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Dealing With Conflict

Do you know that feeling you get in your gut that tells you something is wrong? That gut reaction that comes up when you are around someone and you feel as though they are not forthcoming about their feelings about you? Or maybe you feel like they are not telling you the whole story. Maybe you feel like they are laughing or talking about you when you aren’t around. It is always important to trust that feeling. It is your natural defense mechanism alerting you that there is foul play going on in the situation concerning you. But the question is, what do you do when you get that feeling? How do you handle it? How do you protect yourself from the threat that you are being faced with? How do you respond when action is taken that confirms your gut instinct that something is wrong?

I have certainly been faced with this situation more than a couple of times in my life. However, only a few times where I was left to my own ability to reconcile it within myself as communication was simply not an option. So I am going to share some of the lessons I’ve learned throughout the process, as I am convinced that I am not the only person who has been faced with this situation and had to cope with this issue. I have found that the main source of empowerment is to change your way of thinking about the person or the situation. If you feel trapped or stuck, that is going to perpetuate that trapped feeling as you navigate the conflict. If you can find a way to shift your perspective to one of empowerment, you can begin to regain your power in the once seemingly hopeless situation you find yourself in. 

While listening to an Oprah interview with Byron Katie discussing her book titled, Loving What Is. Katie was talking about this same notion of changing your thinking, specifically when it is in contrast with close friends and family members and what they think of you and expect from you. I was instantly inspired while listening to the interview because it made me think of a situation where I received the most heartbreaking feedback from someone that I was genuinely trying to connect with. These debilitating comments leveled me to my core and stopped me in my tracks.

After the experience, I did a lot of introspection on how I believed I had failed. Now, the first thing I was realized was that I felt judged. That helped me to understand that I was behaving in a very reactive manner. This was in contrast with the behavior I desired to portray. I wanted to demonstrate a position of confidence in myself and my choices that I was making. Truthfully, I was caught off guard in many ways and I tried to react in the best way I could, but I had not yet developed the skills to handle the situation in the positive way I would have liked. Considering the depth of angry emotion being projected toward me, I’m not sure it would have changed the outcome, but I would have felt better about how I was handling myself at the moment. One thing I learned is that sometimes we are always doing the best we can with where we are at and that principle, by default, applies to the adversary in the situation as well.

One of the principle lessons I took from the Byron Katie interview was her take on the fact that an act of defense is the equivalent of engaging in war. I certainly felt that applied in the situation I was referencing above. It makes sense though, that the mere act of reacting to the adversary is thereby engaging in battle with them. What if you chose not to react. Let’s say you opted to simply ignore their taunts. If they cannot engage you, they cannot battle with you. Now they are merely battling with themselves. 

The lesson here is to remember that YOU CANNOT CONTROL OTHER PEOPLE. You cannot control their thoughts, you cannot change their thoughts about you. But YOU CAN CONTROL YOU, YOUR OWN THOUGHTS AND YOUR OWN ACTIONS! 

It seems like such a simple concept, but I assure you, remembering this in the heat of “battle” is life-altering. It allows you to regroup, regain your footing, retake YOUR POWER OVER YOU! In my situation, I realized I was allowing someone who truly knew very little about me, who had taken little to no initiative to know or understand me and I was giving them the power to make me question who I was as a person. The truth is, they can think whatever they want about me as a person and there is nothing I can do about it. 

Let’s examine the facts. The individual in question never asked or sought to know me, so their opinion is merely based on just that, their own opinion of me that can only be based on assumption, hearsay, and the minimal interaction they engaged in with me. I, on the other hand, have known myself my whole life. I am intimately familiar with my shortcomings and my strengths, the great successes and epic failures that I have experienced and learned from. That feels like a stronger ground to stand on. It was harder to accept that I would not be able to convince this individual of my worthiness of love. Then it hit me, I already know I am worthy of love. If they do not choose to partake, that is their choice and it absolutely has nothing to do with me, even if they would desire for me to believe that it does. It is my choice to assess and reject that notion based on my own experience engaging with the individual.

So the next time you feel your gut radar go off, always remember to trust it. Next, analyze the situation, remove the emotion it is evoking in you and review the facts. From there, you will begin to see more clearly and it will become easier to regain your individual power and transform your thinking. This will allow you to more easily choose not to engage in battle in the trivial effort of trying to change someone else’s perspective of you and focus more on your own perspective. This is where the real source of empowerment begins to reveal itself as you begin to discover that you are no longer controlled by other people’s thoughts and actions. You are free to be yourself, adhering to your own principles instead of other’s impossible expectations that were designed for you to fail in the first place. When you realize this, you can begin to release the adversary’s powerful hold on your mind and grant them the freedom to choose their own thoughts. You, in turn, become free to choose your own way of thinking about yourself, forgiving the adversary acknowledging that they are entitled only to control their thoughts based on their experiences in life, not yours. You can finally take a deep breath, and let it go! 

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Fighting Convention, Embracing Your Truth

I have been called a dreamer for my unwillingness to believe that we must simply settle for the limitations that exist in the world around us. I am always looking for that something more, the possibility that is tucked deep within the cocoon of impossibilities. I am always encouraging others to try to see things through the lens of what is possible, rather than get caught up in all that prevents that possibility. It is remarkable when we are willing to admit our limitations and understand that we do not know what we do not know and that if someone views the world differently, perhaps it is derived from an experience that we have not yet lived, a lesson that we have not yet learned.

Mona Lisa Smile (2003) is one of my all-time favorite and most inspiring films. There is one character that I find particularly interesting. That is Elizabeth Warren (Kirsten Dunst), better known as Betty throughout the film. The reason I find Betty Warren’s character so fascinating is because she is the most changed from the beginning to end of the film.

Betty Warren begins the film is as the iconic, traditional, well-bred young woman of the 1950’s. An intelligent, young lady seeking a collegiate education from Wellesley College, a privilege in and of itself according to the school’s president. She is the epitome of the unspoken role for young women of the time with the ultimate goal being to marry, set up house with their husband’s, and restore women’s place in the home, a fact which she verbalizes as the school journalist. Her voice serves to critique and attack anything that occurs that threatens the traditions embraced by the school, students and tenured faculty.

This is in stark contrast with Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts), an Art History professor who was extended a one year contract to teach at Wellesley. Ms. Watson’s character represents the new age woman who is unmarried by choice, without children, and looking to inspire the women of the future to seize the opportunity to pursue their wildest dreams. She is, of course, devastated to discover the battle she is up against when she realizes that the education seems to merely be a token experience prior to marrying and returning to the traditional role for women to rear children, have dinner on the table by 5 and be waiting for their husband at home.

The two characters butt heads frequently throughout the film as Betty sticks to her traditional beliefs and publicly denounces Ms. Watson’s subversive teachings. However, Katherine is not easily scared and fights back, going so far to insist that she attend class or Betty would fail the course. Betty, on the other hand, informs her that it is in fact she who is educating Ms. Watson.

So why do I find this dynamic relationship so fascinating? It symbolizes an invaluable lesson in life. We hold on to our beliefs so tightly, ready to march into battle over these beliefs that we mistake to be moral truths of the way things are and should be. That is until something occurs in our lives that makes them all come crashing down. That’s when it gets interesting.

For Betty, she follows all the rules of tradition with the promise that it will lead to happiness and prosperity, except it doesn’t. Her husband begins cheating on her, she learns from her mother that this is the true bargain in life that she signed up for, and very quickly, her fairytale unravels. And so, in the end, she files for divorce, a very controversial act for the era. She seeks a contact from none other that Katherine Watson to obtain an apartment and room with a character that had been portrayed throughout the film as loosely-moralled and self-destructive. Basically, she strikes out on her own, now willing to view the world with new eyes where she begins to embrace ideas and people she had previously judged in an effort to find her own perception of truth.

“Not all who wander are aimless. Especially not those who seek truth beyond tradition, beyond definition, beyond the image.” Betty writes this quote in her final editorial as a tribute and send off to the lessons she learned from Ms. Watson’s example to follow her own pathway and not to be bound by the societal rules made to encourage conformity over free-thought.

The truth is, we are all Betty Warren in some way in our life. We all enter the adult world with certain ideals that we cling to, until something shatters them. Then we are left to our own devices to make sense of our lives, to find meaning in our suffering as well as our happiness. And that is the beauty of life. And we cannot skip the step, we cannot skip the lesson. We all believe our truths until it becomes evident that they no longer serve us. It can be even more frustrating to have to watch a friend, a child, a loved one go down that path of confidence to devastation to vulnerability. But it is extraordinary when you can witness yourself or your loved one emerge a stronger, more well-rounded person that no longer sees the world in black and white, but rather shades of gray because now they have begun to understand that the world does not look the same to all people at all phases in life. Life is meant to be discovered, embraced, questioned, as I said before.

Betty did educate Ms. Watson, but not in the way she thought. She taught her that even the most difficult of prospects can surprise you, and you may get your greatest teachings from your most unlikely source. And Katherine Watson showed Betty that life is not always what it seems. You have to look closer, beyond what you think you know, to see the true potential of existence.

So I challenge you to question what you know, consider what you reject, and embrace those whose values starkly contrast your own. They may become your greatest teacher, your dearest friend, or your soft place to land when your own fairytale unravels.

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Be Your Own Champion

Prior to launching my blog, I was absolutely terrified. I was paralyzed by the thought of putting my thoughts and ideas out there to the world for all to see. But I was conflicted, because I also felt strongly about my belief that we are all connected in our experiences and I felt a calling to find my voice and make it known. Finally, I decided to bite the bullet, after talking about launching my blog for nearly a year, and I hired a life coach to help me get out of my own way.

I have always been someone who frequently criticizes myself. I hold myself to a high standard, and when I fail to meet those standards, I tend to over-criticize and over-scrutinize every aspect. I basically punish myself for areas where I felt as though I had failed myself or someone else.

What I am beginning to question is, How is that productive? What do I get out of putting myself down and beating myself up for making a mistake, having a bad day, making a bad choice? Nothing about that negativity changes the situation. It actually seems to breed more negativity and bad choices.

To combat this mental self-sabotage, my coach suggested that I look in the mirror at the start of each day, address myself by name, and compliment myself. I opted to embrace this exercise by telling myself the following statements:

I am a beautiful person inside and out, I have awesome things to share with the world, and I am making a difference in someone’s life!

The simple act of choosing to Become My Own Champion transformed my perspective about myself, my life, and everything around me. As I was reviewing pictures to post for my blog, my thoughts of myself lacked their usual critical analysis. I continued with this routine throughout the week and found that my overall attitude in all aspects was surprisingly upbeat and light-hearted. My mom even delivered some news to me that she was convinced would upset me (and it probably normally would have), but I instinctively reacted in an incredibly positive way, simply feeling gratitude for her loving me so much as to take the action she did just to make me feel good.

I assure you, these reactions are a far cry from my previous negative internal dialogue that judged and criticized myself to a fault, then drudged through the day like I had to instead of attacking the day like I wanted to. I am certain that many of you can identify with the former. Hopefully, some of you may also have experience with the more positive option. I welcome you to share your experience in the comments if you do either way!

This exercise got me thinking about how powerful our thoughts really are! Is it really true that we can transform our whole world by simply changing our thoughts? Do you have any experiences where you have noticed the impact that your thinking has had on your life in a positive or negative way? I challenge you to pay attention to your thoughts and take note on how it impacts your attitude and your perspective! Go a step further, try to transform the negative thought into a positive thought. What changed? Anything? Everything? My bet is yes.

In my Dream Big post I challenged you to embrace your wildest dreams. The experience that I just shared with you is my first example on how you can make that possible. What sort of thoughts do you think about your dream? If you tell yourself it is impossible, it is. If you believe that it’s possible, it is. You have to be your own best friend, your own cheerleader, your own champion. If you don’t believe in yourself, who else will? If you don’t believe it, why should anyone else? I challenge you to transform your thinking! Dig deep and become your own champion!

I spent many years waiting for something miraculous to happen that was going to magically insert purpose and meaning into my life. What I see now, is that life is about action. In order to take action, you have to believe in that action. To believe in yourself, you have support yourself in your thinking. If you believe it’s a pipedream, that’s all it can ever be. If you believe it’s the next big thing, then embrace it. Now I hear the skepticism as you are reading. Not everyone can have the next big thing.

But you don’t know if you don’t try. And the truth is, even if it’s not the next big thing, it might lead you to your next big break. No one is going to do the work for you. You have to become the Hero in your story. So find your jam, tell yourself the best things you can possibly believe and see what happens. Positivity breeds positivity, misery loves company.

The choice is yours! One thing I do promise, if you Become Your Own Champion, you will not be disappointed.