Bonus: Conflict Strategies for Friends

this one is about friendship and

conflict

[Music]

hey thanks for joining us on the channel

here hit like and subscribe and all that

stuff but on sunday we just finished a

series called relearning friendship and

the idea behind this series was that

over these past two years or so of

pandemic life a lot of us have

disconnected from some of the

friendships in our life at the same time

there's been a lot of rancor and

argument and partisanship and

frustration in the world and i think

what's happened is it's made it hard for

us to sometimes manage conflict well

and so we talked a little bit about this

at the end of the series how do we have

disagreement within friendships i made a

big caveat in that message i talked

about how there are certain things that

should be a deal breaker to you you know

homophobia white supremacy people who

don't take your story seriously

people who don't treat your perspective

with the dignity it deserves it's okay

to have boundaries in fact it's really

important that we enforce them in all of

our relationships including our

friendship so there are times when it's

okay to walk away

even from a friend

anything that is diminishing us as a

person

it's okay for us to say look i don't

need that in my life and i can't go down

this road with you unless you're willing

to change

that said if all of our friendships

leave no room for disagreement

and i think it makes it hard for us to

continue to grow and change as human

beings because we do need different

perspectives pushing up against ours and

informing how we see the world

what has been i think really tough over

these past couple of years is that we've

had to do so much pushing back against

really unhealthy toxic perspectives

creating our boundaries and enforcing

them that it can feel at times like we

don't have the energy there's too much

anxiety and too much fatigue to

countenance any disagreement even with

people who we know care about us and are

our friends and so a lot of people

resonated with that message but i got

some feedback from people just saying

well how do you do that like how

practically do you manage and understand

conflict in your relationships

particularly your friendships and so i

wanted to talk about one model that has

been really helpful in my marriage with

my partner rachel in the way that we

have dealt with conflict but i think it

actually can be really helpful if we

translate some of those basic ideas even

into our friendships and it's funny

because we talk about conflict

management at work we talk about how we

deal with conflict and communication in

our marriages

very rarely do we actually talk about

conflict and communication in

friendships and friendships are just as

important to the ways that we move to

the world as any other of these

relationships and so it is important

that we're able to do this well so the

model that rachel and i have used is

something called toward away and against

and really it just simplifies all the

different ways that we deal with

conflict down to three buckets toward is

when we go toward another person's

position we acquiesce to their demands

we give in to them and we navigate

conflict that way a way is when we back

away from conflict so maybe we

physically leave the room or maybe we

just disengage emotionally but we back

away from conflict we allow things to

settle and maybe then we come back in

with ourself and we bring ourselves back

to the relationship

against is where we set ideally two

ideas up against each other and we

battle it out we debate things out we

come to some kind of agreement or

compromise in the end that of course it

can be very combative but it doesn't

always have to be that way

what i find really insightful about this

is understanding that those three

strategies sort of operate within a

triangle and one of them is going to be

our default one of them comes most

naturally to us but as healthy human

beings we're actually able to access all

three as appropriate

sometimes it's appropriate to move

toward another person to say look i

don't seem to care about this as much as

you why don't we do it your way all move

toward what you would like

sometimes it's totally appropriate for

us to back away and move away from

conflict and say look i am really heated

up right now

more than i should be for how much i am

invested in this disagreement i'm going

to take some time i'm going to think

about this i'm going to journal i'm

going to write my ideas down and i'm

going to come back and engage with you

later

and then of course there are times to

stand up for ourselves to say no i this

is important to me and we need to talk

about this we need to come to some kind

of resolution but i need to fight for

what is important to me in this

relationship or in this conflict right

now

all of that's good what's healthy as a

human being though is when we're able to

understand what we default to and how we

can access the other strategies when

we're unhealthy it's that we are always

coming into every conflict all the time

using one strategy we're always moving

toward the other person in acquiescing

we're always backing away and never

representing our true feelings or we're

always getting into and against posture

with anyone over anything and what

happened early in my marriage with my

partner rachel is that i am an against

person i really like debate i like

processing things verbally on the fly i

like that kind of engagement and that

comes a lot from my family of origin

rachel is very much an away person she

does not like conflict it makes her

uncomfortable and that again comes

largely from the family that she grew up

in

but what would happen in our

relationship is that i was trying to get

a fight she was backing away and that

would frustrate me and i would just sort

of chase her around trying to get these

debates on the table already not a

particularly healthy way to deal with

conflict within marriage or friendship

but what's really interesting about this

model is understanding that when we are

under stress we often have a secondary

posture or a secondary strategy that we

use to deal with conflict now that

stress can come from the conflict itself

things can get too heated you can get

pushed too far and you flip to a

secondary strategy

stress can also come from anywhere else

you had a hard day at work or you've got

a lot on your mind right now with school

but whatever it is there's too much

going on and you actually use a strategy

that isn't your natural one it's your

secondary strategy well for my wife she

is an away person she wants to back away

from conflict and let things settle she

likes to process things more slowly on

her own before representing her thoughts

and views but if she's pushed too hard

if she's under stress she becomes a

toward person

she will flip and move towards she'll

give in to the other person i'm an

against person so i'm trying to have the

debate i'm trying to get us to put our

ideas on the table and wrestle them out

and i push her so hard that eventually

she just flips to toward and she says

fine let's do it your way and that would

infuriate me because i don't just want

to get my way i want to win an argument

again not always super healthy but

that's the way i roll and that would

make me flip to my secondary posture

which was away now for me that wasn't

sort of

moving away or moving out of the room it

was emotionally disengaging from the

conflict but also from the relationship

and again these are not healthy things

because we're not accessing them and

choosing them as responses to a

particular situation as much as we are

just reacting we have our default

posture under stress we react with our

secondary posture and just having that

awareness of what was happening in our

relationship that we each had very

different default strategies to any

conflict and we both had different

stress reactions to conflict gave us

this incredible new tool just to name

what was happening between us and we

began to use that pretty clinically for

a while now we met with counselors on

our own and we met with counselors

together and we started to use this we

would say things like i feel like you're

moving away from me right now or rachel

would say things like i feel like you're

against me right now and uh you know the

funny thing was she could have told me

that in a thousand different ways just

as clearly but because we had shared

language for what was happening when she

would say you are against me right now

it was like it would snap me out of my

default posture i would be able to say

oh okay right that's not what i'm trying

to do but that's how i'm coming across

right now how can we deal with this

differently

do you need some time can we think about

this separately can we write our

thoughts down and then come back to each

other how can we deal with this for me

when i would say look i feel like you're

backing away from me right now she could

say oh right okay that's not what i'm

trying to do but i do need some space

because i don't think i don't process

things the way that you do and so i need

some space to think to reflect allow my

emotions to calm down and then to come

back to you with how i'm really feeling

and that kind of language that shared

language about what was happening in the

context of a relationship was it was

transformative for us now over time we

stopped using it as clinically as that

we you know in our marriage we don't say

things like you're moving away or i feel

like you're against me as much right now

we are just able to navigate our

conflict in healthier ways because we

have a better sense of who we are as

individuals and who each other is within

the relationship but still

simply understanding what is it that you

normally do when you come up against a

conflict even with a friend do you

normally want to try to get into a fight

in a debate do you normally back away do

you normally give in to them and what

does that look like and what does your

stress response look like if you just

have an awareness of that it opens up so

many opportunities for you when there's

conflict to be able to assess what's

going on and choose a strategy that

makes sense right now

lots of times in friendship it makes

sense to choose toward i don't really

care about this that much it seems

important to you let's do it your way

there's times in friendship where you

realize i'm getting too heated i need

some space you know what i'm going to

take a walk we'll come back to this next

week or there's times to say no this is

really important to me and i need you to

understand why so let's talk this out

let's process things through but let's

put our perspectives up against each

other and see what we can't both learn

from each other in that process

simple tools like that a little more

awareness of self in the context of our

relationship goes a long long way

but here's the thing that's really

important

what that does it is enables us not just

to represent ourselves fairly and speak

honestly about what we're feeling but it

gives us the context to actually hear

from our friends who we know deeply care

about us and want the best for us

i know that my perspective on the world

is skewed because of my privilege

because of my position because of all

the things that i've experienced as

jeremy duncan

when i allow myself to enter into good

healthy conflict with people who have

demonstrated over time that they care

about me and how i see the world i'm

able to actually broaden my perspective

on things

i come from a very privileged experience

of the world and the only way i'm going

to see the world honestly and truly is

inviting those other perspectives in if

i shut them down immediately because i

don't have the bandwidth to deal with

any kind of disagreement right now not

only am i diminishing the intimacy

that's available to me in relationships

but i'm actually stealing from myself a

more full more well-rounded perspective

of the world and so when i have that

awareness who am i how do i normally

respond am i stressed right now am i

switching to a default stress response

right now i'm actually able to choose

the strategy that makes sense for me in

this moment with this person in this

relationship and through that we invite

not just disagreement because

disagreement for its own psyche is not

good but disagreement that allows us to

see a wider broader more full

perspective of the world that allows us

to really learn from the friendships

that have earned the place to speak into

our lives so absolutely conflict

management is just as important in your

workplace in your marriage and your

friendships as it is anywhere else and a

little bit of awareness for yourself

might be helpful in that so here's the

homework think about this when you find

yourself in conflict what's your default

response toward a way or against and if

you imagine yourself really stressed out

about something or getting pushed really

hard is there a secondary response that

feels like it comes up over and over

again in the patterns of your life

knowing those and then choosing one of

the three that makes sense in this

moment with this person in this

relationship can go a long way to

allowing you to access more than just

your perspective so toward a way against

a really simple tool might help you in

your marriage it might help you at work

and actually might help you in your

friendships to navigate conflict well

again if you made it this far in the

video hit like hit subscribe we'd love

to stay in contact with you and by the

way post down in the comments let us

know how you deal with conflict and if

you have any strategies that have been

helpful for you i'd love to learn from

that as well see you soon