict-averse” personality. I will give up my best interests and happiness to avoid anything uncomfortable. Believe me, I have every excuse in the book memorized and ready to be recited at the slightest sign of conflict. Problem is that conflict is unavoidable. Conflict is central to our human experience. It can range from simple to complex. It can be short lived or last a lifetime. I’m a person that would encourage you to “pick your battles”, but I will never find a personal reason to go to war. My war rages inside. 

Fun fact: Avoiding conflict creates more conflict. 

Dealing with conflict is a learned skill. A universal truth about conflict is that it is uncomfortable. It is absolutely necessary to make peace with this fact. It is important we acknowledge that you will never be in your comfort zone while dealing with particular conflicts. actually help brace yourself against the tension that results when you deal with it. Conflict is messy, but we have to learn to love the messiness of it.

“Avoiding conflict is an inner struggle – should I deal with this now or later? – and one that can cause a lot of anxiety. It’s better to accept that conflict will happen and that sooner or later, you’ll need to face it. Don’t rush into it, but don’t put it off, either: consider carefully the type of conflict and how best to manage it. The sooner and more skilfully you can handle the conflict, the less anxiety you’ll have over it.”

Inner Conflict vs External Conflict

I am an introvert. That does not mean I don’t love being surrounded by people. I do. It just means that afterward I feel drained. An extrovert on the other hand feels energized by their interactions. They don’t mind large groups because it is where they thrive.

Part of what drives me to avoid conflict is my personal experiences with specific challenges in my life. I hate conflict so much that after going through one I feel like I’ve run a marathon. I just hurt so easily, there’s no emotional skin. I try insanely hard to understand what motivates people what makes people choose chaos.  

I do what I wish people would consider doing for me. I stop, think, and try to gain perspective. I dig deep inside and put myself in their shoes. Understanding the chaos and where it comes from is extremely important to me. 

So what is a person like myself to do with these things happening around me that are unavoidable?

There are a few great questions we can ask ourself when we notice an inner storm brewing:

1. What is the absolute worst that can happen?
2. What are my true fears vs the irrational fears I might have?
3. Realizing we cannot own other people’s feelings or reactions. All we can do is try and be considerate and kind. Their feelings are their own and not your responsibility.
4. Acknowledge and appreciate your efforts in trying successfully or unsuccessfully to resolve a conflict. Then then let it go.

Here are some great tips I found in an article in Psychology Today about embracing conflicts at the workplace. I love the tips but I’m going to spin them to relate in a more personal way.

1. Express your contrary opinion as an “and.” It’s not necessary for someone else to be wrong for you to be right. “I hear that you think we need to leave room in the budget for a customer event AND I’m concerned that we need that money for employee training. What are our options?
2. Use hypotheticals. If you don’t feel comfortable being assertive, try asking your friends or family to imagine a different scenario. In my experience, I am TOO hypothetical. If I am going to use this skill I need to dial back my imagination and approach it with more simplicity.
3. Talk about the impact of actions. Rather than disagreeing with the plan, help people think through the consequences by asking good open-ended questions about the impact. Ask about the underlying issue. If you disagree with a proposed action, start with discussion by trying to understand.

All these rational ideas of dealing with challenges and conflict are fine and dandy but they are not the reason I sat down to write this post. It was to talk about what I do best. When I start using my unique perspective to cut through the crap and see how I can change our collective present and future.

 

Some thoughts:

Yes, we absolutely need to prepare ourselves for inevitable challenges and conflict in life because it is where we are able to grow the most. Acceptance is important

I’ve decided that this will be my morning mantra. One of the greatest things I have learned when using affirmations to guide you in this world is to make sure you are grounded. That means planting your feet firmly on whatever ground you are standing on. You need to imagine your feet extend like roots of a tree as far as they can go. Be present.

The challenges I face today are made just for me. There is no one in this world who is better equipped to handle anything that comes my way. I was trained for this. I am battle ready with tools I do not have to fight this on my own. I have my faith in a higher power and a universe that is standing ready to help me become a conquerer. I will not feel defeat. I will feel growth.

The war is inside myself.

Through the fire we understand Resistance creates rewards of discipline.

You will never appreciate relaxation unless you have worked hard. One of the worst decisions you can make is to be comfortable.

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,

As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a fellow turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out.
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow –
You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than

It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
Whe he might have captured the victor’s cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out –

The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It might be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit –
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

xoxo, Kristin

Music moves me. It inspires me. It is necessary for me to live. When I pull out my MacBook and sit down to write, immediately the headphones go in and the music goes on. Starting now, the end of all my blog posts will have one song I feature that I helped me work up the courage to push Publish. Gotta say, I can’t get enough of Alessia Cara right now.  Her voice is haunting and I’m drawn to it. LOVE HER!!

Additional Blogging Playlist

Alessi Cara – Here

Would You Follow You – Motivation

The Light at the End of the Tunnel – Motivation

Acknowledge vs Acceptance

Thank you so much to all those that love me through my honest lens. This is my reality. And it isn’t pretty. It is messy and chaotic and beautiful at the same time. I am slowly learning to love and embrace my truth. I don’t ask that you say it to the world like I do, but you should acknowledge the truth within yourself. Don’t judge it, just acknowledge. You will feel better for it.

I need to come back to my basic DBT skills so I can stop hurting over things that I cannot change. I am Acknowledging that I cannot change the present moment. I am not Accepting it. So I am NOT going to judge myself for posting what I did about motherhood. That would defeat the entire purpose of learning and growing into having a more Wise and conscious Mind. I can only observe what I felt and why. And then, JUST LET IT BE.

So What exactly is Dialectical Behavioral Therapy? Here is one of the modules called Nonjudgmental Stance. I sincerely needed this refresher. If you are interested in learning more about DBT, click on the link just below, you can see all the DBT Modules and Skills. I went through actual class and therapy to learn this. And it takes practice. A LOT of Practice. But every time I practice one of my skills, I always find more peace. Even if it is just for a moment.

DBT training *Courtesy of DBT Self Help

Nonjudgmental stance is the last of the “What” skills in the Mindfulness Module of DBT.

First was Observe, in which we paid attention to ourselves, our environment, and others around us. When observing, the trick was to just notice things like, “I notice I’m thinking about the future,” or “I notice my pulse is faster when I’m talking to my mother.”

Next was Describe, in which we would put words on the things we observed. Some people described very simple things like washing the dishes or going for a walk, but found that by describing, they felt like they were better able to pay attention to the present moment.

Next was Participate, where we allowed ourselves to be completely immersed in the moment, focusing in a way that made us forget everything else.

Nonjudgmental Stance, I think, really pulls it all together. We are very conditioned to placing judgments on our observations. To use the examples above, I may notice that I’m thinking about the future, but it’s likely my next thought will be something like, “I’m not doing DBT correctly since I’m thinking about the future. Therefore I am bad or wrong or incompetent.” This is a judgment of the observation and it is not at all helpful.

The point of taking a nonjudgmental stance is to give ourselves an opportunity to observe the same old things that we always observe in our minds or in our environment or about other people, but open ourselves to thinking about it in a different way. So if I withhold my judgment about what my thought means, but simply observe it, note it and let the thought move away, I have an opportunity to treat myself more gently. Even if I still have the judgmental thought, I can observe that I had the thought, then let it go. That’s the beauty of nonjudgmental stance; all the negative garbage we’re so accustomed to telling ourselves is suddenly cut off and a gentleness takes over so that healing becomes possible.

I was recently reading the book “Writing as a Way of Healing,” by Louise DeSalvo and in it she said, “In the end, isn’t healing just another way of seeing?” When I thought about it, one reason that statement is true is because I’m backing off from taking a judgmental stance and opening myself to another way of thinking (which is where many of the other DBT skills come in – offering suggestions for alternative ways to behave/react/think about any given situation).

If you look at the second example of an observation above, “I notice my pulse is faster when I’m talking to my mother,” we can see how the nonjudgmental stance can change a potentially volatile situation into a healing moment in which I can learn something about myself. My temptation is to think, “my pulse is faster because she’s a witch and I can’t stand listening to her and now she’s yelling at me because she hates me” and so I react and yell back. This has happened to me many times.

But sometimes, in the midst of the moment, I notice my pulse and let’s say I resist making a judgment about WHY my pulse is fast or what my mother is doing. Instead I notice that the pitch in my mother’s voice is higher and I resist making the judgment about WHY her voice is higher or what it means to me. Or, if I can’t resist the judgment, I just observe it and let it go. Then I notice that my face is becoming red and that I feel the impulse to react and I force myself to simply observe and withhold judgment. And slowly, I find I’m regaining my composure, freeing myself from the prison of emotional pain. I feel less need to react. As my feelings of anger dissipate, I begin to hear the pain in her voice and I don’t judge that pain. Instead, I let her have her pain and I just listen. I don’t take it on, I merely observe. And somehow, the entire situation feels different. “Healing is just a different way of seeing.”

I am especially aware of the impact of a nonjudgmental stance when I use it on the more complex observations and descriptions of EMOTIONS! Nevertheless, I think it’s good to practice with more benign things like taking a nonjudgmental stance about my walk in the park.

I can practice by not making a judgment about the guy who just walked past me and pulled his dog in closer to him quickly and sidestepped my path. I might be tempted to think he was avoiding me because he thinks I’m ugly, dangerous or any number of things. But if I notice myself doing so and consciously make a decision not to judge my observations, I am able to practice this skill and gain some competence with it. In this way, later on, when that argument with my mother happens, I will have practiced observing and describing without judging. In so doing, I’m in a position to gain even more actual healing.

I am working on being more Mindful. I lose myself in the moment just like everyone else. I feel sad and hopeless. But every single day, I wake up and heal a little bit more. This blog is helping me heal. Your response is helping me heal. Thank you again for your support and love!

xoxo,

Kristin