Honoring all the voices in a conflict is a cornerstone of conflict resolution
practice. In a marital conflict, it is important for both husband and wife
to be heard and their needs honored. We look for ways to include the voices of
the children in the process. The attorneys or mediators deserve to be honored
and respected too. But, do we honor conflict itself? We usually want to
fix the conflict as soon as possible. Conflict evokes strong emotion. We are
sure there is something terribly wrong if we are in conflict with another
person. There are seminars and studies on how human beings respond to
conflict—avoiding, accommodating, compromising, etc., and even the biological
response of adrenaline, fight or flight. We certainly don’t talk much about
honoring the conflict - just managing or resolving it.
The good news is that there is nothing wrong with conflict. Conflict is a
natural part of life. Two plants compete for a few square inches of soil. We
both want to sit in this chair. Two friends have very different political views.
Two parents love each other - and they don't see eye-to-eye about money
management or what's best for their children. Relationships and the natural
conflicts that result are the tools for personal growth, deep inner healing and
transforming our lives.
What's important is how we deal with conflict. We can have the same old
arguments again and again, with no resolution in sight and feel the pain as the
distance grows between us. We can avoid the conflict, creating distance,
separation, and no solution. Or we can honor conflict and learn how to resolve
it skillfully, creating a renewed sense of connection between committed partners
- or between parents who are going their separate ways, but will always be
related as parents.
Even if we think that conflict is to be solved or avoided, there is the adage
that what we resist persists: are our attempts to resist and fix conflict
actually allowing it to persist and even flourish? What would be provided if we
all began embracing and honoring conflict? What if honoring conflict is the
missing piece of true resolution, of creating peace as synergy? And, if we
do honor conflict, what does that mean? What is possible if we quit resisting
the conflict and allow it to come to the table, to be honored as an opportunity?
Here are a few ways for exploring and altering the way we can frame the
conversations that occur about and within the conflict, applying the concepts of
honoring conflict:
· Consider the
premise that every conflict is an opportunity for transformation. Through
honoring conflict, we can learn about ourselves and others; we can grow in ways
that we couldn't grow as solitary beings. Conflict can inspire creative
solutions that would never have arisen otherwise.
· Look to see how this conflict is an
opportunity, a learning experience, a gift for your client. Look to see how the
conflict is a gift for you. Learning the lesson will allow you to grow and,
often, to heal old hurts.
· Point out that the other person is
not responsible for the conflict. The conflict doesn’t live in one of you. It
lives in the shared space between you. When you stop blaming or making the other
person wrong for bringing the conflict to you, he stops being the enemy. He is
sharing your journey with this conflict. You are problem-solvers together.
· Look at past conflicts and setbacks
to see the gifts in them. Perhaps what appeared to be a disastrous conflict led
to a deepened friendship; perhaps getting fired pushed you to go back to school
and finally earn your degree. We may not easily see the gift in the conflict in
this moment but we can often see the gifts of the past.
J. Kim Wright, J.D. has many roles and a mission: to transform the legal
profession to focus on lawyers as peace-makers, problem-solvers, and healers of
conflicts. For more about this work, see
www.consciouscoach.com ,
www.healersofconflicts.com
,
and www.renaissancelawyer.com
.
Marty Price, J.D. is the director of the Victim-Offender Reconciliation Program
(VORP) Information and
Resource
Center ,
www.vorp.com .