A Guide To Anger And Conflict Resolution
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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Please consider the following parable: PARABLE OF KATE AND HER BOSS Kate’s boss, Nelson, left for a week vacation in the Bahamas during a particularly busy time. When Nelson returned, he started to insult Kate because she and the rest of her team did not complete all that he had expected. Nelson’s tone of voice began to infuriate Kate. Rather than exploding, she had a…
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Please consider the following parable: THE MARTY AND LENA PARABLE Marty got stuck at work. He calls his girlfriend, Lena, to let her know he’s going to be late for their date. When Marty finally arrives, it’s apparent that Lena has a conflict with him. That is, she desires he be on time. When Marty arrived late this interfered with this desire. She believes Marty…
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To become a master at dealing with disrespectful acts, an important skill to learn is to identify the reason you are being treated this way. In future blogs, I will discuss a total of eight reasons. Today we’ll focus just on one of them. Oftentimes the reason for the insulting behavior is that the insulter has a conflict with you. If you can quickly identify…
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As we interact with others, sometimes we find someone treating us disrespectfully. For example, someone might shout at us words like, “You’re a jerk!” or “You’re a piece of trash!” It’s no secret that when we are treated disrespectfully, we may have feelings of anguish and be moved to tears. Or we may explode in anger. To deal with these rough feelings it often helps to…
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