Conflict Resolution ‒ Are We Just Afraid To Deal With Our Emotions About Other People’s Emotions?
- Mar 27, 2023
- 5 min read
Written by: Adele Hartland, Guest Writer
If we think about conflict at its core, it can often be linked to a fear around how to deal with what comes up, not only for us, but also for those we are experiencing the conflict with. Not only do we have to have capacity to deal with our feelings, but we must also find capacity to deal with their feelings, and how we feel about them!
Conflict is in essence a difference of opinion, a moment where my perspective doesn’t align with yours. Where my interests, (what I choose to give my attention to) differ from yours. A conflict of interests.
But does it always have to be labelled as right or wrong?
What if instead we viewed it as an opportunity to learn, expand and ultimately evolve?
Conflict is also a moment in time when our vibrational frequencies don’t match.
Simply put, a moment of incompatibility.
So why is it that we always look outside of ourselves to resolve a conflict that effectively started on the inside?
If the radio station you’re listening to has static, do you first try to tune someone else’s radio to find the right frequency? No, you tune your station and perhaps check to see if anything might be causing interference.
How we perceive life has been shaped and moulded through our unique life experiences, the various environments we’ve navigated, our values, our opinions, and our beliefs, which all culminate to form part of our identity.
Sometimes the beliefs and opinions we have aren’t even ours, we just picked them up along the way without much conscious thought or challenge. These views, opinions and beliefs can sometimes cause interference.
This is why a difference of opinion can sometimes feel like an attack on our identity or at least who we ‘believe’ we should be, so we might reject what we’re hearing, seeing, or feeling.
Therefore, it’s not uncommon to think or feel like someone is to blame, and that someone has to take responsibility and ownership, and apologise. Someone must be right, and someone must be wrong.
Naturally there are times we should apologise, but what if in the attempts to get to this point, we first all individually took full responsibility and ownership of our sense of self, our actions, our behaviours, AND our emotions and feelings?
What if instead of deflecting and rejecting, we chose to reflect?
What am I believing about myself in this situation? i.e., I’m not good enough.
What am I believing about the situation? i.e., I’m always taken advantage of.
What am I believing about the other person? i.e., This person doesn’t want me to succeed.
These three questions alone can provide insight into some of what we might be holding onto, limiting beliefs or views that we formed at some stage in our life due to our experience of a situation, which now form the lens through which we perceive life.
Are these beliefs or views currently serving you?
A belief is not a fact. A belief is just something you have thought about enough times through how you have perceived the world for it to now be the lens through which you experience the world around you.
Our beliefs, unresolved traumas and unreleased emotions become the filter or lens through which our brains and bodies translate information.
When we take time to go within to find the answer, we can bring attention to the areas within us that may require healing.
Past traumas can be likened to tiny little landmines that exist within us.
These landmines have a vibrational frequency and attract experiences to us that will allow for this stuck energy to come up, also known as repetition compulsion or trauma re-enactment, and if we are aware and choose, it can also be an opportunity to release and heal.
Whilst it might feel like someone has stepped on the landmine, and as such it’s their fault for setting it off, you are ultimately the owner of that landmine, and the person who set it off, if you’re open to it, has possibly just given you a beautiful gift by providing awareness and an invitation and chance to heal.
I recently experienced a moment of incompatibility with a close friend. At that moment I felt myself become overwhelmed and upset. I felt unheard and unsupported.
When I took time to meditate & reflect to be able to articulate what I was feeling, I asked myself, where in my life was, I not listening or supporting. The answer popped into my consciousness like a light switch being flicked on in a dark room.
I was not listening to or supporting myself. I was feeling overwhelmed and was looking for the cause outside of me. I was providing space for so many around me, but I was forgetting about myself. I didn’t have the capacity in this situation to deal with my emotions.
As human beings we are the most cutting-edge piece of technology known to man, we just never received a manual, however, if we take time to go within, we will connect to our highly intuitive, surprisingly accurate and profoundly insightful inner guidance system.
I invite you to spend a little less time rejecting and deflecting, and a lot more time reflecting and connecting with your inner guidance system, as it holds the key to finding the gift of expansion in every moment of incapability.
P.s If you knew you lost your keys inside your house, would you spend all your time looking for them outside?
Adele Hartland, Brainz Magazine Guest Writer
Adele Hartland, owner, and founder of Lacuna Coaching Ltd is a certified Engagement & Leadership coach, DISC & Motivators Practitioner, Change Management Practitioner, NLP practitioner, MHFA, Quality Mind® Mentor, and HeartMath® Certified Coach, who has over 20 years international experience working in both SME’s and large organisations such as SABMiller, Red Bull and British American Tobacco. Together with her experience & access to some of the newest, most innovative, and effective approaches, Adele supports organisations and individuals to grow & thrive.
Adele guides individuals through the process of better understanding themselves and others, their behaviours and beliefs, their strengths and development areas, and how to emotionally self-regulate and release what is no longer serving them, so as to be able to consciously create an environment that is conducive to growth & expansion through the consistent implementation of positive habits and changes that then translate into the life of their dreams.
‘The most overlooked requirements to increasing the rate of advancement in business and life are self-awareness and alignment, both individually and collectively. Self-awareness of who we are and what we want to be and do, and then the alignment of the required thoughts, action, and behaviours to make those desires a reality.’
