Being in my 20’s, I thought I was beyond conflict. Seriously – I thought that graduating from college and getting a little distance from Greek Life would mean that life would be drama free. It’s amazing how I could be so wrong considering I love to watch the “Real Housewives” which are clear evidence that even adults can be petty and ridiculous. Fortunately for me, when we lived in Hershey PA briefly, it gave me 4+ hours a day in the car for my commute. At first this was way too much time to be spending in the car, and I felt like I wasn’t productive at all until I started to use that time to practice some serious self reflection. I would drive and talk through different situations with myself to try to get to the root of why I reacted certain ways to specific situations. Some people are probably reading this thinking, “Wow, that sounds super strange,” but you try spending 2+ hours in the car driving to work and reflecting on your life, you’ll be surprised with what you can learn about yourself. Truly. (picture explanation: while visiting Paris I got down in the street to take a pic with this guy… life’s too short to harbor bad feelings or thoughts!)

I don’t wish that type of commute on ANYONE, and not everyone has time to unplug and do the type of deep-dive that I did into the reasoning behind some of my worst behaviors, so I’m going to share what I learned about myself and conflict resolution in the hopes that it can be helpful to you and your relationships.

The first thing to know is that what I’m going to share is relevant to any of your relationships, whether it be with your spouse, friend, sibling, parent, coworker, or anyone else. They also aren’t really tips so much as they are ideas for ways to navigate conflict in a more productive and resolution oriented way. Keeping these things in mind when encountering conflict will help you to navigate the situation with grace and ease and avoid internalizing negative feelings.

• The first thing you need to remember when encountering conflict is that you can only speak for and be responsible for yourself. It is easy to try to speak for someone else when you encounter conflict. We’ve all been in an argument and said something like, “That’s the way YOU handle things, not the way that I handle things,” or something to that effect. That’s the first mistake. You’re only a professional on you and your behavior, so stick to what you know; how you feel, what you’ve done to resolve things, what you said. Avoid speaking for the other person or making assumptions about how they would react.

• Know the best way to get your message across. I love Andrew to pieces, but my humor over text messaging is something he cannot understand or interpret which gets me in trouble a lot. If you don’t know, then ask. Whether it’s your husband, boyfriend, colleague – whoever – figure out your most effective mode of communication and use that. If you don’t text well like Andrew and I, do not try to resolve conflict via text. It won’t work and will likely only exacerbate the situation. 

• There is no resolution to a conflict if one of the parties doesn’t desire to have a productive exchange. You know when you’re cranky and you just want to be mean? Maybe you don’t want to be mean, but you aren’t looking for someone to fix anything. You’re just generally irritable and picking fights. That is not conflict, that is just crankiness. When you have an actual conflict, establish between both (or all) parties a foundation and desire to have a productive dialog. People that enter conflict solution-oriented react differently and speak differently than people who want to be right or not get in trouble.   Example:
  • Solution Oriented Person: “It bothers me when you don’t take out the trash because I feel like you aren’t contributing to the household. What can we both do to ensure that I don’t feel this way?
  • Other Person: “I literally do everything in this house and you don’t do anything. You don’t even take out the trash because you just think that I’m going to do it.”

​Andrew and I haven’t really argued over the trash, but I feel like this scenario is interchangeable for a ton of other things. See how my first example is all about finding a resolution but my second example makes assumptions, places blame, and fuels an argument? If you can master this, it will seriously be one of the most useful skills in your social tool-kit.

• This is going to sound preachy, but the key to resolving conflict is understanding.Know and appreciate that everyone handles conflict differently, and instead of seeing that as an obstacle, see it as a key. Andrew and I could not handle conflict more differently. No joke, we are literally on polar opposite sides of the spectrum. I like to tackle things head-on and immediately. In my mind, the sooner we hash it out the better, even if that means having a conversation before thinking it all through and pulling my thoughts together. Andrew is a bit more selective when dealing with conflict. He’s more likely to brush something under the rug if he thinks it isn’t worth a conversation and he doesn’t want to have to deal with it right away before he’s had time to think about how he feels and what happened. Obviously, this led to some not-so-pretty encounters where I pushed to talk something out and he reacted like anyone would who felt cornered. For the longest time I felt like he just wasn’t good at communicating and didn’t want to resolve any type of conflict, until I stopped and asked him point-blank, “How do you prefer to handle conflict?” Had we never had that conversation, we would probably still both be on completely separate pages. You truly won’t know until you ask.

• Relationships have seasons, and that’s ok. Sure, some friendships will end totally. Hopefully not very often throughout your life, but sometimes it has to happen. Sometimes you and a coworker might not get along and it might last for a few days or even a few weeks, and that’s ok. Use your best judgement, sometimes you need to give people, and situations, space so you can gain clarity and perspective. It doesn’t mean you’re giving up, it just means that you care enough to do what’s best for the longevity of your relationship instead of trying to slap a band-aid on a situation and pretend it’s resolved. One of the most grown-up conversations I think I’ve had with Andrew is when we were sitting on the couch after a particularly terrible week and I just looked at him and said, “We’re really not getting along right now and I really don’t like it.” It was direct, true, and something we both were feeling and being impacted by. Just stating the obvious opened up a conversation where we could be honest about what was not working right. 

Absolutely nothing I’ve shared here is something you couldn’t figure out on your own, and maybe you already have and that’s so good. It took a long time for me to learn when and where I practice self reflection the best and then it took another long time for me to figure out how to learn from that and change my approach to be more productive. This doesn’t mean I don’t encounter conflict and it doesn’t mean that Andrew and I don’t butt heads anymore – all of those things still happen because we’re human and that’s life. At least now the conflict doesn’t plague my brain and run my life because I know how to handle it so that it leads to more understanding and stronger bonds instead of the exact opposite.

I’m really curious what other people do to practice self-reflection. Do you practice yoga or journal? I’m always looking for new ways to be more introspective, so send me a message or comment and let me know what you do to check in with yourself! (picture explanation: dancing at the top of the steps in Ireland because I LOVE it there and it made me want to dance because I am really living my best life!)