Dear Alessa,

I think a fear of rejection was the thing that was holding me back the most from being able to connect with my empathy during conflict. What if I put myself out there, do all of the right things and it still doesn’t work out?

Then one day I realised that I was only upset because I felt rejected. And if I’m already rejected there is nothing to fear because it has already happened. I can stay true to myself and if things don’t work out, I can say that I tried and give myself comfort knowing that I did my best.

This is such a profound revelation: that you don’t need to fear rejection, because it has already happened (in your adopted family, or even with your biological mother, I assume?). And so you chose not to react from that fear, but rather, to open your heart and be vulnerable, i.e. speak openly about how you’re feeling during the conflict (if I understood you well?).

And so you remain open and compassionate with the person, even if what they’re doing is hurting you, right? You don’t close your heart and react defensively, but you remain loving but can also express what’s bothering you, like you did in this past conflict.

That’s a great strategy, Alessa, and I think it’s the basis for non-violent communication. And I must say I’ve been learning from you and applying the same strategy. And I see that I actually feel better when my heart remains open, when I’m not defending myself, but simply expressing how I feel.

But it’s hard to do that in the heat of conflict, when something really hurtful comes our way. But you’re right, in that case, when we feel our emotions run high, we need to pause and ask ourselves if this feeling is familiar to us and when is the first time we’ve felt it. And it usually leads to a childhood experience, i.e. something we’ve felt with our parents or caretakers.

So I really like your advice on how to regulate our strong emotions during conflict:

I have learned to view any kind of negativity in my mind with suspicion that this kind of narrative might be active.

Who does it sound like? Who does it remind me of is a question I ask myself to step back from identifying with negative thoughts and see them for what they are.

When is the earliest time I remember feeling this way? Is another good question to ask myself when I’m emotional to unpick traumatic memories from the present.

I can see how that can help us calm down and realize that ok, this is hurtful, but it is especially hurtful because my mother used to tell me this (for example). And so we can dial down the emotion and react from a calmer place, where we’re less upset about the person’s allegations.

I think I’m lucky in that my core stress response is to shut down and my instinct is to leave the situation. I have to force myself to stay in a stressful situation. Because my instinct is to take breaks, it does help me to emotionally regulate.

Yes, in a way that’s a positive thing you rather taking a break from the situation in order to calm down, rather than staying and getting ramped up even further. That’s a helpful stress response in most cases, because it allows you to take breaks and self-regulate. It’s self-care.

The only downside that I potentially see is that you’re perhaps tempted to leave and withdraw from the situation (not just for a short while, but for a longer period), even if it would be better to stay and sort of “stand your ground”. But I know this is very hard for you, because the automatic reaction is to leave. It’s a self-protective reaction, and I think it’s okay to honor that and not push yourself over the limits.

I think you really did great in this past conflict and have shown an example of non-violent communication. And I’ve learned a lot from you ❤️

Hi Anita

I know what you mean about being black and white when in the midst of conflict. I used to experience this all the time during conflict. There tended to be a seed of truth in why I did it but also a whole lot of non-related responses to triggers within me that came up as well as me carrying over historical interactions with the person I was in conflict with that supported my view. So, going into my thought process, I believed: “This person is wrong in their rationale, their perspective is incorrect, they tend to be in the wrong with this type of thing historically, and I have shown them grace that they did not deserve in past related and non-related interactions”. So unpacking it was hard because there were so many things involved. It was quite confronting for me. First for me was to recognise that other people can be hurt just as much as me – that their degree of pain might even be more and maybe the solution for the conflict in that moment is to look beyond what’s coming up for me but I can address it with them later. Then it’s seperating the core reason from the conflict from the small ways that the current interaction is possibly making it worse as in the way I’m approaching the person is driving the interaction in a direction that isn’t helpful. Why be my own reason for not successfully getting my point across – if that makes sense? So there has to be patience and that’s SUPER hard for me when in conflict bec I am the type of person to not be able to let things go, be agressive, confrontational, intimidating. So no wonder the other person would go into defense mode and, as Alessa said earlier in this thread, defending is one of the characteristics that makes conflict resolution difficult.

Black and white thinking is a cognitive distortion tho. It simplifies the situation for us and tends to cast our proposed solution in a certain light (for me it was a good light) and the others in the opposite. My solution would put my current needs first, most often at the expense of the other person who I saw not only as in the wrong in the first place, which was what the conflict started over, but also in the wrong at that point in time in that they could not see what was wrong with their solution and that mine was better (yes, I thought this…) so that, in my eyes they were doubly wrong.

In the end, when outside of toxic situations that really are impossible, the focus should be on all parties feeling heard, included and validated and black and white thinking doesn’t help to achieve that.

Hope that helps ❤️

Dear Lucidity:

I know what you mean about being black and white when in the midst of conflict. I used to experience this all the time during conflict… First for me was to recognise that other people can be hurt just as much as me”-

Before I get locked into black and white thinking again, I will open myself to the possibility, or probability that the other person is hurt too. Thank you for this, lucidity!

“So, there has to be patience and that’s SUPER hard for me when in conflict bec I am the type of person to not be able to let things go, be aggressive, confrontational, intimidating.”-

Are you saying that at times, during conflict, you are aggressive, confrontational and intimidating? Or did I somehow misunderstand..? If I understood correctly, I’d be curious to know in what ways you’ve been these things (your image on the YouTube channel is that of a soft spoken, gentle woman)

“Black and white thinking is a cognitive distortion tho. It simplifies the situation…”- agreed. Black and white/ all or nothing/ binary thinking is adequate for the understanding of simple, black and white situations, but it either distorts or makes the understanding of complex situations impossible.

“In the end, when outside of toxic situations that really are impossible, the focus should be on all parties feeling heard, included and validated and black and white thinking doesn’t help to achieve that. Hope that helps ❤️”-

Agreed, and yest, this helps, thank you!

❤️ Anita