I was recently asked this question: what good is empathy in a conflict if you just can’t see eye to eye? It’s a fair question, especially when you feel deeply wronged or you just can’t see an end to a conflict. In the personal sphere, isn’t it best to just break off the relationship? In short, yes and no. There
Kindness is not something that you would associate with conflict. As I have written previously, it can be used as a strategy to stop conflict from escalating and to resolve it. Its power is in recognizing the harm that has been caused and attempting to put it right. It lets all people affected by the conflict know that you see
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It was a rainy afternoon and I was walking home after a long day of life admin which had left me with no tangible results. I was feeling frustrated and despondent about what to do next to establish my new life in my new city and country. Italian bureaucracy is complex, to put it politely. As I turned a corner
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I’m going to ask you a question which I want you answer honestly. When you think about people in general, do you believe that we are all just doing the best that we can with the lessons we have learnt in life? Or do you believe instead that people just make unwise decisions that lead to living life badly? This
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Conflict arouses powerful emotions. When you are under their spell, you can do strange things. It’s especially painful when you are in conflict with a person you once loved deeply or had a strong emotional bond with. Maybe, you just quite liked being friends with this person that you can now no longer stand to be around. Relationships end for
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Explore the pros and cons of “killing with kindness” in conflict. Learn when it helps, when it backfires, and how to use kindness with clarity.
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It’s hard to imagine forgiving a person who has imprisoned you, deprived you of your humanity and killed your family. That’s exactly what Dr. Edith Eger, a Holocaust survivor of Auschwitz did. In her book, The Choice, she described her harrowing account of life and death in several concentration camps and how she came to terms with the trauma of
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In this two- part blog post, I’ll be writing about the things that hold us back from asking for what we want. The second part will focus on ways to ask for what you want without it leading to conflict or ill-feeling. I’ve struggled with this and I’m sure that you have too. It’s no surprise, we all find it
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I watched a political debate recently and felt drained by the experience. Six educated, grownups were reduced to squabbling children over an issue that has polarised the nation. They were speaking over each other, interrupting, arrogantly enforcing their view and asking questions that had been framed in a way to reveal the other as a stupid. This post is about
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Sometimes, ignoring conflict makes commercial sense. It’s also a good option when all the other person is doing is insulting you and nothing good can come out of you responding, constructively or otherwise. Doing nothing should be part of your conflict resolution toolkit. This blog post is about those times when you reach out to somebody and they ignore you.
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