How can we survive in conflicts?

Everyone agrees that conflicts can not be avoided. Even if you become quite a hermit - read to exclude contacts with other people - from time to time you will meet with your inner conflicts between desire and obstacles to the possibilities of satisfying it.

Let's leave the internal conflicts aside and talk about conflicts with other people.

The more significant and close a person is, the more uncomfortable it is to interfere with him. With little-known or generally outsiders, we are saved by indifference to this person. Its absolutely relative value in our coordinate system. Although if this stranger stands in the way of fulfilling our strong desire, here we can too ... lose comfort for the time that we spend to resolve the conflict with him. But this situation is still easier to reduce to a bypass or removal of a temporary obstacle on the way to its immediate goal. And then you can just do with simple manipulation. "Buy" the coveted pass to your short-term paradise. How? Banally paying a little more than the usual tariff - either with money, or with your time and attention.

It is much more interesting, in my opinion, to talk about how we survive in conflicts with close and valuable people for us. With those on whom much in our lives depends.

Here, for example, partnerships in business. You are equal in status and position. Everyone has his own sphere of responsibility. And at the point of their intersection, you disagreed on how best to proceed. You are sure that you are much better oriented in the situation. Your opponent is sure of the same. Passion is heating up. How to be?

The easiest way for many people is to "lie down" under the opinion of the Other. Agree, frightened of seriously ruining your valuable relationship. Restoring a lean world, which - as they say - is better than a good quarrel.

With what do you end up with? In different ways, but most likely the aftertaste of this world will be stuck in you by compressed and crushed aggression. And the partner will be a bit more annoying in everyday life. And the energy of conflict crushed by the "root" has a chance to shoot at the most inopportune moment - your harsh word in a completely innocuous situation, a fit of "bad" appetite, headache, indigestion.

The second way from the most common is to destroy the opponent's opinion. To crush the crap. In the course are threats from "I'm leaving this project" to "I'm leaving partnership with you" - depending on the significance of the conflict situation. Or, for example: "If not, as I said - then no way! Close the project - business - further on the list. "The methods are ... bright, powerful, but if they are abused, then one day instead of the usual fright and retreat of the Other one can meet with joyful:" Well, get out of here! "If this answer is exactly that , on what you expected - it's nice. And if pressure and threats were your such ... the most well-mastered way to achieve your goal without losing significant relationships, then you can get upset seriously and for a long time ... And then even regret ...

Yes, and the aftertaste of this method often becomes a sense of guilt. The price for the victory can be the inner loneliness of the winner. Loss of trust in contact.

So what to do?

There is another way. Take the acuteness and discomfort of the situation without immediate action to resolve it. Without fuss in the search for a quick way out of a painful impasse, stacked differently - the vector of your current opinions.

Yes, today our opinions differ. I accept this as a given. I am anxious, angry, lonely. But I give up my usual "escape" from the impasse. I remain at a dead end. I remain in confrontation with your opinion on this matter. Without confrontation with you. I'm aggressive to your point of view today. But instead of its rapid destruction, I am ready to spend the energy of my aggression on finding a solution that will ease the situation for both sides. Without devaluing your own or your point of view and our partnership. I am ready to look for ways out by myself and with you.

Yes, at first glance somehow energy-consuming ... vague ... foggy ...

But here's what can happen - in this uncertainty, some completely different, new opportunity can sprout. Which can surprise with its obviousness. But the manifestation of which must be spent time and the forces of agonizing "stamping" in the impasse and the energy of confrontation of opinions.

In my opinion, and in family relationships, when the family lives as a community of equals, this way can help ... or maybe not

And if you try?

Author - Irina Lopatuhina

Psychologist, Gestalt therapist

Website: lopatuhina.ru