As a people-pleaser, the thought of conflict is likely to make your skin crawl. But, it’s also the reason why you spend your life trying to make everyone else happy, whilst being pissed off because you have no life of your own!
So today I want to share some advice on how to resolve conflicts without collapsing.
How to resolve conflicts in an embodied way
Before, I get into the more direct advice around how to resolve conflicts, I want to be really honest with you.
If you want to stand up for yourself and what you need, you have to learn how to be okay with feeling uncomfortable. To know that you’re capable of sitting, breathing, functioning and communicating from that place.
You may know all the best phrases to navigate conflict, but if your body’s not onboard with delivering them, you will default to collapse.
Now, I’m not saying that you have to go around picking fights so that you can practice!
Instead, the invitation is to start connecting to the felt sense of discomfort in your body. To notice if there’s a specific place you feel it? Whether it feels heavy, tight, restrictive or blocked.
Once you’ve located the felt sense of it, the invitation is to see if you can be, and breathe, with that sensation. To see if you can build capacity for its intensity.
And then also notice – as you hold this sensation with curiosity – how your discomfort might begin to soften? How the heaviness might ease or shift into a different sensation. How, as you navigate this you might be able to understand and even welcome your discomfort a bit more.
This powerful embodiment practice enables you to hold yourself in discomfort instead of trying to get away from it. Supporting you to know that you’re capable of presence instead of collapse.
With this knowing in your body, you’re more resourced to stand up for yourself and resolve conflicts.
How To Resolve Conflicts Continued!
When your body feels more resourced, you’re able to implement more practical strategies. Here are a few below.
- Take a step back and breathe. When emotions are running high, it’s easy to let the speed of your emotions take over. Pausing and slowing things down gives you time to think and respond more clearly.
- Try to listen more than you speak. Easier said than done, but active listening shows respect and can help defuse the situation. Plus, you might gain a different perspective that you hadn’t considered before.
- Let go of the need to be right and stay curious. As a human being in relationships, conflict is inevitable. It doesn’t necessarily mean that anything is ‘wrong’. It means something is looking to be transformed. When we view conflict in this way, we move away from the binary of right and wrong and hold it with more curiosity and compassion.
