Conflict Resolution (Wk 1)
Vince & Keziah tell on themselves to surface various nuggets and insights on conflict resolution that have helped them over their 15 years of marriage, and highlight what a difference-maker it is to actually living those things out when you feel seen by a God of Love. (Image by jean wimmerlin on Unsplash)
Speaker Notes
Conflict Resolution (Wk 1)
Opening
Story to start
- We had a conflict with a teacher of one of our kids once —
- At school pickup one day
- The day after an extremely emotionally hard day for one of our kids — they were in so much distress they didn’t use the bathroom all day (which reminds me of bathroom anxiety I had as a kid — a pretty common stress response for kids)
- So we’re like waiting to pounce when the teacher comes out: is our kid okay?! did they use the bathroom?!
- And, in a way that felt so curt and inconsiderate of our obvious heightened anxiety, this teacher informs us it was a hard day, they cried all morning, and did things the teacher deemed unacceptable,
- Keziah tried to interject but was shut down
- Finally she finishes her report: but they used the bathroom, so that’s good
- We felt so mad… We felt informed, as though we were picking up our car, not picking up our child
- And then…
- Vince tried to address via text-based communication because he was feeling charged up…
- “I”m so sorry… this must be hard… that said, we wished for more collaboration in our interaction with you… Maybe if you started with a question…?”
- And that made it worse…
- The teacher was super defended in their response…
- So, thinking much more clearly, I wrote back:
- hey, why don’t we meet in person. I think we’re missing each other here.
- What I should’ve done in the first place
While we prepared for that conflict resolution, we’re in our kitchen, going over and over the situation again and again
- ::Kezi Emotional Journey?::
- judged as a parent, as though my knowledge and experience with my child didn’t matter
- triggered because this person reminded you of past supervisor
- recognizing feeling triggered helped (which took days)
- able to consider the bigger picture after a while
- we, honestly, wanted to make her feel bad
- Vince Emotional Journey
- felt the idea from St. Paul in the Bible (in 1 Corinthians) kept coming back to me: your true strength is not in being strong… it is in your weakness…
- I don’t need to power up; I need to feel acknowledged
- So we just pray, while we’re rehashing and rehashing in the kitchen, “God, you see us, help us to feel seen” or something like that.
- And then as we returned to preparing to meet with this person, our energy is different.
- I could speak more clearly about how I felt missed AND admit my contribution to what happened too. I realized I had to start with an apology for trying to do this over text communication.
- And then rather than: “listen here; we’re going to show you what’s what”… I could make an honest bid for connection, prompting this person to meet us in our humanity.
- That is finding strength in my weakness (as St. Paul calls it) or leading with the power of vulnerability (as Dr. Brené Brown calls it)
- Feeling like I had been acknowledged by God, that settled me, I could stop revving my engine.
So… the meeting happened ::kezi elaborate::
- and to be honest… we didn’t get the acknowledgment we hoped for…
- This person didn’t really meet us in our humanity… they were pretty defended
- BUT because we had already gotten acknowledgement from God, we left that less-than-perfect conflict resolution experience still feeling content, okay
Context
Conflict resolution is an area I can’t get enough good ideas on, becaus conflict is inevitable in life, so learning how to navigate it well will always be important.
Famous research psychologists John & Julie Gottman (two of our faves, who we’ll say more about today) say: ::quote::
“It’s now how much you fight; it’s how you fight.”
The existence of conflict is not a sign that anything is wrong; that’s human! It’s how we do that inevitable conflict that separates maturity from immaturity, happiness from unhappiness, justice from injustice.
As I try to remind us every week here at church, modern life is so full of demands and responsibilities and pressure,
- it is easy to want to avoid conflicts because it just feels like too much on top of everything else,
- or for others of us it is easy to want to charge right in to conflict without any intentionality because we don’t have time to “beat around the bush”
But both of those pitfalls mistake conflict for “an always bad thing” that is in the way of all of our goals of productivity or consumption or winning.
It’s so tempting to get overly focused on producing and consuming and winning, and just see relationships as messy and in the way — that’s our autopilot default setting in the the modern capitalist, globalized world.
And yet, we all of course know in our heart of hearts a good life runs on connection. And connection means sometimes you have to do conflict.
So, as we talk about conflict resolution for two Sundays (this week and next) I wanted to give a quick survey of some ethical contributions from the Jesus tradition, because I think it’s striking.
The Bible and Jesus are not the only places we can get great ethics on conflict resolution, so there’s no reason for Christians to have moral high ground (and honestly, with a history that includes the Crusades, moral high ground would be a TOUGH case to argue!)
BUT alongside the ugly history for Christians are some of the most world-changing experiments with conflict resolution in human history.
Usually on the margins rather than the centers of power, but these have absolutely shaped our world today for the better. ::scripture::
- Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is a biggie!
- Yes be yes, no be no (trustworthiness, promise keeping, clear communication)
- Settle matters interpersonally, rather than in a court of law
- Remove the Log from your eye before attempting to remove the Speck from another’s — self-introspection rather than blame
- Or there’s also Jesus’ teachings on forgiveness
- Forgive how many times? 7? — Peter asks
- 70 times 7 times! — Jesus replies
- (7 is a number that signifies completion in Hebrew — going back to the seven days of creation… so this is sort of a Hebrew way of saying unlimited times)
Proverbs in Hebrew Bible - the other biggie
interpersonal conflict nuggets left and right
“A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (15:1)
“A hot tempered person stirs up conflict, but the one who is patient calms a quarrel.” (15:18)
“Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” (16:18)
“Do not reveal the secret of another, or he who hears it will reproach you, And the evil report about you will not pass away.” (25:10)
::scripture off::
So all this from the Biblical tradition will be behind what is brought up today — we hope that feels like you get some helpful nuggets and insights you can immediately apply to your own conflict resolution
AND, at the same time…
- I think ethical nuggets and insights will only take us so far —
- even ones grounded in the Biblical tradition.
There’s a second layer to being a person of conflict resolution, I think, that is more spiritual than ethical.
It’s said that: hurt people hurt people. And in my experience spirituality demonstrates that the opposite is true too.
- Hurt people hurt people
- BUT acknowledged people acknowledge people.
The Harvard Negotiation Project puts it this way in the book Difficult Conversations…
”It is a fundamental rule: feelings crave acknowledgement… they won’t be happy until they get it, and nothing else will do. Unless they get the acknowledgment they need, feelings will cause trouble in the conversation — like a kid desperate for attention, positive or negative.”
To me, that feels like it says something about humanity spiritually, just as much as it says something about us socially
Like, yes, ideally, we all have relationships with people in our lives that give us acknowledgement,
BUT I am moved by the suggestion that mystics and spiritual masters throughout the ages have made
- that there is a degree of acknowledgement that even our best relationships cannot provide,
- and that we certainly cannot provide for ourselves (even with all the therapy in the world) —
- that the best medicine to hurt and not passing that hurt to others is regularly feeling acknowledgment from a God of Love, who can take up residence within us, by the Holy Spirit
- Through prayer, or through music, or through the presence of a friend
- Maybe a God of Love is what’s behind any of the acknowledgement I receive from my good, healthy relationships as well - but it takes recognizing that
Experiences of being acknowled by God (like ours in our kitchen)
- make us so much more likely to be able to live out our ethics of conflict resolution, and not just talk the talk
- AND it offers a deep consolation even when conflict resolution doesn’t go perfectly, because it won’t always
So THAT’s the second layer — there’s the ethical self-help layer — we think we’ve got some good nuggets — AND there’s the spiritual underneath layer — feeling seen by God.
I think these are combined perfectly if we borrow from the first two steps of 12 Step programs (like AA) but make it something like “blame-shifters anonymous”:
- We found that our lives had become unmanageable because of our addiction to… being right, winning, blame
- We admitted we needed help from a power higher than ourselves to restore us to sanity.
Okay Kezi, what are some conflict stories we can tell from 15 years of marriage?
Airport pickup story ::Kezi tell::
- Gottman: Honoring and respecting differences that will never change (rather than demanding compromise in all things)
- Intent vs impact
- Compounding conflict (not just about the first thing, but now about the conflict over the response)
- Internal vs external processing / Ready to talk vs needing time
“I’m sad” story ::Vince tell::
- Trust / Being open to correction
- Contribution rather than blame (Difficult conversations)
- Soft starts
- Repairs
Spending money conversations ::Kezi tell::
- Difficult conversations’ 3 layers to every difficult convo:
- what happened,
- emotional,
- identity
Ending
Reiterate 2 steps of AA to drive home all the goods of ethical and spiritual layer.
- We found that our lives had become unmanageable because of our addiction to… being right, winning, blame
- We admitted we needed help from a power higher than ourselves to restore us to sanity.
Hurt people hurt people. But acknowledged people acknowledge people.
Ethical layer: here are some book recs…
- Proverbs in the Hebrew Bible (It’s mostly one-liners. Not every one will hit… but many will! There is some fabulous wisdom there for conflict resolution, among other things.)
- Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen
- Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John and Julie Gottman
- Anything by Brené Brown
Spiritual layer: let me pray for us…