handing conflict

The last few weeks have been tumultuous ones, and I’ve been shying away from writing this blog, waiting for things to settle.  It’s the space that often brings the insight.  And it’s starting to emerge, where I can now come up for a little bit of air and reflect on the last few weeks.  The last month or so has been a powerful opportunity for me to lean into conflict.  It’s not my favorite thing to do.  Many of us really struggle with conflict, it’s one of the top topics that comes up in coaching sessions with my clients, and I’ve been hit with it from all sides lately – on the family front, on the business front and even on the friendship front. I think at times we go through tumultuous periods, it’s part of the wonderful and annoying mystery of life – it’s an amazing reminder that we’re obviously not in control and life is full of ebbs and flows.  I can feel a lot of things shifting in my life as I have grown as a coach, as a leader, as a wife, and the bottom line is that often the status quo behaviors that we have become accustomed to cease to work with new levels of awareness.  Relationships may fall away as you outgrow them.  Advocating for ourselves in different ways, asserting new boundaries or expectations might create tension as we work to negotiate new agreements. What is the conflict trying to teach you? The question I often ask myself in times of conflict is – What can I learn from this experience?  How can I grow?  Sometimes it’s super hard to see the silver lining on the conflict cloud, especially when we don’t get the outcome we were hoping for.  Maybe a cherished friendship comes to an end.  Maybe a business relationship comes to an end.  There could be sadness, disappointment and grief on the other side of conflict.  These emotions are scary, and we often try to avoid them. When I ponder these potential outcomes, maybe conflict is an opportunity to experience these darker emotions, to really feel them, and to learn to live with them.  Maybe it’s an opportunity to go deeper into ourselves and recognize the pieces of us that need to heal.  Maybe it’s an opportunity to learn how to communicate with the people we care about more effectively.  Or all of the above. I’ll turn to the situation about my family.  I’ve been navigating a tricky situation with several family members where an inheritance is concerned.  Tensions have flared.  Hidden agendas have been uncovered that have resulted in a lack of trust and prevented open and honest conversations.  The conflict is often not about the surface issue The interesting thing about family is the presenting issue is often not what the conflict is really about.  Still waters and root causes often run deep.  We’re not talking about huge sums of money.  We’re not talking about large tracts of land.  There’s […]