How would you respond if I told you that I’m interested in conflict? Would you pause, and give careful thought to what you want to say in response? Would you quickly change the subject? Would you, like seemingly everyone else, refrain from smiling, or frowning or asking me to tell them more. People are not comfortable with conflict.
And yet we all have conflict in our lives, every single one of us. There is a goodly amount of conflict in our worlds. There is a goodly amount of disagreement. How many of conflicts have you actually worked through to resolution? How often do you typically avoid or deny conflict’s existence? How many bruises do you still have from old conflicts, even though those conflicts were one, seven, fifteen, or twenty years ago?
Do you still nurture these bruises? Why keep that pain alive? Why not resolve the conflict or, at the very least, let it go and heal? Why not truly forget the conflict, and get past the pain?
Is it that we can’t let go of conflict because it isn’t resolved? And the conflict hasn’t been resolved because …if I try to talk to him about our conflict it will only make it worse; because I’ve tried before and I’ve gotten nowhere; because I don’t know how to start the conversation; because I’m such a coward; because it’s really not that important; because she will say it’s all my fault; because I’ll never get him to listen; because she’s so unreasonable; because he won’t listen to my side; because she’s so immature, such an idiot; because there’s just no point in doing anything about it; because it will go away.
Is it that the conflict isn’t resolved because we don’t know how to resolve conflict or let it go?
Because we’ve never been taught. Is it time now to learn?