00:00 

Hey there. Welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 370, "Conscious Conflict." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:21 

Alright. Hello there, my friends. I am just super glad to have you here today. Two things. Talk with Tanya is coming up on August 12th. This is just a free webinar that you can come to, you can get free coaching, you can ask questions, you can dive deeper into a concept with me and with the other people that show up. It's really just a great, great opportunity. We've had some amazing discussions there and I'm so grateful for those of you who have already been able to show up for those. And I would love to have some of you who haven't come yet to do that. You can go to tanyahale.com, go to the "group coaching" tab at the top and under there, there's a place where you can sign up for that. You will get an email with the link and just would love to have you come. It's just been a great, great experience for me and for the people who have come. 

01:08 

Okay. The second thing, just a reminder that at the end of this podcast, if you're like, "oh, I like this, I want to dive a little bit deeper into it," you can go to the show notes of wherever you are listening to this podcast app. And in those show notes, I will have a list of other podcasts that have to do with the same topic. And this is a really, really great way to expand your understanding of what's going on and what's happening and what we're talking about. So would love to have you visit that and check those out because I think those are a fabulous addition to what I'm doing here on the podcast. 

01:41 

Okay. Let's jump in. Today we are talking about conscious conflict. Now, conflict is a word that causes many people to break out into hives. Metaphorically speaking, of course. So many people are highly uncomfortable with conflict. And we tend to say things like, "I just don't like conflict. I hate conflict. I don't do well with conflict." And I know that you've heard that. In fact, you may have even said those things before. And I get it. Conflict can be hard and differing degrees of hard, depending on who the conflict is with. And it is uncomfortable, even when you're good at conflict. 

02:17 

So conflict handled well can still be uncomfortable and require a lot of mental exertion to show up to manage our defensive responses and to allow things to not be equal for a while. Meaning that sometimes the other person really gets to get it all out of their system while we create a safe space for them to be seen and heard. And they don't reciprocate in allowing us to tell all of our things. That can be a hard thing about conflict. But also, conflict handled well can do so much to deepen and strengthen our relationships and can provide us with some really powerful insight into our own thoughts and feelings and struggles. It has the potential to help us grow into a better version of who we want to be and to create a safe place for the people we interact with to do the same. 

03:09 

So when I say conscious conflict, what I'm not talking about is intentionally seeking out conflict, but rather consciously attending to the conflict when it arises. And it will arise, because we're humans bumping up against other humans and we are different. Conflict is just a normal part of human living and that's because any two humans will have such a different life experience and those experiences have each person seeing and understanding the world in what can be contradictory perspectives. And like we talked about last week in podcast 369 titled "Normal Difficult Human Interactions," just the fact that we all see and experience life differently will create conflict. 

03:56 

Just this last weekend I was speaking with a sister-in-law about this and we were sitting in a room with about 15 people, several conversations going on, people spread all throughout the room and every person there was having a completely different experience, even though we were all in close proximity. Even she and I were having different experiences. We were  sharing a conversation, the same words, but I was looking at her and she was looking at me. What was in our peripheral vision was different. Her expertise in music and where she lives and who she is regularly exposed to is her encyclopedia of experience that impacts how she interprets everything we talk about. And the same for me, my areas of expertise and all the people that I rub shoulders with in my daily life and the life that I've lived, my past experiences, are all my encyclopedia of experience that give me a reference for understanding and making meaning of everything we talked about. 

04:59 

When I stand back and look at life that way, I find it fascinating that no other person in the history of people on the earth, or even in eternities, has had, or will have, my exact experience. I am the only one. The way that I see the world is completely unique to me. So, for me, taking the time to slow down and remember this resets my expectations for how the conversations will go and puts me in a headspace to offer grace for all of the different perspectives. 

05:36 

And with all of these differences, it is inevitable that there will be conflict. We will have different opinions. We will have opposing ideas of what is right and what is wrong, different concepts about what is the correct way to do things and how to view certain people and policies in the world. Learning how to show up well in these places of conflicting ideas is such a valuable tool to creating healthier relationships with others and with ourselves. It helps to deepen our understanding of the other person and also give us an appreciation for a different point of view. Showing up well in conflict can help us broaden our own ideas and even provide us with information to shift our own ideas of what we believe is right for us and help us step into closer alignment with our own values. 

06:29 

Most of us grew up dealing with, or not dealing with, conflict in unhealthy ways. We might employ fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. So fighting is considered a contention strategy where we step into it, we match punch for punch. Flight and freeze are considered avoidant strategies where we back away physically or emotionally disengaging. Fawning is referred to as an appeasement strategy where we start people-pleasing, doing what it takes to appease the other person and keep the conflict from escalating, neglecting our own emotional needs, or being passive aggressive. We might also go into controlling behaviors, steamrolling the other person and their ideas, trying to control outcomes and what is happening or how the other person is responding. Gaslighting is a controlling behavior. 

07:24 

We might also go into fighting with a right-wrong mentality where we are focused on being right rather than on what is right or on seeing the other person as a human with valid reasons for their perceptions. Coming to a better understanding of your go-to conflict responses is an integral part of emotional maturity, of growing up into a person who can go into conflict consciously rather than relying on our own standby patterned behaviors that create dysfunction. 

07:57 

So let's chat for a little bit about what conflict really is. I would like to change the framework of how we often view conflict, if I may. I want to make conflict neutral. What if we define conflict as nothing more than two people who have different opinions? And if this is the case, conflict doesn't mean anything except that people are different. Having a conflict with someone would not mean anything about our worth or value as a human. It wouldn't mean that we were considered smart or dumb or even ridiculous. It wouldn't mean there was something wrong with us. It would just mean that with our own personal encyclopedias of experience, that we have different ideas, preferences, and perspectives. 

08:50 

For example, here's a simple, simple one to get us started. If I like blue and you like red, that's two people liking two different things. Now, I may hate red. I may think it's the stupidest color. I may have some negative association with it, or I may just not like it at all for whatever reason. But for us to get into a fight about which color, red or blue, is better would be silly. The conflict, the different opinion about the best color, that's neutral, right? But we can either turn this neutral conflict into contention or we can turn it into connection. So I could go off and start ridiculing your favorite color, telling you all the reasons that red is stupid and unworthy of your devotion and how you are all wrong for liking red so much and how you're ridiculous, and if you had half a brain, you would like blue better, right? And that would not go over very well. 

09:53 

Immediately, you would start feeling defensive. You would dig in your heels and go into your preferred defensive behavior, right? Whether it be fight, flight, freeze, fawn, controlling, whatever, right? We have turned a simple neutral conflict,  meaning, again, a difference of opinion, we have turned it into contention, something that requires a more active engagement with generally more negative emotions associated with it. 

10:20 

This is the part about conflict that most people say they hate, the contention part. Conflict doesn't have to lead to contention, but for many of us, it's all we've seen modeled in our lives. It's all we've known how to do, and it's what comes naturally to any human. The defensiveness is real. This is why conflict and contention are often synonyms. And when our only association with conflict is contention, it makes sense that so many of us don't like it. However, remember, remember, contention isn't our only choice when it comes to conflict. Remember earlier, I also mentioned that we could go into connection. 

11:06 

So how do we turn a simple neutral conflict, what color you like, into connection? Well, when you tell me your favorite color is red, I can get curious and seek to understand your point of view, even if I have very strong feelings against red. For example, I might ask you what you love so much about it, or how long you've loved it, or why you love it. Now, if you came back with a story about your favorite grandma who bought you a red sweater for your 10th birthday, and you loved it, and everyone else around you loved it, and every time you wore it, you remembered her and you felt special and loved, then I would better understand why you love red so much. 

11:52 

Would this mean that I would need to change my favorite color to red? No! But all of a sudden, I don't see your loving red as ridiculous or stupid or even threatening. I might even think that it's so sweet that you love red so much and that it's great that you loved your grandma so much. Notice that my thoughts about your ridiculousness have changed. And now I think, "wow, that is so great that you had such a tender relationship with your grandma." And changing my thought like this will completely create a different emotion, which then creates a different behavior. Understanding the why behind your favorite color helps me to see you and understand you more. It helps me to respect and honor where you are without me needing to change you or to now believe that I'm wrong and that my liking blue is superficial and ridiculous and decide to change it to red. I still get to love blue and I can hold space for you to love red. 

12:59 

Now I know that this is a basic explanation of conflict, and that's intentional to help you easily see how we can shift a neutral conflict into either contention or connection. Both are available to us if we can keep our heads and show up with space for everyone to be right, honoring others' agency and different perspectives. This simple explanation can be used in any other conflict. So let's do something much bigger. Let's take our current political situation here in the United States. Some people really, really love the direction our president is taking the country. They wholeheartedly support the policies and procedures that he's implementing. Other people really, really dislike the direction that he's taking our country and they don't support it at all. 

13:48 

Okay, so if we say that this is a conflict and a conflict is neutral, let's just say that we both have different ideas about what is right for our country and what is the right direction to go. It's easy to full stop right there, to get judge-y and label the other person and move into contention, telling the other where they're wrong, arguing about what's the what's and the why's and the where's and the how's. And this is why so many people hate contention. Because for most of us, this interaction feels horrible and scary and it feels like we're being attacked. There's this whole," I'm right and you're wrong." "No, I'm right and you're wrong." It just becomes contention. And I recognize that there's a slice of people who really love the excitement of a good argument. But a lot of people don't, right? 

14:43 

So notice that moving into contention only requires that we argue our point of view, that we believe we are right and the other person is wrong, that we go into judging their character because of it. "Well, they're a horrible person because they believe this," right? And all of this is natural for humans. It is our primitive brain running the show. It is our primitive brain in panic protection mode, trying to keep us safe from the things that it deems dangerous to us. 

15:16 

Please be aware that contention also doesn't always mean outwardly fighting. Contention can be a fight or it can be a flight or a freeze, meaning that we avoid the fight, we shut down or even fawning where we people please, because we could just  be having the contention inside of us instead of outside of us. We will be in contention with ourselves and frustration with how we show up in a one down space. And this also shows up in subtly contentious ways in our behavior. We might get passive aggressive or gaslight or manipulative in backhanded ways. When we're talking about contention, we're talking about moving farther away from each other, moving into one up and one down thinking and behaviors rather than thinking and behavior, excuse me, rather than coming into connection, which is thinking and see seeing each other as equals. 

16:16 

But if we want to move into connection rather than contention, it requires more prefrontal cortex thinking. It requires being the boss of your brain and choosing to respond rather than just allowing our primitive brain to react. It requires intentionally choosing to see this other person as an equal. And to do this, we get to figure out how to slow down the process to really understand the other person. And we're going to do the same thing that I did when you and I had the disagreement about red and blue. OK, I'm going to go into to seeking to understand mode. I get curious. I listen. I ask questions. I restate. I remember that your preferences don't invalidate mine or mean that I'm worthless or ridiculous. 

17:09 

If I start asking you about all the reasons you have for your political opinion, I would most likely find that you have very good reasons for your point of view, that you are tapped into thought processes that make a lot of sense to you. I will be able to see your kindness, your compassion, your desires more clearly, and I can respect and honor you as a person who has had their own perspective, who is making sense of the world through your own encyclopedia of experience. 

17:38 

When I can get out of my judge-y and super self-righteous brain to get curious about your experience, to ask sincere questions, then I might even learn some concepts and ideas that I didn't know about or even consider before. And this doesn't mean that I have to change my political mind. It just means that when I understand why you believe the way you do, that I can create connection with you rather than contention. We can find the ways that we are the same rather than focusing angrily on the ways that we are different. 

18:15 

Now this isn't something that comes easily to most of us. It's a muscle that we need to strengthen. It's a skill we need to develop. And I'm going to tell you, you're not going to be very good at it at first. You will learn these concepts, think that they're a great idea. And the first conflict that comes up, your defenses will flare up, you'll get emotionally dysregulated and you'll move into contention. But afterwards you'll look back on it, you'll remember the concepts here and you're going to go, "oh, wait a minute, I see what was happening." And you're going to work to understand how you could have responded differently and seek to up your own awareness the next time a conflict crosses your path. 

18:57 

Now this might happen for a while where you just keep getting pulled into contention. But then afterwards you review it and you go, "oh, wait, I see more clearly, I see what's going on." Okay. So it's going to happen for a bit that way. And then you're going to start to notice it when you're in the middle of arguing your point or backing out or appeasing. When you're moving into either one up or one down thinking and behaviors, you're going to go, "wait a minute, I'm doing that contention thing," right? And this is progress. This is where we start moving into behaving the kind of way we want to behave. 

19:34 

And connection is when we're moving toward one another, when we're moving into thinking of each of us as equals, making space for the other person to have their own thoughts and ideas and opinions without making it mean anything about us. When we can consciously step into conflict, intentionally choosing to show up as equals rather than moving into one up and one down thinking, creating space for two very different humans to peacefully exist, then we're really starting to grow up into emotional maturity. 

20:10 

And this process will grow. You start seeing it at the beginning in your results, like after it's already happened, and then you're going to start noticing it when you're in the middle of the behavior. And then you're going to start noticing it when your feelings get all angsty and uptight and you get emotionally dysregulated. And then you're going to start noticing it in your thoughts. And you're going to go, "Oh, wait a minute. This doesn't mean they're horrible. This just means they're different." So with time and a lot of practice and awareness, you will start being able to show up to a conflict with curiosity, with kindness and love without feeling threatened by a different point of view. You can know that the more you understand a  person and where they're coming from, the deeper your connection and your intimacy with that person. 

21:06 

So for some of you, these concepts are going to click right into place and you can deliberately move in the direction that you want. This is going to make sense. You're going to see your own dysfunctional behaviors and you're going to go, "oh, I can see this. I can see these pieces." And you're going to be able to start cleaning this up right away. Others of you, just because of the differences in humans and our experiences, it won't be so easy to see and understand and implement. For you, one on-one coaching or a class is a great option to jumpstart your journey to stronger and more intentional behaviors, to help you see more clearly how you are showing up in harmful ways and help you learn how to more intentionally nurture and protect your most valued relationships. 

21:53 

I really, really want to challenge you to take a look at how you view conflict, to neutralize it if necessary, and consciously start taking the steps to move that conflict into connection rather than contention. If you recognize this difficult pattern of behavior for you and you just do not know how to clean it up, coaching is a brilliant, brilliant option. It requires time. It requires energy. It requires money. But let me tell you, the investment now, let's say you live another 30 years, investing in figuring out these tools now, implementing these tools now, strengthening your relationships now, you will have 30 years to appreciate your better skill set of moving into connection. You will have deeper, better, more beautiful relationships for the next 30 years. I promise you. 

22:53 

Invest in yourself. You are worth it. Do what it takes to clean up your stuff. There's nothing wrong with you. You're just a human who has developed some challenging thought processes and some challenging behaviors and we're just gonna get in and clean them up. This is what coaching does. This emotional maturity is a beautiful part of growing up. And I love growing up, don't you? 

23:27 

Okay, that's gonna do it for me, my friends. I wish you the best week. Please pay attention. Watch yourself. Try to understand your patterns better. Are you moving into connection or contention more easily? And then why? What's going on? And always asking these questions of yourself with a lot of compassion, a lot of kindness. There's no reason to beat ourselves up here. ever. We don't even need to be contentious with ourselves. We can use this same process with us and say, "oh, what's up, love? Tell me all the things. What are you worried about? What's going on in that head of yours?" Okay, be kind to yourself and learn to love the people around you better. Everything in your life will shift for the good when you do that. Have an awesome week and I'll see you next time. Bye. 

24:22 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.