Category: Blogroll

Here’s a strange thought: what if conflict is natural?

Wait wait wait – before you scoff at the idea and hastily close your browser, hear us out! This isn’t a nihilistic outlook that decries hope as futile and hardship as our inevitable reality. No no…rather, it is an invitation to accept that living in community inherently means that we will be interacting with people who are different than us – which is bound to be both a potent source for both joy and friction.

Conflict is undoubtedly uncomfortable, but what if we were to accept it as an unavoidable aspect of life? It seems to be an integral part of relationship; rearing its ugly head in even the most healthy ones. And so it begs the question: how can we better work within conflict rather than fight against it?

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Let’s imagine for a moment that it’s an ordinary weekday in your life. You wake up in the morning feeling fresh and ready for the day. You hop in the shower and warm up the vocal cords with an off-key version of your favourite song – still fresh! You don a towel and brush your teeth – feeling minty and good! Retrieving your phone, you toggle it out of airplane mode and…bleep bleep bleep – notifications suddenly flood in, carrying forward the connections from yesterday. Some of the messages make you smile, while others force a reflexive cringe into your body and mind. You contemplate brushing your teeth again to re-find some freshness, but deep down you know that the only way forward is to face things.

Life doesn’t happen in a vacuum; in fact, it is as much defined by who we are as it is by our interactions with others. In this there’s a lot that is out of our control, which is a recipe for both beautiful serendipity and unexpected challenge – two sides of the same coin that cannot exist without the other.

Here at the Mediation Services offices in Winnipeg, we facilitate a safe space for conflict resolution from this foundational belief that conflict is natural.

This stance towards conflict can bring about positive changes in our relationships, despite the challenges that arise within them. But it requires us to work through the discomfort.

When face-to-face with a tough situation, try to remember: conflict is natural. Take a deep breath and slow down any reflexes that might kick in to fight or run away. Every situation is different, but it’s worth noting that conflict needn’t be considered a competition that has a single winner. With a little bit of work (and a little less judgement), the pursuit can be shifted to aim for a win-win resolution.

With practice, our response will take on a more relaxed shape. Leaning into difficult conversations, we can take an active role in pursuing beneficial outcomes.

Remember: there is hope in the fact that we can cultivate conscious choice in how we respond to things that happen to us.

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There’s no getting around the fact that working with the conflict in your life takes daily effort though. The good news is, if we accept it as natural then we will see lots of opportunity to hone our skills with practice. When you show up and begin exploring what this looks like for you, we’re here with some tools to help you cultivate curiosity and connection that will help get you there.

Introduction to Conflict Resolution: Dealing with Difficult People is an online course we’ve developed for exploring the fundamentals of mediation in daily life. It is conveniently accessible from anywhere at anytime – there for you exactly when you might need it. You can sit down to learn at your own pace, and then integrate it with what you face when you step out into your life.

Or, browse the scheduled programming coming up and join us in-person or online (live via Zoom). We continue to fill the calendar with options that seek to address the current needs of the community, so do keep an eye on this blog and our newsletter for the latest and greatest.

Every relationship has the potential for highs and lows, and the only way to avoid the lows is to avoid relationship altogether – which, in so doing, also robs us of the highs. And even then, it’s impossible to live in a vacuum and so conflict is inevitable. It is our belief that it is better to embrace life with all of its peaks and valleys, while at the same time learning to better navigate them both.

Have you ever felt like life happens to you rather than by you? Or rather, before you know it you find yourself in a conflict situation and wonder how you got there?

Things have an uncanny way of gaining momentum and us humans are optimized to deal with them quickly and efficiently, so much so that sometimes it can feel like we’re on autopilot. This is kind of amazing, that is until we realize we should have made a course correction a few steps back.

Changing our ingrained habits can be difficult – but it’s not impossible.

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Think about the first time that you tried something new – like, say, the first time you swung your leg over a bicycle. You probably stepped on the pedals like you saw the older kids do, promptly falling over and scraping your knee on the pavement like the older kids did not. Okay, lesson learned – this isn’t as simple as others might have made it first look. After a bit of trial and error, you manage a wobbly but triumphant roll to the neighbour’s driveway. Flash forward a month, and you are flying down the street to the chagrin of cautious parents and drivers blurring by – wearing a helmet for safety, of course.

We learn from watching those around us and experimenting in our own way, but it doesn’t take long before this necessary effort falls into the background and our biology takes over. Our brains optimize as we go; smoothing out repetitive actions like balancing, peddling, and following traffic rules until riding a bike around the neighbourhood requires very little conscious thought. When we need to (such as riding home with a broken brake) we can consciously grab the handlebars, albeit with a bit more effort and a side of white-knuckled unsteadiness on the hills.

Automations are great for efficiency, but they also are prone to be applied bluntly and get us into troublesome situations. If we point ourselves down a hill and automatically reach for a brake that’s not working, we probably won’t end up in the best place possible.

No one wants to put themselves in the hospital, yet sometimes it happens.

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Learning how to slow down

No, you are not reading a bike blog. This is just an example of how our brains work. The basic concept of learned behaviour provoking automatic reactions extends far beyond riding a bike and into how we treat ourselves, our relationships, and the world itself.

Conflict is no exception. We are prone to react quickly, in an automatic way that we learned over a whole life of trial and error. Without thinking we rush forward into the consequences of our response, sometimes good and other times…regrettable. Amidst all the variables at play, a generalized response is bound to occasionally put us in a messy place before we even realize it.

When facing conflict, it is helpful to slow down and take some time to think so that we can act more effectively. Sounds simple, right? Unfortunately, this is one of those things that is easier said than done – at least at first. Don’t despair: the neuroplasticity of our brains is never rigid and we can work with it to foster these elusive moments of pause and find conscious choice in tough situations.

The space between conflict’s occurrence and our response to it is pregnant with possibility. It is an opportune moment where we can insert a wedge in the self-perpetuating cycle of reaction to conflict, unlocking potential for a more positive outcome.

So let’s try it. Someone says something that rubs you the wrong way and you respond in kind with a snarky retort. And pause – wait…whoops, we missed it.

Attempting to hit pause when we’re primed to react with lightning-quick reflexes often results in us scrambling for the rewind button to try again. Unfortunately there’s no going back (pending the invention of time travel, of course), but at least we can always try again next time. The good news is that each time we do find a bit of space, that new neural response gets a little bit stronger and more within reach.

When triggered by conflict, try holding off on your snarky retort and instead first ask a question in an attempt to understand the other person’s perspective. If we take a moment to bring in a bit of open-minded curiosity to try and understand where our antagonist is coming from, we can actually end up having a better chance in communicating our own perspective.

There’s no point in sugarcoating it; changing ingrained habits is not easy, but the good news is that it gets easier. Each time you manage to find a moment of pause you begin building it as a positive new habit, which in turn begins to feel like a natural response. Eventually, it will be, but it takes effort to build the neural pathways to get there.

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What next

At Mediation Services, we are here to help you better your relationship with conflict which in turn will benefit your relationships with others. A large part of where we focus our efforts is in the response, because this is where we can find lasting change in working with anger, hurt, and other tricky feelings. Ultimately, our goal is to help you find the tools that work for you; skills that can be taken home and applied towards conflict resolution in the ongoing challenges that life presents.

We have an online course that is immediately accessible and a great place to start with managing conflict in your life: Introduction to Conflict Resolution: Dealing with Difficult People

Beyond that, we have a myriad of in-person and online live Zoom programming for a more personalized experience. We offer training to deal with conflict in your life, as well as taking care of others who come to you with conflicts in theirs.

Take a look at the scheduled programming coming up, and perhaps you will see an opportunity that fits your needs.

Where we come from and what we face varies a lot. Here at Mediation Services we aim to help you find pause when you need it so that you can consciously participate in choosing your best path forward.