Transforming Conflicts
Another “Graduate Level” Humanity concept.
“When we honor diversity, we have no enemies.”
— Jane Hughes Gignoux, American Author
To All of You out there,
March’s Habit – Resolve Conflicts — is possibly the most aspirational of the 12 Habits, and in the current social and political environment, possibly one of the most challenging. We often find ourselves struggling through conflicts all around us. We find ourselves at odds with friends, family, neighbors, co-workers on any number of topics. Or over a difference of opinion on a work matter, lifestyle choices, and especially divisive – political or religious conviction.
Kurt came across an actually thoughtful post on Facebook –
“Being taught to avoid talking about politics and religion has led to lack of understanding about politics and religion. What we should have been taught was how to have a civil conversation about a difficult topic.”
How very true. You can’t find out why someone feels any certain way about a topic unless you have the conversation. October’s Habit addresses this directly - Be Patient and Listen. If you want to resolve a conflict, you have to have a conversation with the other party, or both parties if you are mediating. And you have to be civil and accepting of .... differences and other viewpoints, and be a lot less concerned with being “right.”
Our own Rosise Griep recently spent some time with some young folk talking about Conflicts, and Mediation. Kids may express themselves in a youthful manner, but they are surprisingly aware. This video was one of the highlights of the Circle. There are some wonderful insights in this conversation!
How Do We DO This?
This whole Resolving Conflicts thing – it can seem to be hard. A famous Lakota Medicine Man, Wallace Black Elk, once said to a group at a retreat – “Relationships, now that’s hard! Hardest thing humans do!” He had a point. We’re complicated, we human folk. And it’s real easy to get caught up in all the swirling emotions and details of conflicts. Sometimes we fear we’ll have to face the possibility of “irreconcilable differences.”
At March’s Mastermind Circle, we had a big enough turnout to spend some time in Breakout Rooms to get into some detail on the topic in smaller, more intimate conversations.
One of the things that came out of that productive cauldron of ideas was the concept of Transforming Conflicts. The key concept with this notion is the process where a conflict is turned into a conversation.
This was such an appealing idea, that there was even some discussion about possibly changing the habit for March to be “Transforming Concepts.” At the risk of some linguistic abuse, this felt like a transformative idea...
Needless to say, this is a very grown up approach. It requires a lot of us, requires us to set aside our emotional attachments, anger, indignation, desire for justice, and come to the table and have the conversation. One of the Twentieth century’s most noted peacemakers had this to say – “If you want peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.” – Bishop Desmond Tutu.
We should be well aware by now that in the social and political spheres, shouting at people and calling them nasty names only creates resistance and more hostility. To transform a conflict, we have to respond with our best selves, and recognize our shared humanity, that we are all truly relatives.
“Get off the battlefield of conflict, and onto the playing field of collaboration.” – Swami Beyondananda.
It might not be appropriate to change the official Habit for March. After all, it is the goal. “Keep your eyes on the prize.” Resolving Conflicts is the accessible, graspable entry point for the habit. However, Transforming Conflicts should absolutely go into our toolboxes as a powerful technique for Resolving Contacts. It gives us a powerful framing for how to go about actually resolving conflicts, by approaching and healing the relationship, rather than leading focusing on the conflict.
Is it hard? It can be. Worth it? Absolutely. Some of us are old enough to remember John Lennon’s soulful entreaty, “All we are saying is give peace a chance.”
From The Habits of Unity –
We can’t spend this month strengthening our “resolving conflicts” habit without paying some attention to temper. In recent years, we have coined phrases like “road rage” to describe what happens when temper overtakes common sense that threatens even our physical safety behind the wheel of a car. Managing our own emotions takes courage and conviction. The easy way out is to blame the other person.
“There is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides; it is when they attend only to one that errors harden into prejudices.”
— John Stuart Mill, British philosopher
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