The Art of Cozying Up to Conflict

Lynn Morgan Carpenter: Well, here we are for week two on the theme of relationships, and this week I'm diving into the topic around conflict. So conflict is typically a word and a situation that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. It makes most people uncomfortable. And I wanna help here this week to really bring the word and the situation of conflicts to the light that it's not something to fear and that you can actually cozy up to it and have really great results in your relationships because of learning how to cozy up to conflict. So I love being able to bring this to you because I will tell you from a personal note that before going through my training, I was uncomfortable by conflict. I had some beliefs around it. I had beliefs around if there was conflict, um, maybe there was something wrong, either with the relationship or with the other person that the conflict was happening with.

I, even if conflict would arise, have a sense of guilt and feel guilty that the conflict arised. So by me learning and diving into this deeper, what I've come to learn is that conflict is very natural, it is going to happen. A million percent conflict is woven into this experience, the human experience. And we are meant to experience moments of conflict. And when we can wrap our minds around that, it is a very natural thing that's going to happen, especially in our closer relationships. It helps us to number one, say, okay, when it happens, it's not something for me to cower down to or be fearful of. It's like, okay, something that's very natural is taking place right now. We can also look into it and see what is it that it's sharing with us? What is the topic of the conflict and what, how does that relate to us? What is the lesson and what are we to learn in that? 

And also just knowing that, um, again, conflict's not a bad thing. It's merely two people having different opinions about something. It doesn't mean one is right and one is wrong, or the other is right and the other is wrong. And we have to prove a point of who becomes right. Um, that's when conflict can get messy and ugly. But when one can say, okay, we are having a little bit of a conflict, we're not seeing fully eye to eye on this, if then allows for conversation to come in to where there becomes an understanding of where each person is coming from, what each person's point of view is, and then to work to the center of having mutual, um, understanding and care and love and respect for each other. So that's really just moving through conflict in a very beautiful way, which absolutely can happen. And a great way for this to take place is through communication. 

So it all boils down to the ability to have healthy communication and healthy conversations. Because in healthy communication and conversations, it allows for the people involved in the topic of the conflict, whatever is arising, to be able to move through that. And on the other side of having that sense of understanding and peace and recognizing each other, each other as individuals and saying, okay, we maybe don't look at this the same, or, I see your point of view and I feel that you can see my point of view and how do we move forward where we're coming together and not creating a severance. Um, so conflict is something that we absolutely can move through. It is something that 100% happens in our relationships. Does not mean your relationship is wrong or bad or the person is wrong or bad. Um, it's just an opportunity to use really great communication to get to the other side of it and to really see what can I take away from this experience that allows me to bolster my internal learning. So here we go. We're gonna dive and talk more about the art of getting through and cozying up to conflict.