CONFLICT.
How do you feel about conflict?
Like actually. What is your reaction to the word itself, pause and let your body respond for a moment while you observe this.
And then, how do you normally react when you are faced with conflict?
Heated? Disconnected? Fearful? Placid? Excited?
There are so many different varieties of conflict.
Conflict could be a pair of jeans not fitting when you really want them to, somebody else grabbing the last jar of mayo at the grocery store, a significant (or insignificant) fight with a loved one, belittling yourself (self doubt, uncertainty), financial pressure, struggles with your child (clean your room, do your homework), your dog chewing your shoes (conflict with your pet), being the receiving end of someone else’s emotions or placing someone on the receiving end of your emotions…..
Conflict happens all day long.
Conflict happens within yourself the most, among the scarcity thoughts of desires versus the abundance of reality.
And what is it about conflict that so often has us react with our defence shield ENGAGED and "conflict" right back, rather than soften into? Open up, hear, relate....
Of course this is largely coming from musings over a recent life experience, an argument with someone close to me. The riff started and grew over days. I was reviewing the higher levels of the situation, not the rub itself, but the context around it, and finally circled back to have a conversation where I had to make some tough choices.
Stay in the conflict and defend OR MOVE INTO DILUTION.
Meaning, stand the heck up as the full strong confident grown woman that I am and own it. Own my part of the conflict. Without diminishing what I know to be true about my wholeness and goodness. (ie we all mess up, the integrity is in HOW you deal with the mess). So, I related to their side of how difficult it must be for them and I also gave myself a voice in the unfortunate circumstances, and then…..! I apologized for my bit, I said I'm sorry for the part I play at the root of this divergence between us.
And you know what, it felt amazing. And it completely diluted the conflict. Rather than empowering that conflict and abdicating our power towards it, we were able to relate, accept and understand, while taking responsibility (together). It was the BEST conflict conversation I have ever had. I was (and still am) so proud of how it played out.
Now, in the above real life example, did I want to do that? Obviously not. I resisted it. It caused a disruption for a significant amount of time. But in those moments, I had to think higher. I had to think about more than the conflict itself. I had to think about the integrity of the relationship and the gravity of the concern and the ongoing impact (long term) versus the gain from heading right into it, with honour, respect and wholeness.
And in doing so, as I've demonstrated here, I was able to dilute the conflict and come into a deeper place of connection and understanding and softness, and of course LOVE.
You guys, I don't talk about my day job very often but I deal with conflict all day long, every day. I have to sort out neighbours who have conflict with each other. I will pass judgement or generalization, but I have been in the middle of some pretty awful situations (and awesome ones too).
This ongoing exposure sometimes gets me a little immune to external conflicts amongst people, but what is so awesome is that I've also developed such a strong skill for navigating conflict and I'm leveraging that skill even further and deeper now in my own personal life (yaye me! / at last ha).
We're always going to have conflict, it's going to show up everywhere anytime in any shape, form or intensity.
So we can't avoid it, we can't ignore it and we can't pretend that we won't have to deal with it. Instead, we can equip ourselves with a strong sense of self-worth and integrity, absolute integrity, to step UP and step INTO a place of diluting conflict, of softening it so that we grow and we help somebody else grow in the process too!!
I'll admit some of my favourite coaching calls are when the client cracks into tears, then I know we've really hit a deep place that needed release. And how beautiful is that. Of course you know I'm going to say it, the emotional fart hahaha. But the reason behind that crack is that there was a conflict, an internal conflict, holding-on- so-tight, holding-on-for-dear-life, holding on for desperation of existence. And when we let that go, all of a sudden we expunge and release and expand, and the tears come from realizing how tight we were holding on.
We're doing that internally all day long, that's why we have short nerves, can get snappy, our patience starts to lower. But if we can feed the conflict with love and appreciation and let it challenge us to build our character, then we can really change our internal spirit and improve our external environment (YUP - internal expansion for external satisfaction! Learn it, love it, say it with me!!!!).
We can't avoid conflict, but we can get better at facing it, breaking it, and using it to teach us what we need to learn, what we need to change or accept about ourselves. And in doing so, we begin to operate from a higher place of consciousness, a higher place of integrity and moral character, and a lot like a supernatural place of being with others, relating to them, understanding ourselves, understanding them and harmonizing our collective connection!!!!
Whewweeee Amen!
So Journal it home here / Reflect with these ponders:
How comfortable are you with discomfort?
Can you sit In it
Not judge
Observe thoughts
Feel and release emotions?
And lead with empowered choices and beliefs afterwards?
Imagine how it would feel if you could
What would be different?
How would you have shown up INSTEAD in that latest fight?
What can you shift and keep in mind before the next one?
Do you think these outcomes below are possible, desirable, better? (more peaceful?)
Less stress
Less anxiety
More strategic view
Neutral
Expressed
LOVING
Who are you BEing versus what you are DOing.
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