20 Aug 2010
Step Two and Three: Your feelings get in the way
Get your head clear
The difficult thing about conflict is the way that our feelings color our experience of it.
I don’t know many people who love conflict, and those that do I am worried about.
The challenge with our emotions is that they color the way we see things, but often we just experience them without stopping to reflect on where they come from or whether or not what they are telling us is even true.
Vernon Howard said:
“We must become acquainted with our emotional household: we must see our feelings as they actually are, not as we assume they are. This breaks their hypnotic and damaging hold on us.”
Or to put it another way, the book of James (1:19-20) says:
My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.
Often we can think conflict is about fixing unpleasant feelings. It’s not. In fact those feelings are often the points at which our personal growth is closest. M. Scott Peck said:
The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.
What are they (as best you understand yourself)?
Write them down:
Step Three is:
Remind yourself that these feelings are YOUR feelings and YOURS ALONE.
You are responsible for them – they come from within you.
No-one can cause them in you.
The other person didn’t make you feel this way.
He or she may have hooked those feelings in you, but they are a product of your own history.
The other person may have brought them to the surface but they were in you to start with and they’re a part of your sensitivities.
You may need to recognise a specific flaw in your own personality that could undermine the outcome if you don’t sustain the moral commitment to keep it in check.
More Tomorrow.