40 Days of Resolution at Home

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40 Days of Conflict Resolution

Tips for Home by Sara Barnes

Day 5: YOU CAN RESOLVE A CONFLICT

Get Started:

It's also true that unresolved conflicts can be tough to get a handle on.

So, where to start?

Here’s an important, often overlooked, first step:

Tell someone you want to resolve the conflict.

Why can it be so hard to tell someone this?

Some possibilities:

Pride, not wanting to show vulnerability
Fear of rejection
Worried the issue will get worse
Not wanting to be the first
No idea how or where to start

When you're identifying that you want to resolve a conflict, watch out for assumptions.

Humans are storytellers -- we fill in blanks when we don’t know all the details.

In conflict, sometimes we concoct stories littered with assumptions, such as:

He wants to make me miserable.
She is not telling the truth.
He is trying to be unreasonable.
She is just a [insert dehumanizing term].
He is such a [insert dehumanizing term].

'Where to go from here?

First, try to erase all those possible assumptions. Do your best to have an open mind. It is natural to assume the most negative explanation. Here's something to remember: People do things for a reason. If you've ever been judged wrongly, you know that negative assumptions can send relationships south. Try to default to thinking that there may be a reasonable explanation and/or that you just don’t know everything about what is going on.

Then, try this: be the one who makes the first move.

“Hey, I want to work on this conflict we are having. Can we talk?”

Then listen, listen, listen without a speech at the ready. Ask a genuine question. And then listen even more before making any declarations. Or:

“How are we doing together? We’ve gone through a rough patch, right? Want to talk about it?”

Then give the other person time to think about whether they are ready to talk. It’s a fool’s game to try to talk with someone else when they are not ready. Check back in a while. “Ready now?”

Resolving conflict can only happen when at least one person makes the first move.

On the agenda for tomorrow: how to listen non-judgmentally

and

what to do when you hear something you don’t agree with.

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