I’ve been thinking a lot about conflict recently. This is, we all know, a pretty timely topic on, well, every scale. I kinda doubt I’m the only one staring down this steely barrel.
We all have our own unique ways of dealing with, or responding, to the inevitable head-butts of life. I am even given to understand that some people enjoy it. Thrive on it. Run towards it.
Hmm… Interesting.
For me, facing conflict ranks right up there with reliving the burnt lip or the dry socket. COVID kidneys. Torticollis. (I sure have chronicled some plagues through the years… this isn’t even an exhaustive list. Sheesh.) Just the thought of going toe to toe with someone, about pretty much anything, speeds up my breathing and causes me to shoot off a few more PVCs than are normal for this ol’ heart.
Conflict is like a fire-breathing dragon, breathing his fire whilst living inside my belly. I’m not a fan. I kind of hate it. I don’t even like it.
Furthermore, I suck at it.
There are 3 realistic possibilities for me, when confronted with a collision of wills or opinions (or, you know, stands on human decency).
In order of preference:
- Avoid. Abort. About-face. Step in front of a bus if I must, but it’s time to get my ass out of there. This is an excellent tactic, resulting in said confrontation beginning the delicate process of taking on a life of its own in the background, excited by the chase and spurred towards spontaneous growth and deeper misunderstanding. Highly recommend.
- Fire up the internal combustion anxiety engines. It’s time to take it all inside where I can properly analyze every possible facet of the problem, run a Monte Carlo simulation on a minimum of 5,000 possible ways forward, and stir that pot aggressively enough to whip one cup of chilled problem up into 4 cups of frothed chaos and variable-speed ulcers. This method generally requires first employing method #1, in order to afford me the time to manifest an even worse situation. Also known as: Stewing, Ruminating, and (rather ungenerously) Bunching the Undies.
- If time is not on my side (if no buses are present to rescue me, and if I cannot sink into the pits of despair for long enough to complete all required steps of method #2), I have no option but to shoot from the hip. The brain, trying desperately to find either #1’s escape hatch or comfortable purchase in #2’s perfectly agreeable overworking plan, will certainly spin out and disengage entirely, leaving the tongue and its accompanying emotional and visceral reactions to pilot the vessel. No one is steering this ship, and an S.O.S. should go out immediately, and an air horn sounded to alert innocent bystanders to run for cover.
These are my options. Maybe you have more. (If so, would it kill ya’ to share the wealth?)
My options are prone to one or more of the participants (myself guaranteed) melting down entirely.
My options don’t ever lead to a great deal of satisfaction. I’m probably speaking for all parties involved.
My options don’t feel much like resolution, or reconciliation, or recovery.
“Some of our conflicts are too important to give up on, even in the name of unity. Some of them are worth staying in the ring to fight, even if we’re the ones who go down for the count.”
~Barbara Brown Taylor, Always a Guest
I have, I suppose, come a long way in allowing things to roll off my back in recent years. This, I suppose, is an additional option, looking on the outside a lot like method #1. In truth, this one is more about prioritizing what I care about though, and what’s really worth the undie bunching. Possibly a boon of aging. Whatever it is, I admit that it could be considered one more option, but it is one that simply cannot be deployed universally. As BBT says, some things are not back-rolling material. Some conflicts have to be faced. Some fights truly are worth the confrontation. I hate this.
“It’s not just that conflict is inevitable and some fights are worth having; it’s that conflict is one of the ways God gets most deeply to us–not always, and never in the most pleasant way–but when people figure out that unity is about more than agreeing with each other and reconciliation has more to do with staying in the room than with winning–then remarkable things can happen. Two sides can discover a third way. People can see facets of each other they never saw before. Sometimes they can even say goodbye to each other without making anyone wrong. You know this is true because you have been there yourself–when the breakdown became a breakthrough, and the Spirit got to you in the way you least expected.
So a part of your heart broke too? Here’s some truth and beauty for you: that’s how it works. You set out to change someone and you are changed instead. You get all ready to defend yourself and you get forgiven instead.”
~ Barbara Brown Taylor, Always a Guest
Uff… When the breakdown becomes the breakthrough. Wow. There’s a lot to digest there. Maybe, just maybe, we can start to look at conflict not as a failing, but as an opportunity. Maybe a string of opportunities.
The opportunity, right off the bat, to assess what is really important and worth fighting for. To choose not to engage.
The opportunity to deflate the ego just the tiniest bit and see things from another point of view. To practice empathy, even in disagreement. We’re all trying.
The opportunity to allow God to work in us, through us, to stay in the room. To grant the person on the other side of the table worth and humanity and validity, no matter their opinions or stances.
The opportunity to catch our reactions, slow the roll, and instead present a response. To further the cause of self-control and grant ourselves worth and humanity and validity. We can be our own worst enemy.
The opportunity to meet the you that is the part of me I don’t yet know. To see no stranger. To find somewhere inside, the common seed, the shared spark, the unity that is us. To find God.
The opportunity, as much as I hate this, to fail. To fall flat on our face. To blow it. To require forgiveness.
Richard Rohr, at least in his later years, prays for one humiliation per day. Wow. That’s a seriously courageous prayer. But how else do we grow, except through being torn down so that we can be built back up with something a bit more solid than our shaky egos? How else do we come a few steps further into our identities as unity embodied, except through reminders that we’re all working through the same muck, even we, who were pretty sure we had it together?
It’s far too easy to roll on through on some illusion of enlightenment, to rest in our rightness, to allow ourselves just one millimeter of elevation over the rest (what’s the harm in just one?). A swift faceplant might be just the thing to knock the self-righteous wind out of our sails so that we can find some lighter air.
Just like a muscle has to tear a little in order to strengthen, so it is with our growth as humans. We only find God within through humility. We only find humility through failure. And we only find failure through trying, trying, and trying once more. We fail forward. Our mistakes are possibly greater gains than our successes, if growth is really what we’re looking for.
So I think Richard is on the right track here. Nobody wants to fail, and nobody would walk towards it, but it’s surely going to come anyway, and recognizing the goodness in that inevitability opens up a little space to breathe. I’ma go ahead and enter my plea for one humility rather than one humiliation each day, but I’m not sure that God puts as much stock in that semantic distinction as I do. Either way, we’re not seeking the failure, but seeking to do something miraculous with it when it comes. Time to embrace the failings and let them do their work.
This, of course, all assumes outcomes based on my tried and true 3-method system. This all assumes that the faceplant is the default.
It can’t be the default, can it?
In an honest hope for the existence of options which don’t lead to a meltdown, or could even flirt with satisfaction, I feel like we need to land in a more practical space. In a desperate hope that I might–that we might–find ways to navigate the conflicts of our lives with some measure of grace, in ways which absolutely do–eventually–come to something resembling resolution, reconciliation, or recovery–maybe all three–we might should explore the ‘how the hell is that even possible?’ question.
How do we find ways through that don’t end in total humiliation? (I mean, realistically, it will probably be involved at some point, but how do we not live there, how do we not make that the final destination?) What do we do, on the ground, when the confrontation is barreling towards us and the sweat is breaking like a wave?
I just happened to have a fantastic conversation with some fantastic folks about this very thing just as I was finishing up this post, just as I was getting to the ‘what the hell do we do about it?’ part. Which is good, because I wasn’t coming up with much past deploying the latest magic trick to divert and disappear (siegfriedundjoy, anyone?).
So… in case you could use some ideas too, on how to approach the beast with our best…
Some alternatives to consider, courtesy of my FWG peeps:
- Here we go… (We can usually see it coming, and with even a two second heads up, we can adopt a posture of presence. Had no such advanced warning? Take those two seconds anyway. They could be the very lifeline that keeps us afloat.)
- Feet on the floor. One with the earth. Ground that bod. I’m here now. We’re here now. This is the opportunity.
- Deep, slow breath. Even s-l-o-w-e-r exhale. Bring those parasympathetics online and calm the caveman.
- The ride is underway… Stay present. Listen to yourself. Are you going off the rails?
- Repeat those first steps. There is no too late. Bring it back.
- Slow. It. Down. Be the sloth, take the time.
- Time-outs are not just for toddlers
- Step outside. Literally. Metaphorically.
- This train going nowhere fast? Rails literally exploding in front of you, bombs and land mines everywhere?
- Stop, drop, and roll. Stop the attack. Drop the defenses. Roll out the white flag.
- Declare a momentary truce.
- A hiatus. In the name of love.
- A temporary reprieve.
- If the show must go on, consider a move to a new medium. In writing, things are forced to slow down. In writing, we all have time to think and to hear ourselves before our words hit their target. In writing, we can step outside as often as is needed. Also, we can scream as much as we want and choose not to include it in the transcript.
- Stop, drop, and roll. Stop the attack. Drop the defenses. Roll out the white flag.
We owe it to each other to sit with the tension.
We owe it to each other to try, try, and try once more.
We owe it to each other to inch closer to our best selves.
We owe it to ourselves.
Tucked happily into the gorgeous hills and woods of Wisconsin, I write about life, faith, and the humor that both require. 
Tales From the Nexus 
As someone who enjoys conflict and had many times been accused of picking fights…can I just say that being conflict averse is its own gift? While you’re navigating your way toward proper conflict from your end, I’m doing the same from mine. But people like me appreciate people like you, and not because you let us be bullies – because we need models of what the other end of the spectrum looks like. So thank you. ❤️
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I think I could say the same! Watching you maniacs dive into the fray can be inspiring to we the wee. 😆 Not that I want to dive in with the gloves off, but diving in courageously is quite the gift. Amen to both of us working our way toward our best from our respective corners while learning a thing or two from each other! 😉
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