Resolving Relationship Conflict Quotes

A no-effort relationship is a doomed relationship, not a great relationship. It takes work to communicate accurately and it takes work to expose and resolve conflicting hopes and beliefs. It doesn’t mean there is no “they lived happily ever after,” but it’s more like “they worked happily ever after.

Successful relationships are those relationships were conflicts are successfully resolved and in fact peoples intimacy, closeness, and love are enhanced through the resolution of conflicts. I have always become closer to my wife and to my friends when we have conflicts and work through them successfully because conflicts will always arise. They are an opportunity for intimacy, self-knowledge, and a greater connection.

choose your words wisely, because they will influence your happiness, your relationships, and your personal wealth.

We’re all—trees, humans, insects, birds, bacteria—pluralities. Life is embodied network. These living networks are not places of omnibenevolent Oneness. Instead, they are where ecological and evolutionary tensions between cooperation and conflict are negotiated and resolved. These struggles often result not in the evolution of stronger, more disconnected selves but in the dissolution of the self into relationship. Because life is network, there is no “nature” or “environment,” separate and apart from humans. We are part of the community of life, composed of relationships with “others,” so the human/nature duality that lives near the heart of many philosophies is, from a biological perspective, illusory.

Verbal abuse is a violation, not a conflict. There is a definite difference between conflict and abuse. In a conflict each participant wants something different. In order to resolve the conflict, the two people in the relationship discuss their wants, needs, and reasons while mutually seeking a creative solution. There may or may not be a solution, but no one forces, dominates, or controls the other. Verbal abuse, on the other hand, is very different from a conflict. If we describe verbal abuse from the standpoint of boundary violation, we would describe it as an intrusion upon, or disregard of, one’s self by a person who disregards boundaries in a sometimes relentless pursuit of Power Over, superiority, and dominance by covert or overt means.

Integral to being emotionally healthy is to have a mother who has the ability to respect her child's differences and not perceive them as betrayals.

Conflicts need to be resolved at the earliest.

The universe was once conceived as the passive stage upon which the dramatic conflict of human wills was enacted and resolved. Today man has discovered that that which seemed simple and stable is, instead, complex and volatile; his own inventions have put into motion new forces, toward which he has yet to invent a new relationship. Unlike Ulysses, he can no longer travel over a universe stable in space and time to find adventures; nor can he solve intimate antagonisms with an adversary sportingly suitable in stature. Rather, each individual is the center of a personal vortex; and the aggressive variety and enormity of the adventures which swirl about and confront him are unified only by his personal identity.... The integrity of the individual identity is counterpointed to the volatile character of a relativistic universe.

Freud was fascinated with depression and focused on the issue that we began with—why is it that most of us can have occasional terrible experiences, feel depressed, and then recover, while a few of us collapse into major depression (melancholia)? In his classic essay “Mourning and Melancholia” (1917), Freud began with what the two have in common. In both cases, he felt, there is the loss of a love object. (In Freudian terms, such an “object” is usually a person, but can also be a goal or an ideal.) In Freud’s formulation, in every loving relationship there is ambivalence, mixed feelings—elements of hatred as well as love. In the case of a small, reactive depression—mourning—you are able to deal with those mixed feelings in a healthy manner: you lose, you grieve, and then you recover. In the case of a major melancholic depression, you have become obsessed with the ambivalence—the simultaneity, the irreconcilable nature of the intense love alongside the intense hatred. Melancholia—a major depression—Freud theorized, is the internal conflict generated by this ambivalence. This can begin to explain the intensity of grief experienced in a major depression. If you are obsessed with the intensely mixed feelings, you grieve doubly after a loss—for your loss of the loved individual and for the loss of any chance now to ever resolve the difficulties. “If only I had said the things I needed to, if only we could have worked things out”—for all of time, you have lost the chance to purge yourself of the ambivalence. For the rest of your life, you will be reaching for the door to let you into a place of pure, unsullied love, and you can never reach that door. It also explains the intensity of the guilt often experienced in major depression. If you truly harbored intense anger toward the person along with love, in the aftermath of your loss there must be some facet of you that is celebrating, alongside the grieving. “He’s gone; that’s terrible but…thank god, I can finally live, I can finally grow up, no more of this or that.” Inevitably, a metaphorical instant later, there must come a paralyzing belief that you have become a horrible monster to feel any sense of relief or pleasure at a time like this. Incapacitating guilt. This theory also explains the tendency of major depressives in such circumstances to, oddly, begin to take on some of the traits of the lost loved/hated one—and not just any traits, but invariably the ones that the survivor found most irritating. Psychodynamically, this is wonderfully logical. By taking on a trait, you are being loyal to your lost, beloved opponent. By picking an irritating trait, you are still trying to convince the world you were right to be irritated—you see how you hate it when I do it; can you imagine what it was like to have to put up with that for years? And by picking a trait that, most of all, you find irritating, you are not only still trying to score points in your argument with the departed, but you are punishing yourself for arguing as well. Out of the Freudian school of thought has come one of the more apt descriptions of depression—“aggression turned inward.” Suddenly the loss of pleasure, the psychomotor retardation, the impulse to suicide all make sense. As do the elevated glucocorticoid levels. This does not describe someone too lethargic to function; it is more like the actual state of a patient in depression, exhausted from the most draining emotional conflict of his or her life—one going on entirely within. If that doesn’t count as psychologically stressful, I don’t know what does.

In real life women often complain about the reluctance of their male partners to engage in meaningful dialogue, but in the world of romantic fantasy heroes willingly participate in verbal discussions. They fence, they flirt, they express their anger, they talk out the confounding details of their relationships with the heroine. No hero of romance will ever respond to the eternal feminine query, "What's wrong?" with the word, "Nothing." He will tell her what's wrong; they will argue about it, perhaps, but they will be communicating, and eventually, as they resolve their various conflicts, the war of words will end. One of the most significant victories the heroine achieves at the close of the novel is that the hero is able to express his love for her not only physically but also verbally.

Forgiveness may be described as a decision to make four promises: "I will not think about this incident." "I will not bring up this incident again or use it against you." "I will not talk to others about this incident." "I will not allow this incident to stand between us or hinder our personal relationship." By making and keeping these promises, you tear down the walls that stand between you and your offender. You promise not to dwell on or brood over the problem, nor to punish by holding the person at a distance. You clear the way for your relationship to develop unhindered by memories of past wrongs. This is exactly what God does for us, and it is what he commands us to do for others.

Few things give a human being as much spiritual depth as relationship. If we teach effective communication and conflict-resolution skills to our boys from early on, we lay a foundation for spiritual groundedness. This means we must communicate effectively and resolve conflicts with them as much as possible. By our modeling and teaching, they'll gain the skill to go nearly anywhere and relate effectively, with appropriate boundaries, with good skills, and also with an ability to not take it personally when things go wrong.

Communication is the only bridge that can resolve the conflict and cover up the distance between two perspectives.

Make sure a conflict exists before working to resolve it.

We’re all—trees, humans, insects, birds, bacteria—pluralities. Life is embodied network. These living networks are not places of omnibenevolent Oneness. Instead, they are where ecological and evolutionary tensions between cooperation and conflict are negotiated and resolved. These struggles often result not in the evolution of stronger, more disconnected selves but in the dissolution of the self into relationship. Because life is network, there is no “nature” or “environment,” separate and apart from humans. We are part of the community of life, composed of relationships with “others,” so the human/nature duality that lives near the heart of many philosophies is, from a biological perspective, illusory

history demonstrates quite clearly—not just in sports, but in personal relationships, business, international relations, and elsewhere—that today’s conflicts are often the result of how we conducted and concluded past negotiations. Effective

most marital arguments cannot be resolved. Couples spend year after year trying to change each other’s mind—but it can’t be done. This is because most of their disagreements are rooted in fundamental differences of lifestyle, personality, or values. By fighting over these differences, all they succeed in doing is wasting their time and harming their marriage. Instead, they need to understand the bottom-line difference that is causing the conflict—and to learn how to live with it by honoring and respecting each other.

Planners and designers should encourage as much diversity in human habitats as they find in animal habitats. It is not possible to resolve all conflicts or to gain all ends. Choices have to be made. Different aspects of the public good should be stressed in different places. To achieve variety in land use patterns, there should also be a variety of relationships between the professions, not an institutionalized decision-making tree. Relationships between the constructive professions should, therefore, be deconstructed.

For many people, apologetics is one of the biggest things that God has used to strengthen their faith and help them grow in their relationship with Him. Learning about the various ways that science, history, and philosophy cohere with God and how apparent conflicts can be resolved is exciting and edifying. Like Jacob struggling with God and refusing to let go until God blessed him, apologetics allows us to struggle with God over the deep philosophical and theological questions of our time. There’s a blessing for us in that struggle!

It is so tempting to blame those with whom we are in conflict. Who started the argument, after all, if it wasn’t the other person? Blaming makes us feel innocent. We are the ones who were wronged. We get to feel righteous and even superior. And blaming also nicely deflects any residual guilt we might feel. The emotional benefits are clear. But, as I have witnessed in countless conflicts over the years, the costs of the blame game are huge. It escalates disputes needlessly and prevents us from resolving them. It poisons relationships and wastes valuable time and energy. Perhaps most insidiously, it undermines our power: when we blame others for what is wrong in the relationship—whether it is a marital dispute, an office spat, or a superpower clash—we are dwelling on their power and our victimhood. We are overlooking whatever part we may have played in the conflict and are ignoring our freedom to choose how to respond. We are giving our power away.

1)    The woman has intuitive feelings that she is at risk. 2)    At the inception of the relationship, the man accelerated the pace, prematurely placing on the agenda such things as commitment, living together, and marriage. 3)    He resolves conflict with intimidation, bullying, and violence. 4)    He is verbally abusive. 5)    He uses threats and intimidation as instruments of control or abuse. This includes threats to harm physically, to defame, to embarrass, to restrict freedom, to disclose secrets, to cut off support, to abandon, and to commit suicide. 6)    He breaks or strikes things in anger. He uses symbolic violence (tearing a wedding photo, marring a face in a photo, etc.). 7)    He has battered in prior relationships. 8)    He uses alcohol or drugs with adverse affects (memory loss, hostility, cruelty). 9)    He cites alcohol or drugs as an excuse or explanation for hostile or violent conduct (“That was the booze talking, not me; I got so drunk I was crazy”). 10)   His history includes police encounters for behavioral offenses (threats, stalking, assault, battery). 11)   There has been more than one incident of violent behavior (including vandalism, breaking things, throwing things). 12)   He uses money to control the activities, purchase, and behavior of his wife/partner. 13)   He becomes jealous of anyone or anything that takes her time away from the relationship; he keeps her on a “tight leash,” requires her to account for her time. 14)   He refuses to accept rejection. 15)   He expects the relationship to go on forever, perhaps using phrases like “together for life;” “always;” “no matter what.” 16)   He projects extreme emotions onto others (hate, love, jealousy, commitment) even when there is no evidence that would lead a reasonable person to perceive them. 17)   He minimizes incidents of abuse. 18)   He spends a disproportionate amount of time talking about his wife/partner and derives much of his identity from being her husband, lover, etc. 19)   He tries to enlist his wife’s friends or relatives in a campaign to keep or recover the relationship. 20)   He has inappropriately surveilled or followed his wife/partner. 21)   He believes others are out to get him. He believes that those around his wife/partner dislike him and encourage her to leave. 22)   He resists change and is described as inflexible, unwilling to compromise. 23)   He identifies with or compares himself to violent people in films, news stories, fiction, or history. He characterizes the violence of others as justified. 24)   He suffers mood swings or is sullen, angry, or depressed. 25)   He consistently blames others for problems of his own making; he refuses to take responsibility for the results of his actions. 26)   He refers to weapons as instruments of power, control, or revenge. 27)   Weapons are a substantial part of his persona; he has a gun or he talks about, jokes about, reads about, or collects weapons. 28)   He uses “male privilege” as a justification for his conduct (treats her like a servant, makes all the big decisions, acts like the “master of the house”). 29)   He experienced or witnessed violence as a child. 30)   His wife/partner fears he will injure or kill her. She has discussed this with others or has made plans to be carried out in the event of her death (e.g., designating someone to care for children).

Anger Adult Children of Alcoholics believe that in an ideal relationship there will be no conflict and no anger. Although they recognize intellectually that this is impossible, emotionally this is what they want. Anger is very complicated and very much misunderstood by them. Historically, anger needed to be repressed. Children growing up with alcoholism live in a very angry climate, where it is never resolved. Expressing anger is never useful and only tends to make life worse. It never did anyone any good.

While a husband or wife might be able to cope with the missing part, children do not fare as well. Babies are not able to rely on reason or intellect to measure the stability of the world around them, so by design, they depend heavily on their senses. There are certain aspects of the marriage relationship that children need to witness routinely. Children need to see an on-going love relationship that includes Mom and Dad enjoying each other as friends and not just parents. They also need to see their parents talking, laughing, working together and resolving conflicts with a mutual respect for each other. We cannot over emphasize this point: the more parents demonstrate love for each other, the more they saturate their child’s senses with confidence of a loving, safe and secure world. That marriage relationship provides children with a layer of love and security that cannot be achieved through the direct parent-child relationship—even during the baby years. When you put all of these factors together, they add up to a healthy home environment.

Freud's psychology and the philosophy underlying it are essentially pessimistic. This is patent in his outlook on the future of mankind as well as in his attitude toward therapy. And on the basis of his theoretical premises, he cannot be anything but pessimistic. Man is driven by instincts which at best are only to be modified by "sublimation." His instinctual drives for satisfaction are inevitably frustrated by society. His "ego" is helplessly tossed about between instinctual drives and the "superego," which itself can only be modified. The superego is primarily forbidding and destructive. True ideals do not exist. The wish for personal fulfillment is "narcissistic." Man is by nature destructive and a "deadi instinct" compels him either to destroy others or to suffer. All these theories leave little room for a positive attitude toward change and limit the value of the potentially splendid therapy Freud originated. In contrast, I believe that compulsive trends in neuroses are not instinctual but spring from disturbed human relationships; that they can be changed when these improve and that conflicts of such origin can really be resolved.

The silent treatment is a form of emotional abuse typically employed by people with narcissistic tendencies. It is designed to (1) place the abuser in a position of control; (2) silence the target’s attempts at assertion; (3) avoid conflict resolution/personal responsibility/compromise; or (4) punish the target for a perceived ego slight. (..) The target, who may possess high emotional intelligence, empathy, conflict-resolution skills, and the ability to compromise, may work diligently to respond to the deafening silence. He or she may frequently reach out to the narcissistic person via email, phone, or text to resolve greatly inflated misunderstandings, and is typically met with continued disdain, contempt, and silence. Essentially, the narcissistic person’s message is one of extreme disapproval (..) The silent treatment is a form of emotional abuse that no one deserves nor should tolerate. If an individual experiences this absence of communication, it is a sure sign that he or she needs to move on and heal. The healing process can feel like mourning the loss of a relationship that did not really exist and was one-way in favor of the ego-massaging person with narcissism.

What has stripped their conversation of its richness and enjoyments? First, despite the apparent success of their numerous discussions, they may have arrived at the solutions to family problems at a great cost to the relationship. In many relationships, a whole sequence of little kinks gradually adds up to produce stress. These kinks may also be a sign of important differences between the partners in their outlook and values—differences that their surface agreements never resolve. Thus, the free flow of conversation is inhibited by the threat of intrusions of unresolved conflicts. Perfectly tuned conversations are interrupted by signals of possible discord that introduce static into the communications. Second, although the partners may get along when they are dealing with practical problems, their conversation may be devoid of references to the more pleasurable aspects of the relationship. The partners have not learned to demarcate problem-solving discussions from pleasant conversations. Thus when one partner starts a conversation with a loving comment, the other may decide that this is a good time to bring up some conflict. As a result, there is a dearth of conversation that revolves simply around expressions of caring, sharing, and loving.

A neighbor had a banana tree that had grown so fulsomely that it extended onto Kunip’s property. Insects attached to the banana tree were infiltrating his house. This is where an American probably would have said to his neighbor, “Yo, do something about your frickin’ banana tree! I’ve got bugs in my house.” It’s what I would have said. But that’s not what Kunip did. He broke off a leaf of the banana tree, just one leaf, thus subtly signaling to his neighbor his displeasure. A few days later, the neighbor’s gardener showed up and pruned the banana tree. The conflict was resolved without a word being uttered. “The relationship always comes first. It is more important than the problem,” explains Kunip.

Spiritual disciplines more easily introduced into daily activities ▪   School calendar formulated to dates that work best for our family’s needs ▪   Free time in our days for relaxation, family fun and bonding (instead of time spent driving from school to school) ▪   Strong parent-child bonds and sibling-to-sibling bonds more easily developed ▪   Removal from negative influences and peer pressure during the early impressionable years ▪   Difficult subjects discussed at the appropriate age for each individual child ▪   Difficult subject matter presented from a biblical worldview and within the context of our strong parent-child bond. ▪   Real world learning incorporated into lesson plans and practiced in daily routines ▪   Field trips and “outside the book” learning available as we see fit What We Hope to Give Our Kids: ▪   A close relationship with Christ and a complete picture of what it means to be a Christ-follower ▪   A strong moral character rooted in biblical integrity, perseverance and humility ▪   A direction and purpose for where God has called them in life ▪   A deep relationship and connection with us, their parents ▪   Rich, ever-growing relationships with their siblings ▪   Real-world knowledge in everything from how to cook and do laundry to how to resolve conflicts and work with those that are “different” from them ▪   A comprehensive, well-rounded education in the traditional school subjects

False accusations of harm are used to avoid acknowledgment of complicity in creating conflict and instead escalate normative conflict to the level of crisis. This choice to punish rather than resolve is a product of distorted thinking, and relies on reinforcement of negative group relationships, when instead these ideolo- gies should be actively challenged. Through this over-statement of harm, false accusations are used to justify cruelty, while shunning keeps information from entering into the process. Resistance to shunning, exclusion, and unilateral control, while necessary, are mischaracterized as harm and used to re-justify more escalation towards bullying, state intervention, and violence. Emphasizing communication and repair, instead of shunning and separation, is the key to transforming these paradigms.

14 Ways to Become an Incredible Listener 1. Be present and provide your undivided attention. 2. Seek first to understand, then to be understood. 3. Listen attentively and respond appropriately. 4. Minimize or eliminate distractions. 5. Focus your attention and energy with singleness of purpose on what the other person is saying. 6. Quiet your mind and suspend your thoughts to make room in your head to hear what is said—in the moment! 7. Ask questions and demonstrate empathy. 8. Use your body language and nonverbal cues constructively and pay attention to theirs. 9. Follow the rhythm of their speech; hear their tone. 10. Repeat and summarize what you have heard them say to confirm understanding. 11. Be open-minded and non-defensive. 12. Respond rather than react. 13. Be respectful, calm, and positive. 14. Try to resolve conflicts, not win them.

Ambiguous tasks are a good place to observe how personality traits bubble to the surface. Although few of us are elite soldiers, we’ve all experienced the kind of psychological distress these trainees encounter on their training run: managing unclear expectations, struggling with self-motivation, and balancing the use of social support with private reflection. These issues are endemic not only to the workplace, but also to relationships, health, and every aspect of life in which we seek to thrive and succeed. Not surprisingly, the leading predictor of success in elite military training programs is the same quality that distinguishes those best equipped to resolve marital conflict, to achieve favorable deal terms in business negotiations, and to bestow the gifts of good parenting on their children: the ability to tolerate psychological discomfort.

We’re all—trees, humans, insects, birds, bacteria—pluralities. Life is embodied network. These living networks are not places of omnibenevolent Oneness. Instead, they are where ecological and evolutionary tensions between cooperation and conflict are negotiated and resolved. These struggles often result not in the evolution of stronger, more disconnected selves but in the dissolution of the self into relationship. Because life is network, there is no “nature” or “environment,” separate and apart from humans. We are part of the community of life, composed of relationships with “others,” so the human/nature duality that lives near the heart of many philosophies is, from a biological perspective, illusory. We are not, in the words of the folk hymn, wayfaring strangers traveling through this world. Nor are we the estranged creatures of Wordsworth’s lyrical ballads, fallen out of Nature into a “stagnant pool” of artifice where we misshape “the beauteous forms of things.” Our bodies and minds, our “Science and Art,” are as natural and wild as they ever were.

Sex is a problem because it would seem that in the act there is complete absence of the self. In that moment you are happy because there is the cessation of self-consciousness, of the ‘me’, and desiring more of it—more of the abnegation of the self in which there is complete happiness through full fusion, integration—naturally it becomes all-important. Isn’t that so? Because it is something that gives me unadulterated joy, complete self-forgetfulness, I want more and more of it. Now, why do I want more of it? Because, everywhere else I am in conflict….In all our relationships with property, with people, with ideas there is conflict, pain, struggle, misery…. Naturally you want more of it because it gives you happiness, while all the rest leads you to misery… So, the problem is not sex, surely, but how to be free from the self. You have tasted that state of being in which the self is not, if only for a few seconds, if only for a day,…so there is the constant longing for more of that self-free state… Until you resolve the whole content of that conflict, this one release of the self, through sex, will remain a hideous problem…

I am concerned with having a relationship in which there is no conflict whatsoever, in which I am not using or exploiting another, either sexually, for reasons of pleasure, or for the sake of companionship. I see very clearly that conflict destroys any form of relationship, so I must resolve that conflict at the very centre, not at the periphery. And I can only put an end to conflict by understanding action, not only in relationship but in daily life. I want to find out if all my activities are isolating, in the sense that I have built a wall round myself; the wall being myself concerned with myself, with my future, my happiness, my health, my God, with my belief, my success, my misery – you follow? Or is it that relationship has nothing whatsoever to do with me or myself? Myself is the centre, and all the activities that are concerned with my happiness, my satisfaction, my glory must isolate. Where there is isolation there must be attachment and dependency; when there is uncertainty in that attachment and dependency then there is suffering, and suffering implies isolation in any relationship. I see all this very clearly, not verbally but

Any relationship will have its difficulties, but sometimes those problems are indicators of deep-rooted problems that, if not addressed quickly, will poison your marriage. If any of the following red flags—caution signs—exist in your relationship, we recommend that you talk about the situation as soon as possible with a pastor, counselor or mentor. Part of this list was adapted by permission from Bob Phillips, author of How Can I Be Sure: A Pre-Marriage Inventory.1 You have a general uneasy feeling that something is wrong in your relationship. You find yourself arguing often with your fiancé(e). Your fiancé(e) seems irrationally angry and jealous whenever you interact with someone of the opposite sex. You avoid discussing certain subjects because you’re afraid of your fiancé(e)’s reaction. Your fiancé(e) finds it extremely difficult to express emotions, or is prone to extreme emotions (such as out-of-control anger or exaggerated fear). Or he/she swings back and forth between emotional extremes (such as being very happy one minute, then suddenly exhibiting extreme sadness the next). Your fiancé(e) displays controlling behavior. This means more than a desire to be in charge—it means your fiancé(e) seems to want to control every aspect of your life: your appearance, your lifestyle, your interactions with friends or family, and so on. Your fiancé(e) seems to manipulate you into doing what he or she wants. You are continuing the relationship because of fear—of hurting your fiancé(e), or of what he or she might do if you ended the relationship. Your fiancé(e) does not treat you with respect. He or she constantly criticizes you or talks sarcastically to you, even in public. Your fiancé(e) is unable to hold down a job, doesn’t take personal responsibility for losing a job, or frequently borrows money from you or from friends. Your fiancé(e) often talks about aches and pains, and you suspect some of these are imagined. He or she goes from doctor to doctor until finding someone who will agree that there is some type of illness. Your fiancé(e) is unable to resolve conflict. He or she cannot deal with constructive criticism, or never admits a mistake, or never asks for forgiveness. Your fiancé(e) is overly dependant on parents for finances, decision-making or emotional security. Your fiancé(e) is consistently dishonest and tries to keep you from learning about certain aspects of his or her life. Your fiancé(e) does not appear to recognize right from wrong, and rationalizes questionable behavior. Your fiancé(e) consistently avoids responsibility. Your fiancé(e) exhibits patterns of physical, emotional or sexual abuse toward you or others. Your fiancé(e) displays signs of drug or alcohol abuse: unexplained absences of missed dates, frequent car accidents, the smell of alcohol or strong odor of mouthwash, erratic behavior or emotional swings, physical signs such as red eyes, unkempt look, unexplained nervousness, and so on. Your fiancé(e) has displayed a sudden, dramatic change in lifestyle after you began dating. (He or she may be changing just to win you and will revert back to old habits after marriage.) Your fiancé(e) has trouble controlling anger. He or she uses anger as a weapon or as a means of winning arguments. You have a difficult time trusting your fiancé(e)—to fulfill responsibilities, to be truthful, to help in times of need, to make ethical decisions, and so on. Your fiancé(e) has a history of multiple serious relationships that have failed—a pattern of knowing how to begin a relationship but not knowing how to keep one growing. Look over this list. Do any of these red flags apply to your relationship? If so, we recommend you talk about the situation as soon as possible with a pastor, counselor or mentor.

After I left Uriah’s side last night, I wandered the compound without any sense of direction. I should have been thinking of my friend, teetering between this world and whatever comes next, but instead I thought of what I said to Tobias. And how I felt when I looked at him, like something was breaking. I didn’t tell him it was the end of our relationship. I meant to, but when I was looking at him, the words were impossible to say. I feel tears welling up again, as they have every hour or so since yesterday, and I push them away, swallow them down. “So you saved the Bureau,” Cara says, turning to me. “You seem to get involved in a lot of conflict. I suppose we should all be grateful that you are steady in a crisis.” “I didn’t save the Bureau. I have no interest in saving the Bureau,” I retort. “I kept a weapon out of some dangerous hands, that’s all.” I wait a beat. “Did you just compliment me?” “I am capable of recognizing another person’s strengths,” Cara replies, and she smiles. “Additionally, I think our issues are now resolved, both on a logical and an emotional level.” She clears her throat a little, and I wonder if it’s finally acknowledging that she has emotions that makes her uncomfortable, or something else. “It sounds like you know something about the Bureau that has made you angry. I wonder if you could tell me what it is.” Christina rests her head on the edge of Uriah’s mattress, her slender body collapsing sideways. I say wryly, “I wonder. We may never know.” “Hmm.” The crease between Cara’s eyebrows appears when she frowns, making her look so much like Will that I have to look away. “Maybe I should say please.” “Fine. You know Jeanine’s simulation serum? Well, it wasn’t hers.” I sigh. “Come on. I’ll show you. It’ll be easier that way.” It would be just as easy to tell her what I saw in that old storage room, nestled deep in the Bureau laboratories. But the truth is, I just want to keep myself busy, so I don’t think about Uriah. Or Tobias.

Treating Abuse Today 3(4) pp. 26-33 TAT: I want to move back to an area that I'm not real comfortable asking you about, but I'm going to, because I think it's germane to this discussion. When we began our discussion [see "A Conversation with Pamela Freyd, Ph.D., Part 1", Treating Abuse Today, 3(3), P. 25-39] we spoke a bit about how your interest in this issue intersected your own family situation. You have admitted writing about it in your widely disseminated "Jane Doe" article. I think wave been able to cover legitimate ground in our discussion without talking about that, but I am going to return to it briefly because there lingers an important issue there. I want to know how you react to people who say that the Foundation is basically an outgrowth of an unresolved family matter in your own family and that some of the initial members of your Scientific Advisory Board have had dual professional relationships with you and your family, and are not simply scientifically attached to the Foundation and its founders. Freyd: People can say whatever they want to say. The fact of the matter is, day after day, people are calling to say that something very wrong has taken place. They're telling us that somebody they know and love very much, has acquired memories in some kind of situation, that they're sure are false, but that there has been no way to even try to resolve the issues -- now, it's 3,600 families. TAT: That's kind of side-stepping the question. My question -- Freyd: -- People can say whatever they want. But you know -- TAT: -- But, isn't it true that some of the people on your scientific advisory have a professional reputation that is to some extent now dependent upon some findings in your own family? Freyd: Oh, I don't think so. A professional reputation dependent upon findings in my family? TAT: In the sense that they may have been consulted professionally first about a matter in your own family. Is that not true? Freyd: What difference does that make? TAT: It would bring into question their objectivity. It would also bring into question the possibility of this being a folie à deux --

Have you talked about how many children you’d like to have?” “Yes, sir,” Marlboro Man said. “And?” Father Johnson prodded. “I’d like to have six or so,” Marlboro Man answered, a virile smile spreading across his face. “And what about Ree?” Father Johnson asked. “Well, she says she’d like to have one,” Marlboro Man said, looking at me and touching my knee. “But I’m workin’ on her.” Father Johnson wrinkled his brow. “How do you and Ree resolve conflict?” “Well…,” Marlboro Man replied. “To tell you the truth, we haven’t really had much conflict to speak of. We get along pretty darn well.” Father Johnson looked over his glasses. “I’m sure you can think of something.” He wanted some dirt. Marlboro Man tapped his boot on the sterile floor of Father Johnson’s study and looked His Excellence straight in the eye. “Well, she fell off her horse once when we went riding together,” he began. “And that upset her a little bit. And a while back, I dragged her to a fire with me and it got a little dicey…” Marlboro Man and I looked at each other. It was the largest “conflict” we’d had, and it had lasted fewer than twelve hours. Father Johnson looked at me. “How did you deal with that, Ree?” I froze. “Uh…uh…” I tapped my Donald Pliner mule on the floor. “I told him how I felt. And after that it was fine.” I hated every minute of this. I didn’t want to be examined. I didn’t want my relationship with Marlboro Man to be dissected with generic, one-size-fits-all questions. I just wanted to drive around in his pickup and look at pastures and curl up on the couch with him and watch movies. That had been going just fine for us--that was the nature of our relationship. But Father Johnson’s questioning was making me feel defensive, as if we were somehow neglecting our responsibility to each other if we weren’t spending every day in deep, contemplative thought about the minutiae of a future together. Didn’t a lot of that stuff just come naturally over time? Did it really serve a purpose to figure it out now? But Father Johnson’s interrogation continued: “What do you want for your children?” “Have you talked about budgetary matters?” “What role do your parents play in your life?” “Have you discussed your political preferences? Your stances on important issues? Your faith? Your religion?” And my personal favorite: “What are you both going to do, long term, to nurture each other’s creativity?” I didn’t have an answer for him there. But deep down, I knew that, somehow, gravy would come into play.

Ultimately, my effectiveness at each level of the pyramid depends on the deepest level of the pyramid— my way of being. “I can put all the effort I want into trying to build my relationships,” Yusuf said, “but if I’m in the box while I’m doing it, it won’t help much. If I’m in the box while I’m trying to learn, I’ll only end up hearing what I want to hear. And if I’m in the box while I’m trying to teach, I’ll invite resistance in all who listen.” Yusuf looked around at the group. “My effectiveness in everything above the lowest level of the pyramid depends on the lowest level. My question for you is why?” Everyone looked at the pyramid. “You might try looking at the Way-of-Being Diagram from yesterday,” Yusuf said. “I get it,” Lou said after a moment. “What?” Yusuf asked. “What are you seeing?” “Well, the Way-of-Being Diagram tells us that almost any outward behavior can be done in either of two ways—with a heart that’s at war or a heart that’s at peace.” “Yes,” Yusuf agreed. “And what does that have to do with the Influence Pyramid?” “Everything above the lowest level of the pyramid is a behavior,” Lou answered. “Exactly,” Yusuf said. “So anything I do to build relationships, to learn, to teach, or to correct can be done either in the box or out. And as we learned yesterday from the Collusion Diagram, when I act from within the box, I invite resistance. Although there are two ways to invade Jerusalem, only one of those ways invites cooperation. The other sows the seeds of its own failure. So while the pyramid tells us where to look and what kinds of things to do in order to invite change in others, this last lesson reminds us that it cannot be faked. The pyramid keeps helping me to remember that I might be the problem and giving me hints of how I might begin to become part of a solution. A culture of change can never be created by behavioral strategy alone. Peace—whether at home, work, or between peoples—is invited only when an intelligent outward strategy is married to a peaceful inward one. “This is why we have spent most of our time together working to improve ourselves at this deepest level. If we don’t get our hearts right, our strategies won’t much matter. Once we get our hearts right, however, outward strategies matter a lot. The virtue of the pyramid is that it reminds us of the essential foundation—change in ourselves—while also revealing a behavioral strategy for inviting change in others. It reminds us to get out of the box ourselves at the same time that it tells us how to invite others to get out as well.

SELF-MANAGEMENT Trust We relate to one another with an assumption of positive intent. Until we are proven wrong, trusting co-workers is our default means of engagement. Freedom and accountability are two sides of the same coin. Information and decision-making All business information is open to all. Every one of us is able to handle difficult and sensitive news. We believe in collective intelligence. Nobody is as smart as everybody. Therefore all decisions will be made with the advice process. Responsibility and accountability We each have full responsibility for the organization. If we sense that something needs to happen, we have a duty to address it. It’s not acceptable to limit our concern to the remit of our roles. Everyone must be comfortable with holding others accountable to their commitments through feedback and respectful confrontation. WHOLENESS Equal worth We are all of fundamental equal worth. At the same time, our community will be richest if we let all members contribute in their distinctive way, appreciating the differences in roles, education, backgrounds, interests, skills, characters, points of view, and so on. Safe and caring workplace Any situation can be approached from fear and separation, or from love and connection. We choose love and connection. We strive to create emotionally and spiritually safe environments, where each of us can behave authentically. We honor the moods of … [love, care, recognition, gratitude, curiosity, fun, playfulness …]. We are comfortable with vocabulary like care, love, service, purpose, soul … in the workplace. Overcoming separation We aim to have a workplace where we can honor all parts of us: the cognitive, physical, emotional, and spiritual; the rational and the intuitive; the feminine and the masculine. We recognize that we are all deeply interconnected, part of a bigger whole that includes nature and all forms of life. Learning Every problem is an invitation to learn and grow. We will always be learners. We have never arrived. Failure is always a possibility if we strive boldly for our purpose. We discuss our failures openly and learn from them. Hiding or neglecting to learn from failure is unacceptable. Feedback and respectful confrontation are gifts we share to help one another grow. We focus on strengths more than weaknesses, on opportunities more than problems. Relationships and conflict It’s impossible to change other people. We can only change ourselves. We take ownership for our thoughts, beliefs, words, and actions. We don’t spread rumors. We don’t talk behind someone’s back. We resolve disagreements one-on-one and don’t drag other people into the problem. We don’t blame problems on others. When we feel like blaming, we take it as an invitation to reflect on how we might be part of the problem (and the solution). PURPOSE Collective purpose We view the organization as having a soul and purpose of its own. We try to listen in to where the organization wants to go and beware of forcing a direction onto it. Individual purpose We have a duty to ourselves and to the organization to inquire into our personal sense of calling to see if and how it resonates with the organization’s purpose. We try to imbue our roles with our souls, not our egos. Planning the future Trying to predict and control the future is futile. We make forecasts only when a specific decision requires us to do so. Everything will unfold with more grace if we stop trying to control and instead choose to simply sense and respond. Profit In the long run, there are no trade-offs between purpose and profits. If we focus on purpose, profits will follow.

Conflict cannot be resolved without solid forgiveness between the conflicting parties. It is essential for the parties in conflict to forgive each other in order to come with a long lasting solution to conflict. According to the teachings of the bible, reconciliation should be soldered by solid forgiveness. A good example of solid forgiveness in the bible is that of Joseph and his brothers. He forgave his brothers and they reconciled even after they sold him to Egypt as a slave. There are other people in the bible who established a concrete reconciliation with God by seeking solid forgiveness. Similarly, Christians are supposed to seek solid forgiveness from God and fellow human beings whenever there is conflict as way of ensuring peace relationship with our neighbors.

No one wants to suffer. But much as we would all like to live a totally happy life, suffering is an inescapable fact of our human existence. The observation that ‘Man is born unto trouble, as sparks fly upward’ may not have been much consolation to Job but, nevertheless, remains an uncomfortable truth. Generally speaking, suffering arises through our encounters with problems and difficulties; this is why much of our time is spent trying to avoid them, even though they are inherent in life. In trying to avoid problems, however, we are often simply putting off the inevitable to a future date, by which time the trouble has usually grown much more difficult to resolve. Personal relationships are a good example of this. The failure to tackle a problem between two people — a clash of desires, for instance – usually for fear of not knowing what the consequences will be, or perhaps simply because of a dislike of conflict, can very easily lead to a build-up of resentments which, when finally expressed, can be immensely destructive. The story of the ‘mild-mannered’ civil servant who, in 1987, was jailed for strangling his wife after twenty-six years of marriage, ostensibly because she simply moved his favourite mustard from its usual place at the dinner table, is an extreme, but true, example of this.

There are two distinct types of complaints that you will receive: 1. Complaints about an executive’s behavior 2. Complaints about an executive’s competency or performance Generally, the best way to handle the first type of complaint is to get the complaining executive and the targeted executive in the room together and have them explain themselves. Usually, simply having this meeting will resolve the conflict and correct the behavior and improve the relationship (if it was actually broken). Do not attempt to address behavioral issues without both executives in the room. Doing so will invite manipulation and politics. Complaints of the second type are both more rare and more complex. If one of your executives summons the courage to complain about the competency of one of their peers, then there is a good chance that either the complainer or the targeted executive has a major problem. If you receive this type of complaint, you will generally have one of two reactions: they will be telling you something that you already know, or they’ll be telling you shocking news.

became a useful thing for him to do. Helping others is certainly admirable, but you can also take on too many problems, internalize them, and become depressed yourself. In relationships, the conflict avoider is at a high risk of becoming involved with a needy person. He thinks that because he is needed he is important to the other person. He is also at a high risk of being used. He fears rejection and will do anything to keep conflict out of his relationships. He pretends there are no problems and believes it is his responsibility to take care of them when they do occur. The greatest problem for this silent son is his own internal conflict. He is not about to acknowledge it and consistently tells himself he is not angry. Nothing is resolved. He tries to pretend his conflict does not exist by preoccupying himself with everyone else’s problems, but it doesn’t work. In the end, the conflict avoider is avoiding himself. His own problems are his greatest fear. The positive and negative personality characteristics of the silent son conflict avoider are: Positive He is willing to help others. He is good in a crisis. He is a good negotiator. He is a problem solver. He is persistent. He is sensitive to others. He thinks of alternatives. He is a good communicator. Negative He has an unrealistic view of arguments. He is constantly placating others. He feels powerless. He suffers from depression. He is in denial. He takes on too many problems. He is seldom happy. He is easily intimidated. He lacks the ability to receive support from others. He is used in relationships. Transitions Needed Recognize and focus on your own problems. Quit taking on the problems of others. Learn to accept positive attention. Learn the difference between helping someone and feeling responsible for their problems and solutions. Be willing to receive help from others.

Resolving conflict also requires forgiveness—giving up the right to punish the one who has wronged you. This is the miracle of the Christian life—that we can heal our relationships with others in the same way Christ healed our relationship with Him—through forgiveness.

First of all,” Avi began, “you need to realize something about the box. Since the box is just a metaphor for how I am in relationship with another person, I can be both in and out of the box at the same time, just in different directions. That is, I can be blaming and justifying toward my wife, for example, and yet be living straightforwardly toward Yusuf, or vice versa. Given the hundreds of relationships I have at any given time, even if I am deeply in a box toward one person, I am nearly always out of the box toward someone else.

RECOVERING INNER CLARITY AND PEACE (FOUR PARTS) Getting out of the box 1. Look for the signs of the box (blame, justification, horribilization, common box styles, etc.). 2. Find an out-of-the-box place (out-of-the-box relationships, memories, activities, places, etc.).

RECOVERING INNER CLARITY AND PEACE(FOUR PARTS) Getting out of the box 1. Look for the signs of the box (blame, justification, horribilization, common box styles, etc.). 2. Find an out-of-the-box place (out-of-the-box relationships, memories, activities, places, etc.). 3. Ponder the situation anew (i.e., from this out-of-the-box perspective).

RECOVERING INNER CLARITY AND PEACE(FOUR PARTS) Getting out of the box 1. Look for the signs of the box (blame, justification, horribilization, common box styles, etc.). 2. Find an out-of-the-box place (out-of-the-box relationships, memories, activities, places, etc.).

Forgiveness may be described as a decision to make four promises: “I will not dwell on this incident.” “I will not bring up this incident again and use it against you.” “I will not talk to others about this incident.” “I will not let this incident stand between us or hinder our personal relationship.” Ken Sande The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict, 2004, p. 209.

Conflict in a family, openly expressed and accepted as a natural phenomenon, is far healthier for children than most parents think. In such families the child at least has an opportunity to experience conflict, learn how to cope with it, and be better prepared to deal with it in later life. As necessary preparation for the inevitable conflicts the child will encounter outside of the home, family conflict may actually be beneficial to the child, always provided that the conflict in the home gets resolved constructively.

In a healthy relationship, the goal is to ultimately resolve the issue and ideally reach a conclusion where both parties are satisfied. If you walk away from discussions or conflict confused and feeling bad about yourself, take a closer look. Distance yourself from the issue at hand and focus on the strategy in the conflict. An abuser rigs the game so that he will always win and you will always lose.

Too often, a marriage gets bogged down in 'if only'; if only your spouse were taller, richer, smarter, neater, or sexier, all of your problems would vanish. Unlike cherishing, which nurtures gratitude for what you have, 'if only' nurtures resentment for what you don't have. As long as this attitude prevails, conflicts will be very difficult to resolve.

Once you understand this, you will be ready to accept one of the most surprising truths about marriage: most marital arguments cannot be resolved. Couples spend year after year trying to change each other’s mind—but it can’t be done. This is because most of their disagreements are rooted in fundamental differences of lifestyle, personality, or values. By fighting over these differences, all they succeed in doing is wasting their time and harming their marriage. Instead, they need to understand the bottom-line difference that is causing the conflict—and to learn how to live with it by honoring and respecting each other. Only then will they be able to build shared meaning and a sense of purpose into their marriage.

When working with an outer demon attached to a relationship, it can be helpful to imagine feeding the other person as well as feeding the demon created by our reaction to that person. When I fed my demon of fear of losing my son as part of my divorce, I also fed an imagined form of my husband.

Sixty-nine percent of ongoing problems never get resolved. No, I'm not saying that to depress you. The point is that it's not what you talk about, it's how you talk about it. Everyone thinks the issue is clarity, but studies show that most couples (if they do talk) are actually pretty clear... It's about regulation, not resolution of the conflict. War is inevitable, but you have to obey the Geneva Convention rules. No chemical warfare. No torturing prisoners. Maya Angelou once said, "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Conflicts are a natural part of any relationship, but it's essential to learn how to resolve them effectively. A couples therapist can teach you and your partner conflict resolution skills that can help you navigate disagreements in a healthy and constructive way. This may include learning to approach conflicts with empathy and understanding, finding common ground, and developing solutions that work for both partners.

Try these journal prompts as you work to integrate your type 8 shadows: See yourself through your ex’s eyes. This can be a difficult exercise, but if anyone’s up for it, Challenger, it’s you. Write a letter to yourself from your ex’s point of view. Take a moment to remember all you did wrong and write it down—even if (especially if!) you think the failure of the relationship was their fault, not yours. What negative traits of yours do you need to own and master to be better in your next relationship? Write a letter to the person who hurt you the most in your past. Tell them everything they did that made you feel unworthy of love or less-than. Don’t be afraid to hit below the belt! Get it all out! When you’re done, put the letter away somewhere safe. Come back and re-read it two weeks later and consider whether you can see any of the negative qualities of this person in yourself. How have you hurt others? Is it similar to the way you’ve been hurt? Think about the people you love most. If you had the power, what would you like to change about them in order to improve your relationship with them? (This might also have to do with the way you resolve conflicts.) How does this action reflect on you? Based on this exercise, is there anything you might consider improving in yourself to help? TYPE 8 SELF-CARE PRESCRIPTION Type 8s tend to struggle with inaction when it comes to self-care. Since you’re always seeking progress and pushing yourself, it’s challenging for you to sit in a quiet place alone and rest. But the world is a complicated place, and you are prone to feeling angry about the things you can’t control or change. You want so much to do something to heal the pain of the world, to fix the broken systems. But you can’t fight for others until you’ve first fought for yourself by releasing the need for control and choosing stillness. Being still probably feels unnatural to you, even scary, but that’s where your real inner work begins! Learn your limits. As an energetic 8, you frequently push yourself to your limits, even if you’re unaware you’re doing so. Pay closer attention to your own feelings, and force yourself to rest and recover whenever necessary, instead of pushing through. You’ll be much better off for it! Practice mindful breathing for anger management. When you feel the need to let loose with an angry tirade, take it as a cue to practice your calming breaths. Find an outdoor exercise activity you love. When you’re feeling especially furious or antsy, hop on your bike and go for a ride or do a few laps around the neighborhood. These activities are healthy outlets for that restless energy of yours. Let others take the lead sometimes. With your commanding presence and direct approach, you make a natural leader. But sometimes, you need to step back and allow someone else to step up to bat. Take a break and learn not to carry all responsibilities on your own shoulders; this will benefit both you and your relationships with others.

Relationships do require effort and patience, and sometimes holding on during tough times can lead to deeper connections. Holding on during difficult times can show resilience and commitment. Communication and understanding are key in resolving conflicts.

There is a tendency, especially in times of peace, to underinvest in processes that can help maintain relationships and in institutions that can help sustain the peace.

Early actions can take on heightened significance. Look for low-cost opportunities to powerfully influence the frame and to establish the appropriate expectations and precedents for the relationship.

Stay at the table, especially after failed negotiations, to sustain relationships, understand the other side’s perspective, and look for opportunities to reengage.

Strategic ambiguity can help parties initiate relationships when there is insufficient trust for full commitment, but where being explicitly noncommittal is unacceptable.

Embodied adult consciousness is a NARM term that refers to adults who experience themselves not just physically as adults but also psychologically and emotionally. They embody separation-individuation in the sense that they experience themselves as less dependent on others for their sense of self-worth. By so doing, they have greater capacity for authentic relationships. Their behaviors are not driven from adaptive survival strategies but emerge from connection to their authentic needs, feelings, and a sense of agency and self-activation. Being embodied in adult consciousness provides a secure platform to feel connected to Self and others without conflict between the two.

This can be seen in the ways humans fear what they most want and use self-sabotaging strategies to inhibit separation-individuation, agency, self-activation, and possibilities for love. This conflict between staying connected in a relationship while staying connected to one’s authentic Self often shows up for people in their most intimate relationships—with their partners, children, and close friends—and demonstrates the enduring fear of relational loss.

When a young child faces a conflict between Self and attachment, the need for attachment always wins. When experiencing a threat to the attachment relationship, children are faced with an impossible situation: they need to stay connected to their caregivers, but they also need to stay connected to their authentic Self. This bind pits their relationship to caregivers against their relationship to Self, which reflects a conflict between attachment and separation-individuation.

Getting out of the box 1. Look for the signs of the box (blame, justification, horribilization, common box styles, etc.). 2. Find an out-of-the-box place (out-of-the-box relationships, memories, activities, places, etc.). 3. Ponder the situation anew (i.e., from this out-of-the-box perspective). Ask • What are this person’s or people’s challenges, trials, burdens, and pains? • How am I, or some group of which I am a part, adding to these challenges, trials, burdens, and pains? • In what other ways have I or my group neglected or mistreated this person or group? • In what ways are my better-than, I-deserve, worse-than, and need-to-be-seen-as boxes obscuring the truth about others and myself and interfering with potential solutions? • What am I feeling I should do for this person or group? What could I do to help? Staying out of the box 4. Act upon what I have discovered; do what I am feeling I should do.

Which is why,” Avi continued, “we can recognize we are in the box to begin with. When we are noticing we are in the box, it is because we are noticing that we aren’t feeling and seeing in one direction like we are in another. We are able to recognize the difference because the difference is within us. Which is to say that we have out-of-the-box places within us—relationships and memories that are not twisted and distorted by blame and self-justification.” “Okay,” Lou said, “but what does that have to do with getting out of the box when we’re feeling stuck?” “It has to do with it because it means we are not stuck.” “Huh?” “Think of that night with Yusuf under the stars,” Avi continued. “It turns out that I had a wealth of out-of-the-box memories regarding my father. Once I allowed myself to find my way to those memories, a lot of things started to look and feel different.

You need only to identify the relationships, places, memories, activities, book passages, and so on, that have that kind of power for you, and then remember to search them out when you feel war rising within you. When you’ve accessed such a place—an internal vantage point where peace remains—you can begin to ponder your challenges anew.

I have come round to the opposite point of view than that recommended by what we might term the dominant discourse on managing conflict. Instead of assuming managers can adopt an objective position, deciding what type of conflict they have on their hands and so which tool or technique they might choose to resolve it for the optimum working of the organization, I am assuming that there is no objective position to be found. Rather, what managers might do instead is to immerse themselves as fully as possible in the complex responsive processes of relating which take place in all social life, noticing their own reactions to and perspectives on the situation as important data in deciding what to do about it. They are caught up in complex social relationships which are forming them, and which they are forming, and these contribute to the regular irregularity of organizational life. Managers would be naïve to anticipate that emotions are absent from everyday organizational life; indeed, it is most likely to provoke strong emotions as people endure the flux and change in the emerging balance of forces.

This gospel gives us the gift of eternal life. But the gospel is more than a ticket to heaven. It isn’t just for unbelievers. It’s for every believer every day of life. But many Christians have a “two doors gospel.” We think of the gospel as a door we enter at conversion. We stand outside of God’s family, then someone shares the Good News with us, and the Holy Spirit opens our hearts to understand. We see our need. We trust in Christ. We come through the door into the kingdom of God. We believe, and the penalty of sin—eternal punishment—is taken away. The gospel is more than a ticket to heaven. But then—too often—we treat the gospel like an airplane ticket we save up to use on a distant day in the future. Having entered through one door, we put the gospel in our pocket until we come to another door. We don’t pull out the gospel until we’re in the hospital, facing only a few days to live. Then we peacefully tell our children, “Don’t worry. I know I’m going to heaven because I trusted in Jesus. I believe the gospel and I have hope for eternal life.” Yes, the gospel provides great comfort when we face death. But there’s a whole life we live between the first door and the second door. If we forget the gospel is for now—for sins we struggle with today, for areas where we still want to grow, for relationships that are broken—then we miss the rich treasure that belongs to us in Christ. There’s a treasure stored up in heaven for us, but God doesn’t want it reserved just for eternity. It spills into our daily lives today if we just reach up our hands and receive it.

The two parties work together on a set of principles to base their negotiations on the needs of each party. Solutions are suggested for their merit and are proposed for mutual gains and building of long term relationships. Instead of each party trying to subdue the other, conflicts are resolved with a fair and mutually agreeable set of standards. The outcome of this approach is geared towards a win-win solution to the conflict.

Many conflicts in a marriage result from living to please self instead of living to please the Lord. These conflicts can be resolved and are actually opportunities for spiritual growth when dealt with in a biblical manner.” John C. Broger While

Friends (at least good ones) like one another, enjoy one another’s company, and maintain mutual goodwill. They help one another in times of need, listen to one another’s problems, make sacrifices, and provide emotional support when necessary. They share confidences and can be trusted not to divulge important secrets. Their relationship is personal and private, and it does not answer to a higher authority. They engage in constructive conflict management, and they try to resolve differences among themselves. Friends should not go to court to resolve a dispute. Ideally, friends do not care what they get out of the relationship but value the friendship for its own sake. They are honest with one another, feel free to express themselves to one another, but do not pass judgment. Finally, unlike partners in kin or work relations, one can choose one’s friends.

Expert relationship counseling in Delhi: Rekindle love, resolve conflicts, and build stronger bonds. Empathetic guidance for couples in need.

Conflict is a necessary part of human interaction. It is how we break down invisible walls and perceived imbalances in a relationship. Conflict often creates deeper bonds between two individuals when effectively resolved, and it can still take place between two securely attached individuals.

Evaluating long-term relationship objectives with key suppliers is crucial. A thorough market analysis, coupled with strategic mediation to resolve discrepancies, should effectively address pricing issues. This underscores the necessity of robust contractual agreements and the prudence of maintaining backup suppliers to mitigate risks if conflicts escalate into disputes. Additionally, implementing contingency plans ensures that pricing discrepancies are managed effectively, enabling the cultivation of positive supplier relationships while securing fair and competitive pricing.

Tending grief can support us to feel more choice and support us to resolve conflicts, build trust, and engage in somatic transformation as a group—changing ways of being that have become automatic. These are all factors that create supportive conditions for relationships as well as sustained movement work.

Years back, when I was first learning about Marshall Rosenberg’s work, I attended a workshop where we learned to differentiate between needs and strategies. At the time, I was having a lot of conflict with a family member, and I asked the facilitator for help in understanding what this person’s needs might be when we get into arguments. “It seems to me that they feel a need to be right,” I said. “But everyone can’t be right,” the instructor explained. “Being right is a strategy . . . what might the need be?” After thinking more, I saw that maybe being right was this person’s way of feeling important, knowing that they matter, or feeling capable. Immediately, I felt more compassion toward them because I understood those needs. I have them, too. That experience was a powerful one for healing my family relationship, and I have seen similar changes happen when people use this way of thinking to understand and resolve financial conflicts.

Any method of negotiation may be fairly judged by three criteria: It should produce a wise agreement if agreement is possible. It should be efficient. And it should improve or at least not damage the relationship between the parties. (A wise agreement can be defined as one that meets the legitimate interests of each side to the extent possible, resolves conflicting interests fairly, is durable, and takes community interests into account.)

While conflict is inevitable in friendship, friends also have the ability to tolerate each other’s needs and to resolve differences. As Frans de Waal writes, “Fires start, but fires go out…We know a great deal about the causes of hostile behavior in both animals and humans…Yet we know little of the way conflicts are avoided - or how, when they do occur, relationships are afterward repaired and normalized. In his wonderful book Peacemaking Among Primates, Frans de Waal makes the case that for all primates, humans included, “making peace is as natural as making war.

What happened in the high-performing groups? As you might expect, they started with low relationship conflict and kept it low throughout their work together. That didn’t stop them from having task conflict at the outset: they didn’t hesitate to surface competing perspectives. As they resolved some of their differences of opinion, they were able to align on a direction and carry out their work until they ran into new issues to debate.

When we ask people what holds them back from using humor at work, many say it’s the fear of inadvertently crossing a line. They aren’t wrong to have this worry; in the workplace, inappropriate or aggressive humor (like teasing—in the wrong context or with the wrong person) can weaken relationships rather than strengthen them, getting in the way of resolving workplace conflict.

Gods can easily become demons and vice versa. For example, our lover might go from being a god to being a demon and back again. When she or he is doing what we want, we experience a god. When he or she brings up our fears, we see a demon. In a dysfunctional relationship, we cling with longing to the god even though the demon is what we are usually confronted with.

We mustn’t withdraw from human interaction because it can be difficult. It keeps us grounded and helps us to grow through real and challenging situations. Also, we never know when one of those beautiful, treasured moments of life will appear; someone unexpectedly expresses their appreciation for us, something heals, a conflict is resolved. We do not need to decide which community to belong to. We just live life to the best of our ability and follow our interests and we will find ourselves within a community of people; some we will love, some we will find tedious. That’s how it should be. We will have the perfect soil for growth.

RECOVERING INNER CLARITY AND PEACE (FOUR PARTS) Getting out of the box 1. Look for the signs of the box (blame, justification, horribilization, common box styles, etc.). 2. Find an out-of-the-box place (out-of-the-box relationships, memories, activities, places, etc.). 3. Ponder the situation anew (i.e., from this out-of-the-box perspective). Ask • What are this person’s or people’s challenges, trials, burdens, and pains? • How am I, or some group of which I am a part, adding to these challenges, trials, burdens, and pains? • In what other ways have I or my group neglected or mistreated this person or group? • In what ways are my better-than, I-deserve, worsethan, and need-to-be-seen-as boxes obscuring the truth about others and myself and interfering with potential solutions? • What am I feeling I should do for this person or group? What could I do to help? Staying out of the box 4. Act upon what I have discovered; do what I am feeling I should do.

RECOVERING INNER CLARITY AND PEACE (FOUR PARTS) Getting out of the box 1. Look for the signs of the box (blame, justification, horribilization, common box styles, etc.). 2. Find an out-of-the-box place (out-of-the-box relationships, memories, activities, places, etc.).

Stories can be incredibly powerful and beautiful devices that form and assist our perception and understanding of the world. However, according to twentieth-century American author Kurt Vonnegut, stories rarely tell the truth. After studying stories from an anthropological standpoint, examining the relationships with various cultures, Vonnegut found that stories and myths across many cultures share consistent similar shapes that can typically be broken down into just a few main categories. These shapes can be found graphing the course of a protagonist’s journey through a story along an axis of good and ill fortune. In all stories, someone or something starts somewhere, either in a good place, bad place, or neutral place. Then things happen related to that person which is conveyed as good or bad, bringing the character up and down the axis of fortune as they traverse forward through the story. Then, the story ends and its shape reveals itself. Vonnegut discovered that many popular stories follow common, consistent curves and spikes up and down the good/ill axis and that most end with the protagonist higher on the axis than where they started. However, what’s perhaps most interesting about Vonnegut’s analysis is this argument that these shapes, and consequently most stories, lie. Vonnegut proposed that a more honest, realistic story shape is simply a straight line. In a story of this shape, things still happen and characters still change, but the story maintains ambiguity around whether or not the events that occur are conclusively good or bad. According to Vonnegut, Hamlet is the closest literary representation of real life. “We are so seldom told the truth. In Hamlet-Shakespeare tells us that we don’t know enough about life to know what the good news is and the bad news is and we respond to that.” One story medium that seems to inadvertently coincide with this idea, is the medium of the television series. The goal of TV series is to keep viewers watching as long as possible. Each episode must be an engaging enough story to keep the viewer watching until the end, but each episode must also be left unresolved enough so the larger season-long and series-long stories continue and the viewer is interested in watching all the following episodes. In order to keep the whole thing going, none of the stories can reach a conclusion, and thus, the main characters can’t find ultimate peace or freedom from the uncertainty between good and ill-fortune. Of course, most shows don’t qualify as the straight-line shape in Vonnegut’s analysis, because most shows attempt to convey conclusively good and bad fortunes within them. However merely by the requirements of the medium TV series are forced to self-impose the same sort of universal truth that Vonnegut suggests. That neither the viewer nor the characters in a series can ever know what anything that’s so-called “good” or “bad” in one episode might cause in the next. And that on a fundamental level, the changes in each episode are futile because they are a part of a never-ending cycle of change through conflict and resolution, for the mere sake of its continuation, with no aim of a final resolution or reveal of what’s ultimately good or bad. Of course, eventually, a show reaches its series end when it stops working or runs its natural course. But the show fights its whole life to stay away from this moment. A good TV series, a series that we don’t want to end, is only a series that we don’t want to end because it can’t seem to resolve itself. In this, the format of Tv series also shows us that there is meaning, engagement, and entertainment within the endless cycle of change, regardless of its potential universal futility. And that perhaps change in life can exist not for the sake of some conclusion or ultimate state of peace, but a continuation of itself for the sake of itself. And perhaps the ability to be in this cycle of continued change for the sake of change is the actual good fortune.

When you embark on a journey to uncover and resolve underlying conflicts or feelings, and don’t allow yourself to be fooled by any illusions of what is truly troubling you, you may learn something important about the function and purpose of your disordered eating. You may discover how it helps to distract you from the issues in your life that overwhelm you, that you haven’t yet learned how to deal with effectively. And you may discover how effectively it distracts you, moment to moment, from the fear of facing things head on, from the pain of past hurts. No wonder it can be so addictive. The relief you get, however, is only temporary. The disordered eating distracts you only temporarily from the emotional stress you are experiencing. It doesn’t do anything to make the stress go away. Although what you are doing with food distracts you from your sadness, your anger, or your fear, it doesn’t help to resolve problems. In fact, it helps to make them worse. The stress inside worsens and the disordered eating behavior increases. The real issues never do get resolved. When we decide to follow our dream of being free from disordered eating, what is

When you choose Service to Others, you are deciding you will put someone else before yourself. We don’t mean as a martyr would, because you still have to survive. However, most of the time, if you choose to serve others, you choose unity over separation, love over fear, and forgiveness over hate.

In a review of research on relationships and mental health, researchers found that “improving relationships improves mental health.” Your partner can help you get through tough times and provide stability in your life. Studies show that people in happy relationships have fewer depressive symptoms than those who are single, divorced, separated, widowed, or in troubled relationships.

In a study on the top ten regrets of the dying, relationship issues accounted for half of the major regrets. People said things like, “I should have said ‘I love you’ a lot more,” and “I worked too much and never made time for my family.” If we want to avoid regrets at the end of our lives, we must not wait until we’re close to death to prioritize relationships over work, status, and other things that don’t contribute as much to our ultimate happiness.

According to the study, “Better Together: The Impact of Exercising with a Romantic Partner,” exercising with a romantic partner makes you more successful at the activity. If you struggle to stick to a workout routine or get in shape, exercising with a loved one can help.

When you choose Service to Others, you are deciding you will put someone else before yourself. We don’t mean as a martyr would, because you still have to survive. However, most of the time, if you choose to serve others, you choose unity over separation, love over fear, and forgiveness over hate.

You can't force someone to love and value you. But you can do your best to make them feel loved, cared for, and appreciated.

Love begins at that point where you realize that your partner is just as human and flawed as you are.

But, [here his voice became impassioned] you must keep in mind that, although human needs are universal, humanity remains divided into two great classes: the herren [masters] and knechte [servants]. The ‘top dogs’ still lord it over the ‘bottom dogs,’ and this vast inequality generates misery and violence. Let us, by all means, develop the theory of basic needs. But if we do not incorporate that theory into a theory of society that reflects the relationship of top dogs to bottom dogs, we will not be able to explain or resolve violent conflicts.

Each of us must make it our priority and personal responsibility to stay in harmony with our fellowman. Harmony is not just about creating a pleasant environment; it produces synergy. The best way to explain synergy is to say that a hand is much more effective than five fingers working independently. I tested this theory one day using dumbbells. I wanted to determine the maximum number of pounds each of my fingers could lift independently. Two pounds was the limit. I then tested my capability with my fingers working together. I rationalized that five fingers times two pounds each should yield a maximum of ten pounds. Not so. I lifted thirty-five pounds!

Self-Awareness Assessing our feelings, interests, values, and strengths; maintaining self-confidence. Self-Management Regulating emotions to handle stress, control impulses, and persevere in overcoming obstacles Social Awareness Understanding different perspectives and empathizing with others; recognizing and appreciating similarities and differences; using family, school, and community resources effectively Relationship Skills Maintaining healthy relationships based on cooperation; resisting inappropriate social pressure; preventing, managing, and resolving interpersonal conflicts; seeking help when needed Responsible Decision Making Using a variety of considerations, including ethical, academic, and community-related standards to make choices and decisions

After Russia’s deliberate and coordinated assault on US democratic elections, recall that Trump downplayed the incident and dismissed the intelligence community’s conclusions; he questioned whether the interference was perpetrated by Moscow; he speculated that others could have been behind it; he promoted conspiracy theories; he said he believed Putin’s word that Russia was not responsible; and he suggested it would be a mistake for the United States to ruin the possibility of a good relationship with Moscow over the matter. The collective national reaction was not the patriotism, unity, and resolve of 9/11. It was internal conflict, and in the meantime, the Russians got away with it.