Seven Keys to Conflict Resolution

I always enjoy taking part in Eric’s webinars.

Not only is he extremely experienced in coaching, but he also knows how to keep his audience captivated, sharing challenging ideas paired with new information.

As usual, I made lots of notes, however, one statement really resonated deeply with me, and prompted me to write this article.

I would like to know, if there is anything in here, that also resonates with you, and also if you don’t agree with it in parts or at all.

Eric said that ”it is always the good child, that goes to therapy or coaching. It is the caregiver, the one that is already doing a lot. It is not the difficult sibling.”

You can probably replace difficult siblings with other people from your family.

This is so relatable. Not only thinking of myself, but also of my clients.

Realising this and then evaluating my relationship with my parents and brother, I thought about a few questions, I would like to ask my clients and myself.

1. If the other person is not changing, how long do you want to spend in therapy or coaching, repeatedly discussing the hurt and issues, this person is causing in your life?
2. Are you willing to work on yourself and at the same time allow the people around you the luxury of not putting any work into changing or improving the relationship?
3. What is the price, you are paying for being too understanding or tolerant towards their behaviour?
4. Are you avoiding challenging those people out of fear or out of kindness (and is that really being kind)?
5. How kind are you to yourself if you keep expecting yourself to go to therapy or coaching, but you don’t expect others to pull their weight or face the consequences of their behaviour?
6. How long are you able to carry others by doing all the emotional work and making excuses for their behaviour (masked as compassion)?

This feels very lopsided and at some point, either your health will go and you will feel burnt out due to putting all the work in and not getting the result you hoped for or you will have to make changes to the relationship.

Feeling burnt out can also lead to a lot of resentment towards that person. But if you never challenge them, because you kept the peace by staying silent, you never gave them a chance to respond to your expectations.

I feel that maybe a lot of us are so desperate to keep and improve relationships, although there are elements of emotional harm, such as emotional blackmail, blaming, shaming and even narcissistic behaviour.

We think that the solution lies in healing our trauma and we find some sort of arrangement with the people we want to have a relationship with. However growing means that we are not the same person anymore, that accepted dysfunctional behaviour in the past. And if the person in question refuses to grow as well, the distance and tension mean that at some point continuing the relationship as before will become unbearable.

At that point, more therapy or coaching without action might not be the solution anymore. At that point, we will have to either challenge the behaviour or reduce contact, or maybe both.

Coaching and therapy can help us to execute our decisions. But they can’t fix a relationship, in which only one person works by themselves. This can cause a lot of grief, which we need to process and heal.

~ Teresa Mack, Emotional Wellbeing Consultant Specialising in ADHD/Autism and Grief

 

Biography: