Relationship Conflict- How to Deal

Today's video is on how to deal with conflicts in relationships. I get asked a lot of questions about conflict in general, how to navigate conflict in all types of relationships, in our friendships, in our family relationships, in our romantic partners. So I thought this video would be helpful to clear up some things and also to give some overall helpful tips with how to navigate conflict in our lives. So the first thing that I really think is important, I really want to emphasize for all of us, is that the presence of conflict doesn't mean that there's something wrong. It's actually quite normal. It's human. We come into our relationships with many different perspectives, many different points of view, many different lived experiences that cause us to often have opposing moments in time where I think one thing, whomever thinks another. I'm having emotional experience and they're having something different or we're just at odds on whatever the thing is happening in our world. So I really want to emphasize that because I know many of us, myself included, it's a long time where I thought because I was not used to a family that engaged regularly in conflict, we didn't talk about things that were hard. So there wasn't those blow-ups. So I never saw that. So when I would find myself in conflict in my relationships, I very naturally understood that is meaning something was wrong because I wasn't used to, I wasn't modeled the very natural experience of conflicts that get resolved. That is a normal human experience. So I want to emphasize that. So it doesn't mean there's something wrong and it's natural and normal and even could provide us in our relationship moments to grow, to understand ourselves more, to understand the deeper for many of us emotional wounds that are contributing to these moments of conflict. So it's not an indicator of something wrong. It should not be avoided. It's natural. We're all going to be in conflict. And like I said, it can be incredible learning moment for many of us. There's many reasons why we find ourselves in conflict with another. So moving on to two more practical tips. What happens in conflict for many of us, because like I said, we're being activated for a lot of us, emotional wounds, accumulated emotions, things that have been suppressed across our lifetime are coming to the surface. I know I feel it. My emotions go through the roof and I feel really, really activated. What that can produce in many of us, especially if we have a history of trauma is something that's called emotional flooding. It leads to overwhelm and it actually leads to a complete shutdown of our system. It's not helpful to allow ourselves to feel emotionally overwhelmed. So there's a really practical tool. We can call it a timeout or a mutual agreement for a break. What are we going to do as one or both of us feel ourselves escalating to that point, as I call it, of no return. This agreement is really helpful if we make it beforehand. If you have that friend or that sister or the partner where conflict is a recurrent theme, totally normal, you and that person might want to come to the agreement that as you feel one or both of yourself escalating to that point of no return, that you petition for a timeout in that moment. The reality here too is that both people have different sensitivities or thresholds for this. We want to honor ourself in calling that timeout and someone else. Some conflicts, I might feel myself being flooded and I might say, you know what, here's the moment where I need to step away from this conversation. Other occasions, that might be the person with whom I'm in conflict. That person might say, based on their own unique history, that they are feeling close to that moment of flooding and they need to. It's that mutual understanding and respect that we might have those different thresholds. I might still want to talk about something when my partner or whomever is feeling flooded. Then what do we do? We literally just take time away from the conflict. Away, time, space can be what helps our bodies return to that baseline or just more of a balanced emotional state. This is the second important part of this timeout to return and re-engage the conversation at a later time. This isn't about shoving under the rug and just going on until this conflict happens again. The two parts of this are agreeing to take that break when it's necessary for one or both parties, and then agreeing to come back when you are both in a calmer emotional space, because that is when we're going to set ourselves up to actually come to a resolution around the conflict. It's two parts. We honor, we take the space, and then we re-engage the conversation. There's one caveat here, as always. The question about what are you doing during that space? Because if I take space and say I take a walk, but say on that whole walk, I'm revisiting that argument, I might come back from that walk feeling worse off emotionally than I before I left on that walk. If I take that walk, however, and I just bring my full presence to the walk, to my body moving through the universe, to feeling the sun on my skin, you get the picture. If I'm not in my mind, that might be what allows me to down-regulate and to enter that calm space. It's not just about the break. It's also about how are you using that break? If we are just spinning the issue in our mind, that's not going to achieve this return to baseline that we're aiming for here. The final step. Okay, great. I'm calm. My partner's calm. We're back at it. We're going to have this conversation. Now what? Now we have to begin to create a practice, because many of us are not used to listening in this way, of active listening. Really short and simple, what is active listening? Being present. Truly hearing what the other person is saying and trying to understand the experience through their perspective. This is not coming up with a retort for everything the person says in their mind that I don't agree with or saying, you know what, that's not what it was because this is what it was for me. That is not active listening. Active listening is hearing someone else's perspective and then allowing your perspective, which might be different, to also be heard. I have a full video on this. I will link it below. It is called How to Support Someone. You can dive into that video and get some more tips with how to cultivate this practice of active listening. I'm going to end on this note as well. All of this is a practice. A lot of us aren't used to having a more positive, if you will, relationship with conflict. I know I avoided conflict at all costs because remember that family? They never showed me how to deal with it any other way. These steps are something I still work on. I still cultivate and at times are still really hard. So do not have the expectation that you've listened to this video and now conflicts are going to be different in your world because they're not. But if you practice these steps, you can truly change your relationship with conflict in your life.