A Guide To Anger And Conflict Resolution
Recently, I put up a post on this blog titled “RESPONDING TO CRITICISM: FOUR LEVELS OF MATURITY.” After describing the four levels, I ended the post with the question, “Is there a higher level than level four?” Today I shall propose a level five: LEVEL FIVE. In addition to actions consistent with level 4, people responding to criticism in a manner consistent with level 5…
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The last few blog posts have been devoted to encouraging readers to take a little time to stop and think about criticism. In the most recent post, we took a look at four levels of responding to criticism. Level one is viewed as the least mature response, and each higher level is viewed as more and more mature. Let’s take another look at these four…
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Let’s say you meet a guy named Pete. As you begin to interact with him some of his actions begin to upset you. You say, “Pete, since we met you have yelled at me twice and called me stupid.” Pete responds to your criticism by smashing his elbow right into your cheek. Do you think you would like Pete? Would you respect Pete for acting…
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For the past few weeks we have been thinking about criticism. We noted that one reason that criticism is hard to bear for many of us is because of the way many people often provide criticism. Because it is often provided with shouting, glares, name calling and threats it is understandable that you might start to get defensive as soon as you begin to hear someone…
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In the last couple of blog posts, I have been trying to make the case that if we are to become wise we will learn to thank people whenever they criticize us, open our minds to listen to them, and rejoice because criticism has the potential to make us wiser (see post titled Criticism and Wisdom). If this is so, why do so many of…
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In my last blog post we began to take up the question, “Is criticism bad?” There, we concluded with a King Solomon proverb that declares that if you criticize the wise man he will love you and become even wiser. Now I understand that for many people the idea of criticism is joined with the way criticism has been presented to them over the years. …
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In the last blog post, when Marie became frustrated at Carl’s opinion, she criticized it by shouting at Carl and calling him names. Carl ended up feeling insulted. I then criticized Marie’s style of criticism. Although I know that sometimes people, when criticized, feel insulted, sometimes when I’m doing my counseling routine, I criticize anyway. “Are you saying I did something wrong?!” Barbara shouts. …
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The metaphor of a sea can give us an intuitive sense of how conflict and anger are related. Anger is like a region on the Great Sea of Conflict that can be very dangerous. When a master sailor finds she is in the region of anger and a storm begins to develop, she has already prepared herself. She has practiced some very specific skills when…
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Conflict is like a great sea. At various times any region of this sea can become terribly turbulent. When you get out on the Sea of Conflict, many of its regions look pretty much like any of its other regions and it’s not hard to get lost out there. There is a region of this sea that is known as Anger. There, storms are particularly…
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In this blog, you will find suggestions for dealing with challenges that occur when someone is treating you in a manner that feels disrespectful. You may think that once you understand a suggestion and it strikes you as reasonable, then all that’s left for you to do is to try out the suggestion the next time you feel someone is treating you disrespectfully. And sometimes…
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