Hanna:
Hey friends, welcome to episode 31 of Let’s Talk Dirty. Today we’re talking about the thing that almost every client I’ve ever had tells me that they absolutely hate. Conflict.
I can’t stand it, I just hate conflict! This episode will be for you if you have an unhealthy relationship with conflict. Either avoid it at all costs or you just live in a constant state of never ending conflict.
Sometimes I wonder if speaking that sentence “I hate conflict” is just a learned behavior in and of itself. Like it’s so common is it just part of our DNA now? It’s just something that so many people agree is just like the worst. My good friend, who just cracks me up because I swear everything out of her mouth is like so not PC and so not coming from a well-managed mind but I just find so much joy in her candor and realness, like she’s my human brain that I get to enjoy exactly as it is and I’d never change a thing about her but she said to me the other day, “ I’d rather get COVID 100 times over than deal with conflict in my personal life.”
I was like Phew, harsh. The ultimate burn of conflict right now.
But seriously, picture this:
Someone in your life has just done something that is not sitting well with you. Maybe your roommate leaves all the dishes in the sink. Maybe your partner came home drunk. Maybe your coworker made a comment that you thought was inappropriate. Your boyfriend went to the gym for 4 hours and you’re like wtf there’s no way you just spent four hours working out you must have been doing something sneaky you prick.
Right, there’s something that you don’t feel good about.
What happens for most people is one of four things: Fight Flight Freeze or Fawn.
Most common is to flee or freeze right? That looks like you avoid conflict at all costs. You run from the situation, change the subject or you just don’t say boo. So you never speak up when you have concerns or if someone is doing something you don’t like or if you think there’s any sort of problem with another person, you just avoid it.
And when you avoid it, what happens? Nothing. Nothing gets resolved is one thing that happens but the other thing is that it festers, right? You become less yourself. Because you are withholding the whole truth. Resentment happens. The other person might not even know there’s a problem, yet it grows into a huge problem in your mind. You just create internal conflict anyways. So the reality is you avoid one conflict but just start little fires in your own brain.
The other thing that sometimes happens is when you do decide to speak up or confront someone, FIGHT, and the result is an argument and you feel more disconnected from the person and resolve doesn’t happen that way either, it feeds your belief that conflict is no bueno. So lot’s of people have had this experience where you say something from fight mode, because being right is more important to most of us than figuring out how to feel good or feel good about the conflict so we’re like hey my coach told me to have my own back so here I am, put up your dukes. Like “ hey why the hell would you do that?” or “it makes me really mad when you say things like that” or “What’s wrong with you this is not okay!” And when things escalate, you think that speaking up is not helpful anyways, and then that becomes a reason to default back to the most popular option, avoidance.
And then some people when it comes to conflict, they do the behaviors associated with Fawning. The fawn response is the people-pleasing response. I’m going to avoid this conflict by acting to try to accomodate or please the other person so hopefully it will just resolve on its own. It's not going to resolve on it's own. It's still bouncing around in your brain.
So if you are someone stuck in this either-or when it comes to conflict I’m here to shake it up. I’m gonna shake your brain. Because you have other options. And I don't think that shaking up what you believe about conflict, about you and conflict, I don’t think that the purpose is necessarily to find the resolution you’re after. And I will explain what I mean by that here in moment but I just want you to be open and curious about what the benefits might be FOR YOU, of releasing this belief that conflict is your kryptonite. Even if the other person doesn't end up doing what you want or saying what you want to hear, is it possible that leaning into a conflict situation in a new way, might still be beneficial for you?
So let’s keep that question in mind as we talk through this.
So here is another option. What if you tried telling other people what you are experiencing?
What you are experiencing. Not what they should be doing differently, not what you want, not what you need, not what is wrong with the situation. None of the typical things we go to in conflict situations.
What are you experiencing right now?
It might sound something like this:
“Here’s what I noticed happened, my brain is telling me X and here’s how I’m feeling now.” My brain is telling me, is a funny little phrase that most people won’t really understand but you understand it right? That you are not your brain. “My brain is telling me” is something you might consider introducing to your language because it sends the message that you are not your brain, it’s possible that your brain is mistaken, and that you yourself are still in the process of understanding and sifting through the offer your brain is making. When you tell people what you’re experiencing in this way, these are my thoughts and these are my feelings, it’s an opportunity to rewrite the way that both parties deal with the conflict.
Most people avoid conflict and most of them tell me they think it’s because they don’t know “how” to communicate. The don’t know what to say. But I don’t know how to communicate is just a cover. I don’t need to tell you how to communicate. Telling you “how” to talk to someone is not going to get you to do it. I don’t like to feel like people are mad at me so I think it’s a problem with my communication. Guess what, people who don’t want to hear what you have to say aren't gonna hear it no matter if you say it perfectly or spastically. If you rehearse it 500 times or just spit out the first thing that comes to mind. So yes there are opportunities to think about conflict in a new way so that what comes out of your mouth creates a different result for you than maybe it did in the past, but literally..
What does everyone say when they have a conflict with someone? “I need to be better at communicating. I need to figure out how to communicate better.”
But what that really means is “I need to figure out how to make the other person agree with me so I don't have to feel uncomfortable.”
And that’s impossible. It is impossible to MAKE someone agree with you. It’s impossible to MAKE someone see your side of the story. It’s impossible to MAKE someone see that they are wrong.
That’s what we really want when we say like I wanna be better at communicating. We think there’s some better way of saying our side of the story or some way to be so that we get what we want in conflict.
Better communication doesn't mean making the other person see it your way. And it doesn’t really have anything to do with conflict, it’s just the thing our brain tells us is the problem that needs solving before we can deal with conflict effectively.
What you really want a class on is persuasion or coercion. Right? How do I learn the skill of persuading someone to agree with me or see that my argument is right? How do I get them to do what I want without conflict?
People think that communication means no conflict. It’s just a specialized way of talking to someone that magically makes them agree with you and then you hug and laugh and skip into the sunset.
But it’s not that. Communication is just exchanging info. It doesn’t guarantee a result that everyone likes. It doesn’t guarantee misunderstanding or hurt feelings either. It’s literally just saying stuff. Or hearing someone say stuff. And look, just knowing the stuff doesn't mean that anyone has to do anything with the stuff.
Like just because you tell your friend with the most gentle, poignant and well articulated language that you don’t appreciate how she talks about negative shit all the time and it’s raining on your parade, and then she keeps talking about negative shit..
Doesn't mean you are a poor communicator and it doesn't mean that she didn’t hear you. People are going to hear what they want to hear and leave the rest and interpret it in the way they want. Right, so if you’re like “How do I communicate better?” first notice what you really want. Do you want a way to convince, persuade or coerce someone to see your side?
Or is what you really need to ask “what am I afraid of feeling if I offer this information?”
Communication isn’t about how it’s about whether or not you’re doing it and why. Like the reason you’re not communicating is because you’re afraid of conflict and you’re afraid of conflict because of how you think you’ll have to feel.
But what I’m telling you now is that you’re afraid of nothing. You’re afraid of sensations in your body. And what you’re avoiding is the potential to feel more connected to the other person or more connected to yourself by expressing your thoughts and feelings instead of trying to stifle them or just people please your way through which as you guys know is being a liar liar pants on fire because people-pleasing is just lying about who and how you are.
So what if conflict is the doorway to connection with yourself?
Most people want to sedate their feelings, but what we need to learn is the difference between allowing and reacting to our feelings. Allowing your feelings is letting the sensations, the physical sensations, be there but processing them and metabolizing them in your body so they don’t explode out into how you behave. Reacting is when a feeling creates an action without you consciously having a say.
This concept of processing emotions. Allowing feelings, it’s something we work on alot in Private Coaching and I want to invite you to come work with me for three months JUST on this and watch how dramatically your life changes. If you want to know a little more about processing emotions I do have another episode called “I’m Sad And I don’t like it” it’s episode 27, go take a listen there. But avoiding conflict is avoiding feelings and avoiding feelings is what keeps many of us stuck.
Most people don’t learn about this this at all growing up and by the time they get to adulthood they are so in bed with their brains that they never understand the real reasons why they avoid things or experience the relief and transformation that comes with leaning in.
When you lean into the discomfort that you feel by actually telling someone how you think and feel, it opens up the possibility for deeper connection.
Without addressing conflict, your relationships will always be shallow lies. Ouch Hanna that one stung. I didn’t promise cutesy love on this podcast ya’ll I promised tough love. When you don’t share your thoughts and feelings and withhold what’s going on in your mind from people, you withhold your relationship. Because if you know what relationships are, where they live, they live in your mind. Relationships are your thoughts about you and another person. You don’t get the chance to work through anything, you’re just playing a guessing game about what eachother want think and feel when you avoid or attack. When you value being right over feeling good. When you value being right over being honest and curious and open.
You brain wants you to stay out of conflict because she thinks you’ll die. This primitive ideal to stay Switzerland is internalized and repetitively hammered into us as women throughout our lives through socialization and cultural norms. We are the meak. We are the caregivers. We follow rules. We are virtuous and that means obedient and non confrontational. We answer we don’t ask. We “should” avoid conflict..like who was literally taught that? Verbatim I was taught to avoid conflict because nothing good comes out of it. But listen brain, these days conflict is a tool for deeper understanding and connection, and no one is leaving me to die on the savannah if I speak up and share what I think and feel.
Yeah?
So look there are systems at play here that are responsible for planting these ideas about conflict into your head and you are responsible for digging them up. Ok, redefine what conflict means by noticing the other options you have to create deep, meaningful, truthful connections through actually leaning into conflict with self compassion, with self safety, and with belief that conflict has it’s up sides. Like immense self discovery, the opportunity to relearn how to navigate conflict in a healthy way, deeper intimacy in your relationships.
And, the opportunity to teach your brain something new about safety. Ok so I just mentioned self-safety. And this is where a lot of people tell me well I’m afraid of conflict because I don’t feel safe. I don’t show myself to people because I don’t feel safe. I don’t disclose all of me, of what I’m thinking and feeling because it’s not safe.
Now, you might think you don’t feel safe being vulnerable and sharing your thoughts and feelings because of how they or someone else has reacted to you in the past, but that's not why you don’t feel safe. Ok, one of my friends said this to me recently she was like I want to bring this stuff up with my friend but she always overreacts and it doesn’t make me feel safe to share how I’m feeling when she acts that way. And I said, you’re probably not going to like this but it’s not really her job to make you feel safe. Your feeling of safety is not actually dependent on what she does or doesn't do or how she reacts.
I know this is probably a completely new take on safety. Like I remember being in therapy and my therapist saying to me if you don’t feel safe to express yourself in your relationship you might want to think about leaving him. And guess what I did? I left him. And then I started dating someone new and lo and behold, I didn’t feel safe expressing myself in that relationship either. And I went back to my therapist and I was like what the fuck now? It seems like all men make me feel unsafe. And we talked about perhaps picking the wrong guys, or guys with similar traits and trying to date outside my comfort zone to find someone who can make me feel heard and seen and safe.
No offense to that therapist who was just doing her best to support me but that was the worst advice ever. It was never my boyfriends’ job to act a specific way or say a certain thing or have behaviors that make me feel safe enough to express what I’m thinking. And safe in this context here just means feeling safe to experience my own feelings, right. Like, I can handle my own emotions. That’s what safety means here. I didn’t know how to handle my own emotions. I didn’t understand that my thoughts about what my boyfriend did or didn’t do was what was causing me to feel unsafe to share or communicate. I thought that I didn’t feel safe because of how someone had reacted to me being vulnerable in the past. But it’s not anyone’s job to make you feel safe. It’s your job to create that safety for yourself. Safety to feel what you feel. Safety to feel however you want to feel about how the other person reacts.That was the work I needed to do, not just go on the hunt for a man that said all the right things. It is safe to experience my own feelings.
Ok so here’s the scenario when there’s a conflict I want you to practice rewriting:
Firstly, conflict is an opportunity for me and for this relationship, not something to run from or fight against.
You tell someone that your brain is offering up all kinds of thoughts and feelings. Let’s use an example like your partner said they’d be home at 9 pm and they didn’t come home until midnight. And you decide instead of trying to ignore how you feel, avoid the conflict or yelling at them you’re going to tell them about what you’re experiencing, Ok? Maybe like “Hey, I noticed that you had texted me you’d be home at 9 tonight and as I was sitting here waiting for you, my brain was telling me all of this stuff… that something bad happened, that maybe you were with someone else or not coming home at all, and now I just feel confused, abandoned and scared, a little relieved because I see that you’re home now, but still anxious and also just feeling kind of mad.”
Ok so then let’s say they respond to you by saying like, “whatever, you’re overreacting. Don’t make such a big deal out of it.”
Ok so you then get a whole new set of emotions coming up right? Irritated, unheard, disrespected. Ashamed because you're thinking like omg I shouldn’t have said anything. And remember that your thoughts are causing these feelings, not what they said, BUT that doesn’t make them wrong. And you don’t need to change your thoughts right now, you can use this moment to support yourself and create safety for yourself by allowing yourself to feel safe as you feel your own emotions.
Ok this is the pivotal moment because what do we normally wanna do when this happens? Go back to fight, flight, freeze or fawn. But here’s where the new option really get’s juicy, because now you know they aren’t meant to create a safe feeling for you, YOU have the ability to do that for yourself as you process your emotions.
You can hold your emotions with compassion, grace and attention and feel them. Notice that the conversation or conflict that you’ve been avoiding or fighting with is not meant to fix your emotions for you.
They aren’t supposed to fix your confusion or fear, or anxiety or anger. The other person is just there receiving this communication. And even if they aren’t like wow thanks for sharing that let’s talk about it, that doesn’t need to be a problem for you either. Because remember how we are noticing that conflict is an opportunity for you to connect with you? You are in charge of processing your own emotions and here’s that chance. Plus, you get more info about what the other person is like and how much emotional availability, self worth and confidence they have. It doesn't mean anything bad about them, it’s just data, right? But this is where you get to see that resolve in conflict does not come from how the other person reacts or whether or not they say omg you’re right. How you feel was never controlled by that in the first place, and how you feel is up to you to hold and handle.
Feeling your feelings is safe. That’s the next thought we get to interject into this scenario. You can handle any emotions that come up. And the resolve happens when I am willing to feel any emotion in honor of my whole truth. I got to experience conflict differently than ever before. And even without the other person doing what I want them to do.
Ok, So like let’s say that your partner responds differently to you sharing your thoughts and feelings. Let’s say they hear what you think and feel and they are like, “Oh wow ugh I’m sorry tell me more.” Or even just like the response of space. Like giving you floor. You know what that sounds like, maybe it’s not even words it’s just like listening or saying “What?” or sitting down and looking at you. The intimacy that can be created from showing up as the most imperfect version of you to have a conversation is epic. And you might surprise yourself by how intimately you’ll know yourself and eachother through conflict.
So even if they still actually think that you’re overreacting and making a big deal out of it, and they are giving you the floor or wanting to know more about your imperfect brain, it’s still welcoming your thoughts and feelings into the conversation. Notice that you are able to feel and be validated even if the other person isn’t trying to fix your emotions or share the same thoughts as you because what you’ve said is MY brain is telling me X and here’s how I feel, what I’m feeling has nothing to do with you it’s being created with my brain and now we can have a conversation about it.
Ok so remember that a conversation about emotions does not have to end with the other person apologizing or taking responsibility. The benefit of having a vulnerable convo about a conflict that you’re having is that it has the potential to lead to a deeper connection either with the other person or with yourself. Or both! There is no negative outcome. Either you have a great convo OR they don’t want to talk or leave or say you’re overreacting or whatever and you get the opportunity to connect with your own emotions and prove to yourself that you are safe either way. You understand YOU better. You get to hear you. You get to build the skill of navigating conflict and building your own confidence around it. PLUS bonus, when you lean into conflict in this way the more you will see the ability to lean into conflict in the people you attract into your life. If you’ve been practicing being vulnerable and sharing thoughts and feelings with someone and they have no interest in engaging with you, that’s just great info for you to have and know about this person. You get to decide if you’re okay with that or not. Right? We get to keep friends, family, even partners who have no interest in this type of emotional engagement and exchange if we want to. Or we get to decide we don’t want them in our lives. But I encourage you to practice managing and processing your own feelings first and lean into conflict so that you are able to make those types of decisions from a place of being content and happy with your life either way.
Alright, conflict, it’s an opportunity to know myself more intimately by sharing my thoughts and feelings. It’s an opportunity to create safety for myself. It’s an opportunity to practice processing emotions. It’s an opportunity to change my own results.
Hey listen ladies if you like what you are hearing on the show, you’re going to love Private Life Coaching. We will take what I share here, 10 x it, and apply it to your life. We will set goals that you actually achieve. Because be honest, it’s what March now…what happened to your New Years goal? Maybe it’s still in the works and that’s great, but what if you could get there in half the time? What if you didn’t have to keep pausing. And maybe your goals are out the window because you’re like ugh is this really the right time for me to do me? I thought I wanted to do this but it’s still hard, there’s still a lot going on. It’s 2022 but it feels like 2020 too. Listen. There is always going to be something going on. If you are over the age of 18 you should have learned that by now. Always. And that just means this is the best time, because when things feel like alot to handle, or like crazy, that is exactly when we need Coaching most, not the other way around.
I have to tell you a secret: it’s okay for you to matter right now. It’s okay for your shit in your tiny little seemingly insignificant life to matter a lot. Because deciding that you don’t matter, deciding to hold off on this work that you’ve been thinking about for a while, deciding that it’s not a good time for you, that isn’t actually helping any of the chaos at all. Think about that. Why do you think you need to press pause on your goals to feel better? To heal your relationships? To build self confidence? To fall in love? Have more sex? Heal your anxiety? Or to make more money? Do you think that it’s because you need to give your attention to something outside of you right now? Imagine what sort of attention you could give if you weren’t so committed to sitting in the pain of your own life struggles.
My clients aren’t waiting for things to even out or things to be less hectic so they can finally focus on themselves. They are learning how to equip themselves with the tools to feel powerful and capable as fuck so they can show up and take care of themselves and give what they need to the chaos too. They are stewarding their minds through the mind fuck that is this messy messy world and they are the ones who will know, without a doubt, that they can hold it all.
Go to my website or hit me up on social if you’re ready.
And if you’re not ready, great, keep listening to this free coaching resource and apply what you learn here on the show. I’ll see you next week.