Conflict Resolved

For at least the past ten years one of my struggles has been how I handle interpersonal conflict. I'm often tempted not to handle it and/or let it eat away at me to the point that it's my primary focus. It's seemed odd to me that this is so difficult for me given that (1) most people regard me as a straight-shooter who calls it like it is and (2) I'm an attorney and have generally been happy to go to bat for others and with regard to non-inter-personal things like consumer issues, etc.

Over time I've realized that there are several obstacles between healthy conflict resolution and me. Carter pointed out one issue--some of my early attempts at handling some family matters blew up in my face and were very painful and disappointing, thus it's logical that I avoid it now. For years I struggled with the sadness associated with this conflict and finally dealt with it in college with the help of a therapist. At the end of therapy, I spoke with the family member about how difficult it had all been for me, and I was given the awful "I'm sorry you feel that way" line which basically just means "whatever." Needless to say that negative experience helped make me gun-shy.

I think another obstacle is my pride. I hate needing anyone, being vulnerable, and admitting that I may have (gasp!) illogical feelings. After all a dispute with AT&T over a phone bill isn't going to cause tears, pain, or require that I admit that I'm hurt--that you can hurt me.

So over the past few years, I've forced myself to tell people when they hurt my feelings. It's been challenging for me, but I think I'm so much better for it. And it's getting easier.

This latest conflict was something that I would have ignored in the past--and just resulted in me avoiding the offender, but given that I'm trying to live in Christian community and do unto others as I'd have them do unto me (and Lord knows, I hurt people's feelings without realizing it and need to be told so I can avoid it in the future), I confronted him about his unacceptable behavior. We had a good conversation, and he took complete responsibility for his actions (and even contacted my friends who were there to discuss it with them) and asked for my forgiveness. So now I've yet another positive experience with conflict resolution.

In other news, we had a fun Halloween party on our roof last week complete with a fire. Not many people get to have fires on their roof:) Here's my best pirate face. Unfortunately the roof was too cold to wear my pirate skirt (and really do pirates wear skirts?). I also drank my very first po'mosa (poor man's mimosa--Miller High Life & orange juice....and surprisingly not bad, particularly since I hate beer). Saturday was a trip to Nashville with friends to see William Fitzsimmons in concert, play frisbee in the park with Brian, and have dinner (and yummy mojitos) at Rumba with Isabella and Chasie. Fun, fun, fun!

p.s. I'm thankful that my boss offered to let me stay at his mountain cabin (complete with a waterfall in the backyard!) this weekend.