Merry Christmas! As you prepare to gather with loved ones, the fear of uncomfortable conversations may loom large. At work, you might manage risk skillfully, but navigating family dynamics can be a more delicate dance. Having at least one family member I love from afar, I understand. It’s part of why I wrote the DIY Conflict Resolution book. I hope it provides you the guidance you need when dealing with that one family member who always seems to stir up a bit of apprehension.
Mentally Preparing Yourself
The Seven Choices will help you mentally prepare to interact with the family member you dread seeing.
- Forgive yourself for not having this resolved yet. We all have something we’re working on, whether we admit it or not.
- Acknowledge yourself for wanting this visit to be different. Not everyone will take action, which means their conflicts will persist in some way.
- Forgive the world–and your family–for creating this conflict. If it were easy to resolve, someone would have done it already.
- Free the emotions. Before you go, do the cursing, crying, yelling, or whatever you need to do so you can be focused on having a pleasant experience. (Below, we’ll discuss how to create it.)
- Clear your mind. This visit doesn’t have to be like prior ones. Be open to something new.
- Assume you know nothing about this person. Go into the gathering with a willingness to learn something new about them and connect anew.
- Listen with your third ear for the hurts you can heal. Most of the time, when someone is being awful to us, there are unresolved hurts driving the behavior. Even when we didn’t directly cause that pain, we can sometimes help heal it with simple acts of kindness.
Listening Beyond the Surface
Once you have mentally prepared yourself to interact with this person, you can start taking more effective actions. Before you do that, get a little clearer on where the conflict lies.
Action One: Define the Conflict
Family members often expect others in the same bloodline or raised in the same household to adopt the same values. Even when we do, the choices we make might be different. For example, my sisters and I might all value family, but that doesn’t mean we will demonstrate that in the same ways. Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages can give you more insight on the different ways we show that we care. For now, try to define the conflict between you and your family member succinctly, using this framework:
[Name] and I disagree about [issue].
You might have several issues you disagree about, but focus on the one that gets you most upset. You won’t necessarily resolve everything this visit. However, you can make progress and keep moving toward a better relationship (or at least a more tolerable holiday).
Action Two: Identify the Personal Interests
With a bite-sized issue to resolve, the task seems easier. When you also know what is driving your responses to this person, you can take the wheel and drive in a new direction. Make sure you have clear answers to the below questions.
- What do you expect from this relationship?
- What do you need from it?
- What do you want from it, the visit, and for your future?
- What do you think the other person expects, needs, and wants?
Action Three: Play with the Possibilities
The portions of our brains that try to keep us safe also tend to characterize people in simple, binary ways: good or bad, right or wrong, threatening or safe. However, our brains play tricks on us. Life is not that simple. Fortunately, that means there are a lot of possible solutions to our family conflicts. Allow your brain to consider as many of them as possible without judging them as they come up. The goal is to see the full range of options. It could be that the one you’ve thought too unusual to work actually does.
Action Four: Create the Future
Armed with several possible solutions to your conflict(s) with this family member, you will likely have more confidence that you can manage this visit. You might even have a great time by having a plan of action if things get out of hand. When I visited the family member who abused me as a child, I learned to:
- Clarify intent before reacting. Sometimes I was being overly sensitive and looking for an attack. At other times, I was being attacked and needed to protect or even remove myself.
- Help others understand my perspective. I was careful not to ask anyone to choose sides, leaving me and my abuser space to work through the past without the distraction of others’ opinions on what was best for us. Only we could determine that.
- Acknowledge others’ perspectives. You don’t have to agree with someone to listen to them and validate their experiences. Yet considering their viewpoints can be its own love language.
- Have an exit strategy. Despite a lot of healing from our past together, my abuser and I could not seem to break the cycle. Wanting to please other family members, we tried, but the primary change that occurred was the form of abuse. No longer physically vulnerable, the emotional abuse continued. Sometimes, I could tolerate it. In case I couldn’t I made sure I knew how to take public transportation or get a ride home. I didn’t need to make a scene and spoil anyone else’s visit, but I also didn’t have to stay where I was being harmed.
Action Five: Stay on PARR
Conflict resolution is largely a mental game because conflicts gain complexity when left unresolved too long. This is why Action Five is not really one action. It’s a process:
- Plan
- Act
- Revise
- Repeat
This holiday season, embrace the spirit of Third Ear Conflict Resolution. The legacy of harmonious interactions and productive resolutions will undoubtedly leave a lasting impact on your personal and professional life.