Five Helpful Steps To Managing Conflict

Conflict, and its offspring avoidance, plague many great relationships in our culture.  Left to fester, they are like a cancer that erodes any bond, and contributes to major complications moving forward.  Left unresolved, conflict and avoidance can lead to the death of any great relationship.  Luckily, you can manage conflict like a pro in just five easy steps!
 
1)     Acknowledge:  Acknowledging how your family handled conflict in the past might be half the battle.  Frequently, conflict experienced in the nuclear home growing up consisted of emotional elevations, tirades, and even violence.  This is very salient to how you may see conflict in the here and now, and will influence how you will develop your own style of managing conflict.  Conflict can feel unsafe, even scary, because you may have grown up “walking on eggshells” trying to avoid volatile responses to conflict.  Or perhaps you fear you own reaction to conflict because the modeled reaction was maladaptive.  Understanding your past and processing its significance with a professional counselor is half of the battle to understanding and managing your own beliefs and reactions to conflict.
 
2)     Reframe:  Reframing the way you perceive conflict is also very impactful.  Conflict is normal, and a healthy part of any relationship.  Conflict adds the spice that makes the relationship exciting!  Consider, if there was complete agreement about every subject matter with no dissenting opinion, conversations would be very short and run dry quickly.  Having a spirited conversation with different points of view is what connects us emotionally and broadens our outlooks.  Well managed conflict is natural inside of relationships… so don’t be afraid and avoid the discourse.  It is actually a good thing!
 
3)     Run Through It, Not Around It:  Be intentionally vigilant for patterns of avoidance, and commit to fruitfully running into conflict.  A fruitful jog into conflict is the ability to express how you are experiencing a person or situation, and asking for what you need to resolve your negative feelings.  Fruitfully running through the problem also means the recipient is able to provide a safe place for your concerns to land.  Again, this may take professional modeling provided by a licensed counselor.
 
4)     Understand Your Style: Do you fight to win? Or do you placate and avoid?  Gaining insight on your style of managing feelings related to conflict is powerful.  Knowing your conflict style will help you to correct learned behaviors that seem helpful in the moment, but will prove to be harmful down the road.  Working toward collaboration during conflict meets the needs of all, and is the style that is most effective for relationships.
 
5)     For Emergency Use:  When conflict goes wrong, engage in sincere apologies.  Fruitful conflict is not intended to be hurtful.  Apologizing for contributing to someone’s emotional pain does not negate, refute, or otherwise alter your stance, belief, or observation.  Example: “I am really sorry this was hurtful.  That was never my intent.”  Consider agreeing to respectfully disagree and move on, or revisit when emotions have leveled.