some words about conflict management

A word about Anger control

Tom walks into the his home from work. It is late, and he is tired. He notice’s his three and four year old children playing in the dinning area unsupervised, and by the look of the state that the room , they haven’t had someone with them for quite some time. As he survey’s the area, and he finds oil based paint on the walls and carpet. His children had obviously been having , "fun".
Upon his wife’s arrival, he approaches her, "Where have you been?", he starts, and he can feel the tension raising in his voice, "…you left the children on their own.’’
"I came home and the house looked like a bomb has hit it. What if something had happened, an accident or something. The house could have burned down, anything!" His voice is raised now
His partner Kylie looked shocked to see him home early but apologized. "I’m sorry,". And seemed to feel the need to excuse herself, "but I needed a break, I had to get away, I can’t cope with them anymore!"
"Well what sort of a wife does this to her children?" " How the hell could you do this, is there something wrong with you?"
Yelling, she responds "HOW DARE you imply there’s something wrong with ME when you never even try to look after the kids at all. YOU get to get away, you get to go to work, you get to sit behind a computer, you wouldn’t know anything about what happens to your children….,"

This is kind of argument is atypical of us all.

At it’s end, there’s a tendency of individuals involved to take thought, and privately admit that they may have said or done to much. This is much to late for this kind of admission.

. I’d like to map out some techniques that will

1/.allow you to take control of what you say quickly;
2/. effectively harness your angry energy and;
3/. produce a better result that you won’t feel guilty about later on;


Any good behavior change program requires that there is a thorough and grounded understanding of the behavior to be changed. There needs to be a knowledge of when , why, and who is the object of the behavior; what need/s does, did its use achieve the desired effect? Knowledge of this kind is powerful and will primarily do two things for you-1/.it will help you see yourself in a new light and increase your understanding of why you do what you do. 2./In the process of developing this new understanding you will also be building (unconsciously) psychological/and neurological "triggers" which prompt you to better behavior when you start to act undesirably. The more information a person has about their target behavior, the better.

Let me start, however, from the beginning…

Signals from within

!/.Take a look at your body language

"What’s that,"… you say… "Body language?!?".
Yes that’s right. Body language. What kind of body language do you adopt when you are in a state of anger?
Is it the:
sweaty palms; back, and chest as well;
high blood pressure and;
increased heart rate;
tension you feel in the face shoulders , neck;
raised voice;
are you able to digest your food well?
can you concentrate properly?
is your breathing shallow and fast?

Note your observations down. At this point I’d like to introduce the idea of using a journal. Journals are excellent resources for personal change. They allow for documentation and can be used to help discover patterns in behavior. They can be reviewed giving you the understanding and psychological leverage required for a complete and radical behavioral change.




1b/.Take a look at the strength and language of your thoughts

It’s also a good idea to become familiar with the sort of thoughts we are having whilst in an argument as well.. Thoughts like ‘she never listens to me’, ‘ I hate that b…,’ ‘ he only cares for himself’ ‘he is so stupid’ are irrational tend and succeed only in fueling our already to build the emotional charge in a situation. And ‘she can’t say that to me’ , ‘..why did she do that to me,’, ‘he always does this,’ indicate you are not looking hard enough at yourself (via the use of the third person pro noun). In a similar manner thoughts that blame, accuse; where there is swearing, or physical abuse (I mean in your fantasy world) are to be seen as ‘signals’, indicating that you are not seriously analyzing your own actions, and are shouldering the blame onto someone else.

Exercise:
Take out your journal ( of a simple piece of paper, if need be) and write out the last three arguments you’ve had. Give a little detail on what they were about, but look more specifically at what I’ve suggested in the former two paragraphs. Remember, this is to be done with the idea that you look at, and analyze your actions, not those of others (let them worry about that themselves).

.

(By the way, if your find yourself saying/ thinking in an argument that "…Tom’s’s not listening to me," the general rule of thumb is, that you’re probably not listening to her yourself! Very often what you think about other people is a reflection of what you are thinking, or doing, yourself [but can’t quite face or own up to] )!


2/ PI Problem Identification

Good conflict management requires what I call clear problem definition. A problem cannot be successfully tackled unless you are clear about what exactly it is. It’s time to do a little problem identifying. To do this, you need to start your analysis with questions. Use of these will help you quantify your problem clearly, the first step toward identifying a solution.

1. What happened to make me feel like this?
2. Why do I feel like this?
3. What would have been a better way to react?
4. How could I have acted differently?
5. What could I have done better?

Notice how the focus of these questions is pointed directly at yourself? Similar to what has already been mentioned these are designed to get you to look at your actions, not the other’s. When you write your response to these, use the word ‘l’ often so that you keep you keep your answers centrally focused.


Focus on the solution

People who deal with conflict most effectively stay "solution focused’. When under pressure they tend to focus more on finding a solution than getting boged down over what the ‘problem’ is or why it occured. As suggested above, they ask questions, for understanding ‘What’s the solution to this?’, or will attempt to find options that are acceptable to all parties concerned. Tom in the example above, gave his situation a poor assessment, and tipped himself and his wife straight into an argument , and apart from moralizing his wife with, "What sort of wife does this?, he didn’t seem to interested in finding a solution at all


Take Action

Now you need to act.
Every individual situation has its own unique solution doesn’t it. As a result, there are a wide number (almost limitless) number options to draw upon. Parties in a dispute may reach a compromise, one may cave in, or both may withdraw. There is always one option available to you if you feel you are losing control, particularly if you are going to get violent. you can almost always leave ( with the intent of returning later. This is often a very practical thing to do. It may be that the other person (you are arguing with) can’t see the advantages of this , but lets consider them. First it stops any fighting, periodically, you’re not there so no arguments can continue, right? Second it gives both parties time to calm down and think. When you feel better, are more confident you can approach the issue with the other person. If you haven’t tried this before, it may sound problematic.


There are other things you can do when you feel you are getting angry.

1. become conscious of your breathing and start inhaling deeply and slowly to relax yourself

2. start by using an affirmation, ‘I feel deep calm,’, or, "I feel tranquil and relaxed" or a statement of your own creation that uses words such as: relax, calm, tranquil, confident, etc. Use I statements, keep it short and in the present.

3. Excuse and go to a private place where you can do a muscle relation exercise. ( I have been known to use a lavatory for this). Take in a deep breath, hold it, and starting from your toes upward tense every muscle in your body (feet, legs, abdominal and chest, arms and face) Hold for 3 seconds and release. Repeat twice.
4. suggest that you can’t continue the conversation now, could it be rescheduled .If you do this you must stick to the appointment you agree on.

5. Ask "what is the solution to this?

6. Use listening skills (detailed in another article) to make sure you understand the other party’s point.

7. Know that what you feel is passionate, but understand that every one has a different point of view