Conflict as an opportunity for learning, connection and insight

In this view of, or approach to, conflict we see it as an opportunity for learning. We accept it as an inevitable part of life, even welcoming it as an opening into a new understanding of a situation.

We step towards the opening rather than turn away from it.

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We see any difficult feelings or actions associated with a conflict as symbols that we need a new way of responding to the situation or person.

We acknowledge the fear and other difficult feelings associated with the conflict as an internal signal that something needs to be reconsidered and engaged with in order to create that new way of responding........ instead of taking actions that numb us to those feelings as we do in the conflict avoidance approaches, where conflict is treated as a competition or as a problem.

Byron Katie,from her book: Question Your Thinking, Change the World

Instead of reacting to conflict situations - which basically means we have only one response available to us and we do it without thinking, without awareness, without mindfulness - we can learn to consider our actions and create choices in how we respond.

To learn that there is more than one response available to us empowers us to have a sense of control over our lives, to lose the sense of 'victimhood' that can easily arise from conflicts. To lose the fear, isolation, helplessness, frustration associated with victimhood.

Insight

And when there is no longer a victim, there is also not a 'perpetrator' and we can start to consider the person with whom we are in conflict as a 'co-respondent' in the situation, someone with whom we can co-operate to resolve the situation..... Even if they do not want to do so and still respond as if the conflict is a problem or a competition.

Connection

If our perception of them has changed through seeing them, not as a perpetrator of an act upon us but as simply another person, experiencing similar thoughts and feelings to us - confusion, fear, isolation, anger etc. - our response will not be one that escalates the destructiveness of the situation as there will be no competition to win, no need to get allies, to bring in a 'bigger stick', to be 'proved right'.

Byron Katie tells it like it is...again:

It has been a life's work to make our partner wrong. Then when we enter inquiry, we lose. It's a tremendous shock. And it turns out to be grace. Winning is losing. Losing is winning. It all turns around.

Question Your Thinking, Change the World

Ultimately, whether the person with whom we are in conflict wishes to resolve it or not becomes irrelevant. All conflict is inside ourselves and how we approach it determines whether we will resolve it and learn from it and grow from it or whether we will be 'saddled' with it and carry its burden for years and possibly a lifetime.

Many conflicts still exist in people long after the person with whom they are in dispute has died, or moved away. Where else can conflict be but inside ourselves when this is the case?

Learning

Awareness of ourselves transforms our responses from being reactions to being chosen actions.

We are empowered through our choices.

We take ownership of our thoughts and feelings and actions instead of seeing them as being 'caused' by another person or by a situation or experience.

The Principles of Effective Communication and the Underlying Philosophies of Mediation help us to gain this awareness.

The skills of Listening, Summarising and Questioning help us to communicate more effectively and with more awareness and mindfulness in how we use language.

Here's an example of the consequences of moving towards resolution of what is often seen as an unresolvable conflict. Listening to the words of all 3 people being interviewed there are examples of learning, connection and insight expressed during their conversation.

Jo Berry, the woman interviewed in the video above is the founder of Building Bridges for Peace.

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