Conflict, not control brings out strength
Don’t paint your relationship with your pain. Conflict is there to discover how to leverage your struggle for strength, not control.
This week’s question comes from Lee-Anne in Fourways:
“Why does my relationship feel like such a struggle? We used to be in love and wanted the same things. Now it seems like I am bombarded with challenges that I can’t control.”
Lee-Anne, imagine that the fight you just had is like a ball of colour. You took your feelings, put them into words and handed it to your partner. “This is how I feel.” Then you partner defends himself and says that your opinion is inappropriate. So he hands you back your ball. The colour of the ball might have turned from red to purple, because your partner’s contribution added blue to the mix. What just happened?
We experience conflict in our relationships when two people have a difference of opinion. Or at least that is what we think.
Something else might be happening, and by being more aware of it, you can learn how to harness it and make your relationship stronger.
When you are conscious of relationship stuff, you will discover that conflict is designed to help you grow. What might seem like a struggle is a chessboard where you learn to master life’s strategies as a strong contender.
Conflict starts in our hearts. When something your partner does disturbs you, you think that they did something wrong.
What is actually happening is that inside you something from long ago got triggered. What you forgot you buried there long ago just became activated.
The “struggling” you experience, actually comes from resisting those feelings that just came up again, but you do not recognise them. These feelings are rooted in the fear of insecurities that you protect, because you believe that they can hurt you.
This is all unconscious and when you don’t deal with it, it becomes that colour ball which is passed on from one to the other in the relationship.
The impact is that instead of controlling your feelings, you attempt to control your partner’s behaviour. And because you can’t do that, it feels like you are struggling.
The truth is that we cannot control people. Our only power is to control what goes on inside us.
It certainly feels like we can’t control what goes on inside us and therefore we try to control our environment instead.
We rationalise, blame and try to figure it out. Our tendency is to act and to try to fix things like sending me this question.
Here is why passing a ball back and forth in a relationship does not work: When we externalise what is actually going on inside of us, we paint our relationships with our pain. Passing on that ball involves the heart and mind of another person activating their pain centres as well. Now it becomes harder to break from it. The answer lies in dealing with our problems on the inside first.
Fear is at the root of our struggle. Each event in our lives is designed to help us evolve. When we defend our pain or try to protect ourselves from feeling it, it will make us weaker. In the relationship our partners represent that other part of us that we wish to hide and avoid looking at. That is not the problem.
The real “problem” exists within us. But there is a way to leverage conflict in a relationship for personal strength.
Since we can’t control what happens to us in life (or in our relationships) it makes more sense to develop a new strategy with a fresh perspective.
Stop, take your focus back and look at the game you are playing. If you want to use conflict to become strong you need to be honest with yourself about your insecurity. If you face it, the power it has over you will fade and so will your inner resistance (which leads to struggle).
* What is the answer to your question? Ask it on www.adele-green.com/askADELE/
Adelé Green is the author of ‘Can You See Me Naked: Grow in a conscious relationship’. Her blogs, online chat show and coaching courses support transformation for women during difficult times.