A Guide To Anger And Conflict Resolution
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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