Quote of the Day March 22/11 - Resolve Conflict

"You never adapt to interpersonal conflict; it damages every day, even days when you don't see the other person but ruminate about the conflict nonetheless."

Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis

This quote sets up for a perfect syllogism:

Major premise:  Stress kills
Minor premise:  Interpersonal conflict creates stress
Conclusion:      Interpersonal conflict kills

...or as my Philosophy Prof, Jan Narveson (still a Professor Emeritus at University of Waterloo), would have said: interpersonal conflict causes stress; stress kills; therefore interpersonal conflict kills.  As an aside, I also vividly recall Jan's Indiana Jones Auzzie style hat which he wore everywhere :-)



Conflict Iceberg
http://www.positivechangesnow.ca/



I find conflict resolution in a professional relationship is relatively easy to resolve.  The reality is that I make a very clear separation between the realms of professional and personal.  It's almost like I store the professional stuff in a hidden partitioned drive in my brain - I think this is why I rarely feel work stress that lingers after I leave the office.

For me, the tough thing is to resolve is conflict with a family member or close friend.  Actually, come to think of it, I have rarely had conflicts with any of my close friends.  But family...now that's another story.  What is it about our relationships with those closest to us that they are the trickiest ones to navigate during times of conflict?  I am blessed to have a husband who is so profoundly mature that we rarely experience true conflict - the occasional minor disagreement, absolutely - but heart-breaking conflict, never.

My mother always made a Herculean effort to ensure that, as children, we were not exposed to conflict.  While this made for an idyllic childhood, it also made for a slightly repressed adulthood.  Sorry Mom! Without a model for conflict resolution, I was like a fish out of water as a new wife in my early 20s.  I've been working on this deficit for about a quarter of a century.  Now, after all of that ineffective effort, I have recently learned that all of my efforts have probably had an inverse relationship with my level of happiness.

http://getthisripped.com/

Sonja Lyubomirsky In The How of Happiness, and Jon Haidt in The Happiness Hypothesis both point out that if you put your energy into improving the things you don't do well, then you are always focused on a negative.  They both recommend working first to further hone your skills in those areas that are strengths so that the vastness of your strengths will overshadow the smallness of your weaker skills.  This makes total sense to me.  When I started to read The How of Happiness, true to form, I naturally jumped right past the analysis and went straight to the practical strategies.  Unfortunately, without reading the analysis first, I was ready to jump right into "avoid over-thinking" and "learning to forgive".  Thank goodness, common sense prevailed and before I dove headlong into the wrong strategies, I read the analysis. As a result, I'm focusing on increasing existing strengths by applying the strategies of "increasing flow" (more on that one later), "committing to goals", "savouring life's joys" (I already talked about this one), and "practicing spirituality".

If you have existing strengths in conflict resolution, forgiveness, or acceptance, then today's quote may just be something that could propel you to enhance those skills. Is there someone out there who is important to you with whom you have unresolved conflict?  Consider what steps you could take to resolve the conflict.  Or consider ways to accept the conflict and move on.