Navigating Conflict: Disagreeing Agreeably Webinar

So, thanks again for joining us for this mentoring webinar on conflict. It is a timely topic that some of us are probably not afraid to get into but some of us want to run from this with everything we’ve got. And so, Kathy and I are going to have a conversation about a few different points within this, but I want to be very clear.

There are many different types of conflict and there are many situations. And maybe many of you are coming to this webinar with some kind of background thoughts or ideas about what this is going to look like. And our real objective today is to set a mindset and a skillset around resolution. We won’t hit everything, and we’ll probably leave some stones unturned, but we want to touch some general principles or general thoughts about how we step into conflict or do it in a way that moves towards peace or moves towards a level of resolution.

Kathy, any thoughts as we get started into this topic? Yeah, I would say in my mind with the term conflict, I just think about it at the very root. It is opposing ideas and then it spreads out from there. And so, I think maybe having that in our minds. And then just, I know we all know what mindset and skill set is, but I think mindset is what influences our thoughts, feelings, and actions. So, it’s the lens that we view things through.

So, the first half of that, we’ll be talking about what to have in our head, the lens, and then skill set is the tools that we can use when conflict arises. I really appreciate that, Kathy. And we will probably not get a full answer to all issues out there, but hopefully we can walk down the road part of the way.

Two Scriptures just to wrap our minds around this. That verse in James really challenges us. To say, let’s be swift to hear. Let’s be slow to speak. Let’s be slow to wrath. For that wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God.

So just that caution to stop and think and be a little bit patient. I think there’s some wisdom there. But then there’s also this Romans verse. Which, if it be possible, as much as lies within you, live peaceably with all men. I mean, that really pushes us to this place of like, okay, we need to lean into peace.

We need to try to move towards a place of reconciliation. But Kathy, there’s that phrase, as much as lies within you live peaceably with all men. That’s a key phrase probably within that Scripture passage. Yeah, I agree. And just that first phrase of, if it be possible, I think that there’s two pieces there, that acknowledgement that some things are just not possible.

Some conflicts or some individuals might be in a place where they are not healthy enough or in a good enough state of mind to be able to work towards peace. So, I think that’s one thing, but the other part is a little bit of responsibility is on our own shoulders. It’s really easy to just say we don’t agree and it’s just not possible. And we actually have to push ourselves like if it be possible as much as we can work towards peace. Yeah, I really appreciate that because the emphasis is on us.

I think many topics can be like that but this topic especially I think we can want to focus on the other person. Well, why are they thus or why do they do that? Or why did they do that? Or why is this conflict happening? And it’s really hard, if not completely impossible to change another person, but we do have the opportunity to frame up ourselves around it.

And so, if you’re going to walk through this content today, I think you’re going to hear quite a bit of a focus on self. And it’s partly intentional because this is only what you can do for yourself. So, let’s go into just this and start to think about the mindset aspect there.

And Kathy, you frame that up so well. So, how should we be thinking about mindset here? Yeah, so I just like to use the phrase, the lens that we are viewing it through, right? Our mindset is our thoughts and attitudes about something, which then influences how we feel. And a lot of questions came in, which I think is always so helpful.

So, thank you for those of you who submitted questions ahead of time. But a lot of questions came in and they really centered around this whole spectrum of conflict. And I think there’s maybe even a natural personality bent or way that we think about the term conflict.

Some of us are that classic conflict avoidant. We see anything that doesn’t seem smooth, and we want to get as far away as possible. And some of us are a little bit more of that conflict aggressive. We can call it argumentative or whatever, we’re willing to step into it. Now both extremes are not healthy. The goal is in that middle of speaking the truth in love and that balancing there of truth that’s shared, but it’s shared in a loving, gentle way and those two sides fit hand in glove. But usually, we find ourselves not in that middle place.

Kathy, why is that? Or how have you seen this play out? Just this whole spectrum of conflict? Yeah. So, I would have a few different things to say on this. The one is, I think we all have a natural inclination of where we fall on this spectrum. And sometimes that’s just determined by our temperament, our personalities, our history, what was modeled for us, those sorts of things. I think a really important thing with that is we might have a natural inclination, but that doesn’t always mean that’s the best place, or the most Spirit led place to be. And so, if we just say, I have no problem with conflict, that’s okay, but that’s not always the best place to be.

And so, we might be naturally inclined to one place, but where is the healthiest place for myself and the people around me? And then I think the middle ground is like you said, it’s hard to stay there, but it probably matches closely to what we see in the gospels of the way Jesus handled things.

I think there were times we can read where he just walked away from the crowd. That does happen at times. There are times there is more boldness, but I think that speaking the truth in love, we see him answering hard questions with questions or that sort of thing of just holding that middle ground well.

So, I think trying to aim for that is always important. I would be interested in talking about the two different sides here. Yeah, it might be good to kind of flush that out. Yeah. So, let’s do that. Yeah, let’s start on the conflict avoidance side. What does that look like? Or where do you actually see that? Or why might that be a default style?

So, I think there are two things to think about and one is, is this situational? There are going to be times that we determine, I have to avoid or I have to just not get into this conflict now.

Right? I might not be in the best place. The other person might not be in the best place. It’s not the right setting. So sometimes situationally that happens, but I think the other way to think about it is it becomes more about how we handle conflict or the pattern of how we handle it. This might be too broad of a generalization, but maybe a person that falls on this side of the spectrum when there’s a lot of tension or uncertainty, might go more into that freeze or flight response.

And so, any tension will be viewed as bad. I just need to say nothing, or I just need to get out of here because it doesn’t feel right or safe. I would say maybe their mindset is like, I don’t know what to say. I don’t want anybody upset with me. Just helpful thoughts down that line of things would push us more to avoidance.

I think the trouble with it is we, as individuals, lose our voice if we stay in avoidance and never address anything. So, there’s a lot of that behavior, but there seems to be things underneath the surface there. And often, it seems like, we model what we’ve seen in others.

So, there’s probably someone who could fall into the style because that is what they noticed. Either I’m going to model what I saw, or I’m going to react against what I saw and go down a different pattern. Yeah. So, we have to take that into factor as well, don’t we, Kathy?

Yeah. I would say both are true, right? Sometimes, if we grew up around people who are more on the opposite side, sometimes we flood to the other side because we don’t want to be that way. Again, it doesn’t always mean that that’s the right place to be, though. Yeah. And sometimes these styles can become almost an excuse.

So, when they become an excuse, that’s when it becomes really unhealthy or whatever. Because, well, I’m a peacemaker, or something like that can be the statement that’s shared which is just a cover for, well, I don’t want to disappoint someone. I don’t want to ruffle feathers or I’m probably going to say it wrong. And then that’s going to cause more issues. And so that gives me a lot of fear and anxiety.

So, all of those kinds of things can be bubbling underneath the surface as well. Yeah, I’m assuming on that side. Yeah, and to your point, you can be a peacemaker and be speaking the truth in love. You’re actually probably making peace more if you’re doing that.

Yeah, so let’s go to the other side than just maybe it’s contrast. So you could have the conflict argumentative or aggressive side. Again, similar things probably going on. Behaviors underneath the surface that manifest themselves in a behavior. Yeah, I would say the same thing.

There are going to be times that maybe situationally we need to choose to stay with the conversation and be bold in order to accomplish something which probably isn’t a bad thing. But if this is your pattern, or this is what you’re known by, that’s where this side of the spectrum just doesn’t invite people towards you.

You don’t create a safe place for people. If you’re known as the person that’s always willing to go toe to toe, or have their point heard, or that sort of thing. So, if we use the other side as more of the flight or freeze, this would be a little bit more of the fight response. Maybe quicker to anger or unsettled emotions that we can’t sit with differences. We can’t sit with just letting time play out. And maybe even thoughts of I have a lot of experience. You should listen to me, or I know what I’m talking about, or I’m well studied. I’m an expert in this area. Again, all things that might be true, but if you are, acting the way that man is in that picture, you’re not inviting people to sit down beside you. Yes, right. Well, and really, again, in both of these sides, the emphasis becomes on you. In a bad way, right? It’s either I’m going to protect myself and go into my shell or I’m going to fight or attack and make sure that my voice is heard.

And that middle section is really more about dialogue. And we’ll use that term a few different ways but, in my mind, dialogue is where you have that safe free flow of ideas. It doesn’t mean it’s always easy and smooth and that there can’t be a level of intensity at times, but there is a free flow of ideas where we are hearing each other, listening to each other, and the other person is elevated and that’s opposite of what you see on the spectrums.

Yeah, and I think the other important thing with this is it’s good for each of us to take time to rate where we are on here and know why we usually fall where we do and is this actually the best place for me? And then another really important point is the people that we are having difficult conversations with being able to take a minute and try to think where they are falling on this spectrum too. As I’m entering in, if I’m an avoidant person and the person that I’m in conflict with is on the argumentative side, we’re missing each other. For both argumentative, nothing is getting accomplished. Same as avoidant. Right? So, knowing ourselves and the other people involved in the situation sometimes I think is really hard for us to do.

Our self-awareness is always a constant growth opportunity. And again, from a mentoring lens, if you’re working with someone or helping someone supporting someone, and they’re in a conflictual type of situation, this could be a lens to help them see, you know, you realize you’re really being avoidant in this, or you’re being overly aggressive in this. Sometimes that’s the opportunity we have as we help others. And for ourselves, we might need someone to speak into our lives and say, if we have that safety with another relationship, help us see what we can’t see in ourselves.

Let’s go on so I’ve got three sets of questions. We’re still on mindset and I’ve got 3 slides. We’ll go fairly quickly through. But there are three questions I think are good to ask ourselves when we step into a conflictual type of situation. So, there’s a level of conflict and we’re trying to determine how do I think about it properly? Because not all conflict’s the same. And different types of conflict warrant different responses. So go back to that Jesus example. There were times when he withdrew more and there are times when he was more aggressive, and it had to do with the situation.

So, one good question to think through if you’re walking through conflict of some type is what type of issue or what type of conflict situation are we dealing with? And I’ll give you three lenses within that. Is this a content situation? Is this a one-time thing? So, you had a one off with somebody that led towards conflict. Well, that’s different than if you’ve got a relationship with someone it’s becoming a pattern of behavior that’s ongoing because if that pattern of behavior continues, it will start to affect the relationship so that you start to view that relationship differently.

And there’s maybe not that trust together or respect together or whatnot. So, if it’s a one off versus if this has been building and building and building, and now it’s really like a relationship critical type of scenario that warrants different responses at different times, or at least frames up how we’re going to step into it a little bit different.

Kathy, any thoughts to share into that as you think about this aspect of a mindset? Yeah so, a skill that we teach kids a lot with their emotions and that sort of thing is the size of the problem needs to match the size of the reaction. And so, I think that’s what the point of this is. If this has only happened one time, do we really need to make a big reaction out of it or make a big discussion or that sort of thing where it could impact relationship. But then at the same time, if it is a pattern we really can’t react as if it’s not an issue. And so, matching the type of issue with the type of intervention that we give it.

Yeah, I really appreciate that. And I think that is going to lead right into the next question. So, the next area is this whole idea of is this solvable or is this perpetual? So again, just another lens to frame up our mindset around this. Solvable conflict is a little bit more of like that one time. It’s situational. It’s usually less intense. And there’s a solution that can be found and maintained. And by solution, you don’t just mean glossing over, although sometimes maybe it’s the right decision to choose not to make a big deal out of something, but by solution, we mean that we can talk that through, get to a place of resolution, and it’s not going to be a recurring type thing. On the other side, you’ve got something that’s perpetual, that keeps coming up over and over again. And often this may be as tied in with differences of personality, or lifestyle, or just how we view the world.

Often this festers into that relationship piece we talked about on the last slide. If we’re not careful, the conflict just keeps coming up and it becomes an ongoing rub, so to speak. So again, your point was so well made there, Kathy. Different situations warrant different responses. A solvable problem is probably different than a perpetual conflict. Yeah, and I think with a perpetual conflict, sometimes it’s good to just pause and maybe take note of how much headspace it’s actually taking up for you. I think for anybody who finds themself in a perpetual conflict, something that keeps coming up, we can spend so much time ruminating or talking about it with other people that are involved or whatever, and it’s actually just robbing us of so much time. Which again, going back to that verse of sometimes we can’t get to a place of peace with it, but if we allow it to keep coming up in our minds or keep ruminating or keep focusing on it, it’s just robbing us of things.

And so yeah, I think that these are two good lenses and again how much attention do we give to it? Yeah, and I’m going to give an example and maybe I’m jumping a little bit too much towards skill set or whatnot, but it just happened yesterday. I joined a Zoom meeting with someone I meet with every week. And as always happens, I texted five minutes before I started and said, I’m going to be about five minutes late and I joined, and we joked about it. We laughed about it, but it seems like I’m always five minutes late to that meeting. And for some of us, I think this goes into how sometimes a perpetual conflict is solvable for some people, and sometimes it’s not for others.

Some of us can kind of look at that and we can say, well, we just know that about each other and we talk it through, and we just know we’re going to be 5 minutes late or whatever. And we don’t take offense by it. But others may be offended based upon their personality or things underneath the surface or whatever.

We can get really kind of bent out of shape if someone is always 5 minutes late to a meeting or whatever, right? This is disrespectful or they don’t value my time or so on and so forth. So, what can be a solvable situation for someone might be a perpetual ongoing thing for somebody else. And I think it’s important to call out that we really have to lean into understanding to think through how this is affecting the other person. How is this coming off? And what do I need to do to? Maybe I need adjust my behavior, or at least be mindful, respectful of the scenario. So, I don’t know if that made sense at all, but I think sometimes you get that certain things become bigger deals to other people than they might to you.

Yeah. Well, and I think from a mindset perspective, what I like about that story is just knowing that each person labels it differently in their mind. So, I might think this is just a situational or a solvable problem, but the other one is reacting as if it’s a perpetual. So, each person has a different mindset when they’re thinking about the conflict that’s happening. Let’s go to the last question. So, this is the third question of this mindset. Last part of the mindset discussion. There is a difference between whether the conflict or whether the issue at hand is a preference issue or more of a moral absolute. And so let me just define those. A preference is a personal choice, a personal opinion something that we really should be able to agree or disagree and move on. That’s very different than if you have a moral absolute, which is something that’s more fixed, maybe a biblical standard or a moral standard that could really start to affect the mission critical type discussions or a witness type discussion or something like that.

Right? So, preference. Where are we going to go out to eat tonight? Do you want Chinese or do you want pizza? Moral absolute, maybe you’re getting to areas of business practices we’re doing are borderline or perhaps dishonest or giving a wrong impression or we’re being overly aggressive, or even abusive in our interactions with somebody else.

Right? It just gets to a whole other level. So obviously, again, just a level set at the beginning of a situation to say, okay, how big of a deal should this be? And, and again, that’s going to warrant different responses. The problem is that sometimes there’s probably some discussion that has to be had just to even get on the same page as to whether this is a preference or moral absolute or something in between, because there are other categories you can call out in between there.

But sometimes to some people this might seem more of a deal than what it is to you. Yeah, any thoughts about that? So, I think, again, give yourself enough space to be able to label that. Are we talking that we just have different preferences or are we actually disagreeing on moral absolutes here? The conversation looks so much different. If we’re disagreeing on preferences, we have to be able to take a stance of like, we can agree to disagree or we can just choose to view this differently and that idea of, we need to figure out a way to walk side by side.

Even if we approach this differently, the part of the moral absolute. I do think that this is where more discussion is needed. If two people are having a conflict over things that do fall in this category, there needs to be a safe enough place to be able to define what each person means.

I could be giving way too much grace to situations like this, but I think the reality is we are always actually agreeing on the moral absolute when we get into these conversations, but we’re disagreeing how we think it should play out or how we interpret it. I think sometimes the standard there is the trickiest part with moral absolutes when there’s conflict around it. People can be so sure that they’re right that they’re actually violating Scripture by trying to prove Scripture or defend Scripture. So, if we’re trying to defend a certain stance in Scripture, but we’re doing it by violating Fruit of the Spirit, 1 Corinthians 13, again, the other person isn’t hearing us.

And so, we’re fighting in vain almost at that point. I really appreciate that. I think this is going to come back up. I’m going to keep moving into the skill set, but I think this line of thinking and just walking through what is the issue is revealing. What the appropriate level is will come up as we go into the skill set as well. So, let’s move on to the skill set section, which again, this is more of the tools and the tactics that we can use sometimes as we navigate into conflict, but the mindset’s really important because it gets us thinking about things properly and trying to put it in that right level of how big of a deal is this? Or how big of a deal should this be? And that’s an important self-work to do at that point.

So, we’ve got five different areas here that we’re going to walk through in this section, and then we’ll bring it to a close. The first one is this idea of starting with heart, or just asking yourself these questions, and some of these concepts come from Crucial Conversations, which is a conflict resolution, conflict engagement type training that is fairly well known and there are others from other places.

But I know an especially big point of that training is that it’s really important to start with what do you really want. That middle question on the slide there. Can you stop and pause and ask yourself the question of what do I really want out of a situation?

And then do the analysis and say, well, how am I behaving? And am I behaving in a way that’s really moving me towards what I really want? Because I think sometimes, we have to do a little bit of that introspection to think through what I am trying to accomplish. Am I trying to win an argument? Am I trying to build a relationship? You know, at the end of the day, when this is all said and done, what do I hope is the final the final outcome, or at least as much as in my control? Kathy, any thoughts about this first skill of capturing your motives maybe as a way to say it?

Yeah, and Arlan, you made this point, but I’m just going to re say it. And that is that this is starting with our heart, right? You’re not doing this analysis of the other person. It’s always easier to try and analyze this about the other person or people involved. But, yeah, doing this for ourselves, allowing ourselves to just sit and pause and ask questions like this one, it gives us a little bit of space and it helps us calm down so that we can think more rationally.

Asking questions is really the way. So, say the situation has us pretty overwhelmed or pretty frustrated and angry. We’re firing from our emotional brains. And so being able to ask questions brings our frontal lobe, our higher thinking styles, more logical thinking styles online a little bit more.

So, there’s great importance in being able to ask these questions. Also, sometimes these are really hard. We have blind spots for ourselves, and we can’t maybe always answer these questions honestly. So, I would just say to that, do you have somebody that you can walk alongside of with these questions?

Is there somebody that can ask you these and can challenge you? If your behavior is actually different than what you’re saying. It is like they’re watching you. So, if you’re having a challenge coming up with answers here, bring somebody that’s close to you to be able to do this together. I think this is one that I have really latched on to, I guess, but I find if I know there’s going to be a situation to walk through, I find this is just a really helpful call question to prepare myself for. Now that’s if you have the luxury of preparation. I’m a processor. It takes me time to think through things.

And so, sometimes we don’t have that luxury and maybe it’s in the heat of the moment. But perhaps that skill can be built up over time. So, it becomes more of a reflex, and it quickly comes to mind it. And it’s okay. Sometimes the right response is to say, this situation is more out of control than what I can handle right now. I need to back away. You know, that’s not being conflict avoidant in that situation. That’s saying I need to remove myself to a place where I can settle and think and reflect and then enter into the situation again wisely and with a level of control. But often there’s that, what do you really want aspect there.

I was talking to a friend not that long ago who was in a spot of unknown with one of his best friends trying to figure out how to engage? Do I not engage? How do I step into it or whatever? And this was the question we settled on, what do you really want out of this?

And because that’s going to determine or push you into a course of action, if you don’t really care what happens, then avoidance and just ignoring it and moving on is going to be fine. But if you want to move to a place of ongoing relationship and growth and healing, that’s going to push you into another course of action.

And so again, just capturing yourself with that can be a really helpful first step. Yeah, I like that, Arlan, because the reality is in the moment. So again, when this is happening until we’re able to reflect on it in the moment, we just want to be right, or we just want the other person to know how their actions are affecting us, but that’s not actually what we want.

Probably what we actually want in all of these is to maintain a relationship with the person or if it’s a project that’s being worked on, we want the outcome to be what was intended or that sort of thing. And so, yeah, what we really want in the moment when we’re overwhelmed is different than what we actually want in the long run.

Yeah, I appreciate that. Let’s go into the next one here. Really talks about this idea of discerning the issue from the events and you’ve all seen pictures of icebergs. The idea is that 10 percent or 20 percent is above the surface and the rest is underneath the surface. So, there’s often two layers going on. There’s the event or the topic at hand, then there’s an issue often underneath the surface. So, the topic at hand might be conflict or tension over where we’re going to go out to eat tonight. Using that example from earlier, are we going to do Chinese or pizza, but it seems to be warranting a much bigger reaction than should be had over Chinese or pizza.

Well, there might be something going underneath the surface there, right? Are there feelings of, you never really care about my opinion, or you just push your way over me or whatever might be. Are there issues underneath that are really the areas probably we need to focus on.

Kathy, speak into this a little bit with your experience. How do you see this play out or what are some things we need to be aware of in this arena? Yeah, well, I would say for sure that very simple point that we all are this picture of the iceberg. We all have this much that we show people, some people probably more than others, and then we all have these deeper things going on, our histories, our stories, all of that kind of drive or make sense of what happens above the surface.

One of the things I thought about as you were talking, Arlan, so I did a lot of family therapy throughout my counseling and one of the pieces when I was getting trained in family therapy, the trainer would always say, I don’t care what the family talks about when they’re in your office. I don’t care if they’re planning a birthday party together, or if they’re planning a meal that they’re going to eat together. The content does not matter as much as the process that’s happening. And that’s exactly what’s displayed here. The conflict usually is not about the actual event that’s happening or what’s playing out in front of us.

The conflict spurs up because of the process or what’s labeled on here, the issues that are underneath the surface. And so that makes it really complicated because we don’t always know what the other person is reacting to. We don’t understand why this is a big issue to that person or why it just feels like you keep hitting a dead end here, but it’s something probably deeper rooted for the person which we are talking to. We’re going to talk about this a little bit more, but I think that it is important here of what I am doing to create a safe place to be able to explore dialogue with the person. If we can’t get into dialogue with someone, we never start to understand what’s below their surface.

So, you can’t solve the event if you aren’t able to validate and speak to the issues underneath. And conversely, if you work on the issues underneath, the events will take care of themselves often, right? They will start to resolve themselves, which is really important to think about.

And let’s keep moving here. But as listeners, I want you to capture this lens because I think this is a lot of what we’re going to be discussing with the next few skills. This underneath the surface idea is just an important aspect to keep in mind. Yeah. And I would say knowing that, as you’re navigating a conflict, it’s not that you have to solve what’s underneath for the person, right? It’s not about you trying to fix it. But I think sometimes, if we can make space for dialogue to understand, this is a really hard topic for me, because that’s where that vulnerability piece comes in. And then empathy can come in alongside of that. Yeah, that’s a great point.

That’s a key point, right? Because we can move into fix it mode. And that’s not the point here. The point is understanding empathy, vulnerability, engagement and that leads to this next aspect. This is maybe overly simplistic and yet the whole point as we try to build dialogue.

We try to build that interaction that speaking the truth in love, that coming back and that free flow of of meaning between two people. And I think sometimes we underestimate how often we don’t do that. We think we’re having dialogue because words are being exchanged and we’re in the same space together.

But the reality is half the time we’re debating or we’re arguing or we’re being sarcastic and shutting things down or playing games or doing the silent treatment or whatever. All behaviors which don’t push towards safety and openness and vulnerability and understanding, and empathy can push towards us either asserting our way over someone or removing ourselves moving to avoid it, but not really towards dialogue.

So that’s the last line there, that tendency between silence or violence. Sometimes you hear that phrase, do I go silent in withdrawal, or do I go violent in an attack? We can have that default style like we talked about earlier. Knowing that capturing that in ourselves and being willing to able to set it aside to push towards dialogue is really important.

Yeah, and both of those shut down if you’re going to either side. Yeah. I think the important thing too with dialogue is sometimes we don’t enter into dialogue because it’s too uncomfortable. If there are some underlying conflicts or big things that are going on within a relationship, it’s really hard to sit here and have the small talk or the big talk.

Which then leads to more intentional conversations. So, sometimes our discomfort that stops us from dialogue is assuming we know the other person. I mean, even people that we’re really close to we still have to be able to allow this safe space of talking back and forth. People change, people’s opinions change, that sort of thing.

So, maybe ask yourself, what am I doing to slow down, listening to hear not listening to respond. What am I doing to build a safe place? I would say all of those points under what dialogue is not, all of those just stop the conversation, right? Especially when there’s tension there.

Always debating drives people away. Things like sarcasm and humor are great and it’s a wonderful thing until it’s not. And so just knowing that when there’s tension using these things underneath here, you’re probably not building bridges. You’re probably destroying them faster.

And knowing them in yourself and recognizing them with others. It’s on the next slide actually, but this whole idea about you being curious, just having that curiosity mindset is really important because to your point, there are things that are underneath the surface that can be happening.

I’ll use the word perpetual in that context. But there’s also just the point in time if a person might be having a really bad day, just the last 3 hours might have been horrible for them. And so, they’re responding in a way that they normally would not. But it’s leading towards conflict or whatever.

It doesn’t necessarily excuse the behavior if it’s inappropriate, but at the same time, if you can lean into that empathy, that understanding, that seeking to know you can hopefully navigate what is sometimes just the reality of a situation. Let’s jump to that next slide.

And the fourth concept here is just this idea of storytelling and watching the stories. So, something happens, we see something happen. We have some bits of data, certain facts or things, but usually it’s not the full picture. And so, in the gaps, we tell stories, or we make assumptions, and we start to try to make sense out of the world.

We’re meaning making creatures, right? We want to make sense out of the world. And so, we start to have a story that can be woven to create that narrative. And the danger is that this can be way off base. It can be based upon assumptions and whatnot. And we can get ourselves in an inappropriate downward spiral sometimes, depending on if the story is negative or whatnot, and I probably am tending towards assuming the worst and going with that negative route.

And some of us maybe have been trained to assume the best and go that positive route. The reality is we have to watch the stories we tell ourselves. Kathy, where have you seen this play out or what impact can this have on a conflict type situation? Yeah, I think so, sometimes. How often have we had a narrative that this person always does this or reacts this way or whatever and then we watch an interaction or they say something to us or that sort of thing and it proves that, yes, see, and then it’s like the story keeps building until all of a sudden we hear something that’s underneath their iceberg and it’s like, oh, okay.

So that explains it. So again, making sure that the stories I’m telling myself in my head about this person, about this situation, about myself are actually facts or are these based on my emotion? I feel uncomfortable, therefore this must be true. So even the exercise of what do I know for sure first? What am I assuming?

What that does is really help that second main bullet points there of that downward spiral. Because when we have a negative narrative in our head and then disruption comes in life, something that offends us, something that hurts us, it’s very easy to let those emotions run away and there it is again.

But yeah, so being able to say these are the facts and these are just my emotions. I think another aspect of the stories is knowing that everybody does have a story. The iceberg. And then, which I know we already made that point, but I just think it’s so important to remember that.

And then also as far as being able to communicate back with the person is up at the top, that third bullet point down when there is conflict that arises and being able to go to the person and say, the story in my head is that this is playing out, it’s a really nice conversational phrase.

I know that comes from Crucial Conversations, but because then you’re not inviting a fight but you’re just letting the person know if the story in my head is what’s playing out here. And it invites that dialogue to happen then of this is where I’m coming from.

I mean it’s a level of vulnerability isn’t it Kathy? I mean because you’re saying this is what’s going on and I’m not sure it’s right and I’m admitting that I’m not perfect or have it all figured out. I’m just like this is what’s going through my mind, and it can even be a place where you can get in, even sharing some of those underneath the surface issues that drive storytelling in our lives. If you come from a place of insecurity, it’s going to create natural default stories that often pop up. You can see that recurring narrative in your life.

And really, if done right, it should lead towards a greater understanding and appreciation and mutual respect for each other. But it pushes you to this place again, that the idea of curiosity, I need to be curious about myself. And even if it’s like the activity where you take a piece of paper and on one side, write down facts, on the other side, write down story.

I mean, just that discipline of, knowing, okay, can I separate out the facts from the story? I need to be curious about that myself and need to be curious in the life of the other person or persons. What’s going on in their life? What stories are they telling and how am I feeding their stories?

Or how is my behavior pushing into that? This is really important work. It’s hard work, but it’s really important work if we’re going to really push towards a level of resolution. Yeah, let’s go ahead. Oh, that was the last thing I was going to say, which is on the slide too.

But sometimes just for ourselves to be able to say, I know that this is what the person said, I heard this but actually, the phrase I use is, but my ears actually heard this and that is because of the story that I’m reacting to inside. And again, I think if you have a good relationship with the individual or you are able to be vulnerable enough you can say that phrase to them so that they can understand. This is why I had that reaction.

I really appreciate that. And again, the focus goes on ourselves, right? As much as lies within us, it could be possible. Let’s be willing to be open about that. Let’s do the last section here. So, if you have questions or thoughts or whatnot, be prepared in about five minutes.

We’ll open it up for any questions you might have. But the last of the five is this idea of safety. And we’ve mentioned that word, it’s been dripped out already, but it’s really critical. You need to guard safety in your relationship. How do you create a safe relationship place? It’s that idea of relationship capital that you have to have some built up if you’re going to be able to navigate into hard conversations.

I remember I was talking to someone about a situation, and I said, I sense that I need to have this conversation with that person, but I have to build up the safety and relationship capital first to be able to get into that. I mean, it’s going to take some time to do the work and relationship building to even have that harder conversation. This is such a critical part, Kathy, I’m assuming in any relationship. It’s just this idea of safety and respect and purpose, mutual purpose together. Yeah, and I think to the point that you made earlier with that, Arlan is, as you’re doing that, as you’re building up the relationship capital, I would be curious if you actually see the conflict start to fall.

Once there’s a relationship in place, there is a sense of safety. There’s a sense of more vulnerability, less misunderstandings, that sort of thing. And then the mutual respect piece can happen back and forth. So, your ability to commit to what you are doing to create safety, to create friendship to create community with this person actually ends up matching those last two of finding a purpose together, finding respect together. Sometimes, if the only time you engage with someone is around a conflict, the appropriate thing is going to only be so much, especially if it’s a perpetual ongoing thing.

So sometimes that’s those top couple bullet points there. Sometimes the right work is just to build a relationship friendship with that person, not even about the conflict, just agree to let it sit and let it ride for a while as you build that relationship, that friendship, that safety to see how things lead towards mutual understanding, mutual purpose, and mutual respect.

That’s going to be really helpful. Now, if you’re dealing with an irrational person, the earlier point, or some situations are just really intense, maybe you can only do so much, but I think this is a good lens to have in the back of your mind to think about that. One more point and then I’m opening for the last thoughts you have Kathy, and any questions anybody has. Sometimes, to frame up mutual purpose, you have to take the plane up a level. You have to go up to another level because maybe you’re stuck in the weeds around the topic or a situation or whatnot.

And it’s really hard to get together and find mutual purpose at that 10, 000-foot level. But if we can, we can go up to the 30, 000-foot level and say, okay, we’re on the same team, we want the big picture goal, we respect and love each other. Can we start there? Then it can maybe work its way down to the lower levels as well.

I know one of the questions alluded to a situation like that. And I wanted to call that aspect out. Yeah. And I think that matches this flow of skills that we’ve talked through. But what do we agree on? What are we on the same page on? What are we in conflict about versus what are we not actually in conflict about?

And yeah, I think that way it weeds out where there is the mutual purpose and mutual respect and where that still has to grow. I think too, all of these skills that we’ve talked about, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it that solves the conflict, right? Like, that’s the hard part.

Unfortunately, no. I don’t know that there’s a formula that just says, if you do these 10 things, a conflict will be solved. But it’s about what we are doing to create a safe place and dialogue. How are we settling ourselves? What’s our mindset when we’re thinking about the other person?

Those are all the things that go into helping us navigate through conflict with the person. Yeah. So, I appreciate you bringing that up. Again, if it be possible as much as lieth within you, it brings us into a biblical, loving mindset and skillset to say, how do we engage this as we would want to be treated and engaged all those aspects.

Any questions anybody has out there. Feel free to unmute, ask a question, Kathy by agreement always takes the hard ones. I’m here for backup support.

Otherwise, I will say, again, these are principles. These are our thoughts. This is a framing up of how we step into different levels of conflict. So that we can agree as peaceably as possible and move in or disagree as peaceably as possible and move into a place that goes towards relationship building, over time.

There are some other resources on our website. A few of them are linked here. They’ll be linked on the web page where this recording will be housed. We have a conflict resolution category on our website that has a few different resources on it. One of them is just a list of basic conflict resolution rules, just a list of 10 to 15 different things to think about with conflict.

Another one is a podcast where we talk through having those really hard conversations with people with some of the same principles you heard here today, but again, thinking about how I step into those and why should I navigate those? Any other thoughts or questions out there.

I have a question. Kathy, you mentioned mutual respect and it almost made me think about compartmentalizing the conflict we have with people. A fair amount of questions came through about family conflict, and that can be especially difficult because we have Thanksgiving, we have holidays, we’re together, and then all of a sudden this conflict that’s brewing over here is now interfering with our Dutch Blitz game together as a family, right?

And so it made me think. Is there value in compartmentalizing or having an agreement on the place that our conflict between two people have in our life? And would you say, does that come out in communication and conversation that says, hey, listen and I don’t even know exactly if my question makes sense, but your comments have just spurred that on because so many times conflict colors all of our relationship.

And that seems unfortunate when the conflict is probably a niche in our life, and now it is interfering and has tentacles in other areas of our life that it need not have, and I’m wondering, how do you get ahead of that or is that something to steward? Does that make sense? Yeah, it does.

I would say at the very basic level, my first response to that is what are you doing to, to manage it within your own self? So, at a very micro level how are you stewarding your thoughts over it? What kind of skills and tools do you have to manage that and to manage your own emotions?

Well, I think that like us being healthy, conflict is going to exist whether we’re healthy or not sometimes and so us being in a healthy place to be able to know how to regulate our feelings even if we’re playing a Dutch Blitz game or knowing how to think about things well, I think that’s number one and if we miss that, I don’t know that we will successfully navigate Thanksgiving.

Because I would say, once we have that or we have the right skills around that, I think we can, and you answered it within your response. My thought would be there are times we do have to get into a dialogue about it, or we have to ask ourselves, maybe us and the other family member, that question of what do we want here?

We want a peaceful family time or those sorts of things. So that would be my initial response. I’ll let Arlan answer, but first ourselves, and then do we need to enter into some of those dialogues with the person? Well, and where my mind goes is by dialogue.

I think there are times when you set ground rules and just say this is not the time or place. And I think it’s important that in doing so you don’t dismiss the conflicts to say it’s not important or it’s because it usually is more so to one party than to the other. And so, if one party says we’re not going to talk about that and dismisses it, you actually can do further damage by making it sound like it’s not important to them. But, you know, there are families that say we’re not talking politics on holidays, right? Because we know every time we do that, it’s going to go a certain direction. And for the good of the family, we’re going to choose other topics of conversation and whatnot. And that might be a case, depending on what it is and the situation. Yeah, and I would wonder, too, some of that is if it’s a perpetual, ongoing problem. There probably have been no family norms or things that have happened to be able to control that and so if you can do that, you can make sure that the right people exist together and still have these conflicts running in the background.

I think it’s good to just make sure that those are healthy and are helping the person. But if it’s a situational one, I think that is a little bit trickier and it’s harder maybe to use some of those skills well there. It’s a good question. Thanks. Any others? Any other thoughts out there?

If not, we always are open to emails and questions and things like that. I hope and pray that this can be an encouragement to you and at least a few principles, a few thoughts to lead you into a path towards peace. That’s a powerful opportunity we have.

Thank you, Kathy for your time today. Thank you each one for joining us and for listening in. And we pray God’s blessing upon you.