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Rage is a Four-Letter Word

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Cinnie Noble

Rage is a word that describes a strong emotion that sometimes evolves when we are in conflict. It is not necessarily an immediate reaction. Rather, it is one that often signals an escalation of feelings such as anger and hurt about a person and/or an issue. The build-up erupts into a state of being furious, incensed, and out of control of our words, thoughts, and emotions.

This week’s blog considers that rage, like some other ‘four-letter words’ stated fiercely, is an extreme reaction. The evolution of emotions that becomes rage often seems to be a consequence of continuing disagreement in which issues that are important to us are not being resolved. This is usually accompanied by a sense that our needs, hopes, and expectations are not going to be met. I also think rage arises when we perceive and fear that our deep-felt beliefs, values, and feelings are being ignored.

This week’s ConflictMastery™ Quest(ions) blog invites you to consider a time when you became enraged in conflict or experienced someone else’s rage.

  • Generally, how do you describe what happens to you when you become enraged?
  • What are the specific feelings you are experiencing at these times?
  • Considering a specific incident when you became enraged, how do you describe your reaction at that particular time?
  • What was the result of your reaction – for you? The other person?
  • What was clear to you about what led to your reaction? What wasn’t clear?
  • How did the other person react to your rage?
  • When you have experienced another person’s rage at you, how did you react internally? Externally?
  • In that case, what did you understand about the other person or the situation that you hadn’t before she or he raged at you? What became less clear?
  • If you want to change a rage reaction (your own) from erupting in the future, what may you do differently?
  • What may you do differently in the future in response to someone who reacts to you in rage?

What other ConflictMastery™ Quest(ions) may you add here?

Posted in Emotions in Conflict, Out of Control, Reactions | Leave a comment

Disputes: A Clash of Imperfect Ideas

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Cinnie Noble

It is common in the midst of conflict that we become more assertive about our perspective – especially when the other person is equally or more assertive about hers or his. One or both of us may push our viewpoints to the extent that things escalate and stronger feelings evolve – accompanied by even more push back. It is as though both of us are convinced and have to convince the other that our view is the perfect and correct one.

The expression ‘a clash of imperfect ideas’ is one I read in the book The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach and it struck me as a great way of viewing conflict. After all, no one idea is perfect and no one of us is perfect. Though we may know that intellectually, conflict often brings out a certain righteousness that explicitly or implicitly says otherwise.

It seems to me that to prevent the unnecessary escalation of conflict, thinking in terms of this reframe – a clash of imperfect ideas – may alleviate the pressure or expectation that there is a right and wrong about the situation and one another – when we are in conflict. Somehow the notion that there doesn’t have to be a perfect idea reduces the energy that goes into fighting for a right and wrong. At least, that is one way of reappraising conflict!

This week’s ConflictMastery™ Quest(ions) blog picks up on previous ones relating to this theme and invites you to consider a current dispute in which you and the other person have become polarized in your perspectives.

  • What is the clash about?
  • What is your position on the issues in dispute?
  • What is perfect about your perspective? What is imperfect about it?
  • What is the other person’s position on the issues in dispute?
  • What is perfect about her or his perspective? What is imperfect about it?
  • Which idea(s) do(es) not really work as a mutually agreeable solution?
  • What idea may be a perfect solution for you both?
  • If this last solution is not something that you can live with, what is still clashing for you?
  • What other choices may be acceptable?
  • What has unclashed for you?

What other ConflictMastery™ Quest(ions) may you add here?

Posted in Attributions, Choice in Conflict | 2 Comments

Yelling in Conflict

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Cinnie Noble

As long as I can remember when I heard people yell at each other, or one person yelling at someone, I reacted internally with fear. I do not know how to articulate my fears. I just know there was something unnerving for me. When I began to work in the conflict management field I was increasingly exposed to situations in which people yelled and I became more and more aware of the range of things that seemed to incite people to scream at one another. To do my work effectively, I reflected on my angst and tried to understand what was happening for people who yell.

Based on my observations, it is evident that people yell at one another (or one yells at someone) for a wide range of reasons, such as when they are very hurt, as an outlet for built up frustrations and other feelings, to win a fight, to make a point, to reject someone or an idea, to assert power, to put someone down, to defend one’s view, or to hurt another person. It may be that for people who yell other ways of expressing what is important to them have not worked. Or, the emotional pain may be so deep that yelling seems like the only way of coping.

For all intents and purposes, yelling is not a productive way to manage interpersonal conflict. What I have seen is that it often serves to heighten the tension, discord, and emotions. What’s not as obvious for me is whether people who yell when in conflict are aware or care in those moments if it helps or hinders the situation or the relationship. I think not.

If you tend to yell or can think of an occasion or occasions when you did so, please consider a specific situation when answering today’s ConflictMastery™ Quest(ions):

  • What happened in the specific situation that resulted in you yelling at the other person?
  • What did you yell?
  • What did it feel like to yell?
  • What were you aiming to achieve by yelling?
  • What point(s) do you know you made when you yelled? What point(s) did you not get across?
  • What were you feeling at the time about the other person? Yourself?
  • How did the other person respond?
  • How did yelling help the relationship? Hinder it?
  • When someone has yelled at you how did you feel about yourself? The other person?
  • Besides yelling, what else may have worked in the specific situation you referred to at the beginning?

What other ConflictMastery™ Quest(ions) may you add here?

Posted in Arguing, Choice in Conflict | Leave a comment

The Straw that Broke the Camel’s Back

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Cinnie Noble

I have used the expression “the straw that broke the camel’s back” or a similar idiom when referring to an incident that pushes an ongoing situation too far across a line of tolerance. I didn’t know the derivation of this particular expression and when I looked it up I found the meaning is consistent with this same notion.

According to Wikipedia, the straw that broke the camel’s back is from an Arabic proverb about “how a camel is loaded beyond its capacity to move or stand”. It is a “reference to any process by which cataclysmic failure (a broken back) is achieved by a seemingly inconsequential addition, a single straw. This also gives rise to the phrase ‘the last/final straw’, used when something is deemed to be the last in a line of unacceptable occurrences.”   A similar proverb is “the drop that makes the cup overflow”.

Most of us have likely encountered situations in which something that seems innocuous triggers off a noxious outcome. At this point we may blurt out words we cannot take back or otherwise react in ways that leave some sort of damage. This week’s blog invites you to consider a situation when this has happened to you, as you answer the following ConflictMastery™ Quest(ions):

  • What is the situation? What was the “straw that broke the camel’s back” for you in that interaction?
  • What more specifically made that the breaking point?
  • How did you react?
  • What happened as a consequence?
  • What sorts of things had built up for you and between you that resulted in that outcome?
  • At what point may it have been advantageous for you to save the straw from being the one- more-time or one-last-thing in the situation?
  • What could you have done at that time?
  • What stopped you from doing or saying that?
  • When you have observed “the straw that broke the camel’s back” for someone else, how would you describe what occurred?
  • What do you think has to happen in the future to prevent the camel’s back from breaking?

What other ConflictMastery™ Quest(ions) may you add here?

Posted in Metaphors, Reactions | 2 Comments

Forgiving When Asked

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Cinnie Noble

Forgive me. I apologize. I was an idiot. You didn’t deserve what I said. I was so wrong. I didn’t mean it. You are a saint for putting up with me. Will you please forgive me? In whatever form requests for forgiveness take, it is not incumbent upon the receiver to forgive. For some reason many people think they ‘should’ forgive or at least say they do. It’s just not always that straightforward.

When it comes to interpersonal conflict, we all have our own range of thresholds – what is forgivable and what is not. The nature of the relationship and history, the degree of hurt we experience, timing, what was said or done, how it was said or done, and what deeply held value or need was threatened, are just some of the variables that have an impact on our willingness to forgive.

Though we may think forgiving is a required response to an apology or request for forgiveness, the reality is that for many people some things are unforgiveable. In these cases, any amount of apologizing does not repair the pain and indelible marks left behind. There is just no rule about forgiving.

For this series of ConflictMastery™ Quest(ions) consider a situation in which someone in your life is asking or has asked for your forgiveness:

  • What is one incident that resulted in the other person asking you for your forgiveness?
  • What did she or he specifically say or do that pained you most?
  • How would you describe the impact on you?
  • What did she or he say by way of apologizing or asking for forgiveness?
  • What worked for you about that apology/request?
  • What didn’t work?
  • What, if anything, do you wish she or he had said or done differently by way of apologizing and asking for forgiveness?
  • If you think or feel you ‘should’ forgive, why is that?
  • If you want to forgive, what would it take for that to happen?
  • What do you think would happen if you don’t forgive? If you do?

What other ConflictMastery™ Quest(ions) may you add here?

Posted in Apologizing, Forgiving | 2 Comments