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