Conflict-free communication: simple and effective rules of conduct

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“Conflict” is a small word, but how many different thoughts, associations and even emotions it can evoke! Let's listen to ourselves, to how we react to it.

The first reaction can be frankly negative: conflict is associated with misunderstanding, irritation, quarrel, insult. But why do most people perceive conflict as something negative? Is it because it is not always possible to get out of a conflict situation with dignity, not to say unnecessary things, not to hurt the opponent? If you put aside emotions and think carefully, it becomes clear that conflict-free communication is a utopia, it is possible only under conditions of complete indifference to one's own needs and the needs of others.

Conflicts are a natural phenomenon, generated by uniqueness, unrepeatability. A conflict situation encourages people to solve important problems, to understand, to find ways to satisfy their desires, taking into account the interests of another person. Consent is the result of successfully overcoming a conflict, when there are no winners and losers, offended and dissatisfied. The rules of behavior during a conflict seem very simple, familiar from childhood, but in practice we often neglect them.

Empathy

First, empathy is important in a conflict, as the desire and ability to most fully understand and feel another person. We must always remember that there is no smoke without fire. Every human thought and emotion has its own basis, and it is extremely important to realize and feel it in order to choose words that are important for this person, to convince him, without pressure and insults. Each person intuitively feels how we treat and perceive him. Even a smile does not mask contempt or irony. Instead of learning to hide our true attitude towards a person behind a mask of impeccable politeness, we should cultivate sincere respect for everyone. Every conflict is a life lesson that encourages us to self-development, to better realize the reasons for our behavior and the reasons for certain reactions of people.

Own yourself

Secondly, you should learn to control yourself, to cope with the waves of anger that have come at you. One of the psychological practices is the practice of “grounding” negative emotions. It consists in visualizing anger (it can be, for example, a pillar of fire, a burning ball of sparks, or something similar) and mentally directing it to the ground. However, during a conflict it is difficult to focus on emotions and immerse yourself completely in your imagination.

It is easier to use the yogic breathing method (shut up for a while, take a few slow, deep breaths), while trying to rise above the situation, try to look at yourself and your opponent from the side, imagine your face distorted by anger and immediately remind yourself that it is not the emotion that should control us, but we should control the emotion. Another psychological method of self-mastery is the method of presenting a friend in a funny way (for example, in a clown's outfit). Of course, the technique can work, but mocking a person, even mentally, is not a very worthy act.

Assertiveness

Thirdly, in psychology there is a concept of “non-conflict behavior”, or assertiveness, which implies not only respect for oneself and one’s opponent, but also honesty (refusal of various kinds of manipulations, tricks), recognition that every opinion has the right to be (even if it seems to us wrong, absurd, unprofitable for us). Each person has the right to their own position (even if this position is unacceptable to us, and we clearly realize that a friend is deeply mistaken). If we are from the very beginning set on cooperation, and not on defending our interests at any cost, then we can hope for a constructive resolution of the conflict.

I am a statement

Fourth, we use the “I-statement” technique: instead of “poking” and pointing out our friend’s mistakes, we try to outline our needs and point out the reasons for our behavior. It’s hard not to agree that there’s a huge difference between the statements “You’re constantly interrupting me! As much as you can! Let me say it, or I’ll forget!” and “It’s extremely difficult for me to speak when I’m interrupted. I can’t concentrate on my thoughts, and I’m starting to get nervous.” Frankly voicing our thoughts and feelings is a great courage, because we open up to another person. But it needs to be done, so we give the opponent a chance to better understand the situation, to better understand our needs, we’re not being deceitful, and therefore, we earn respect and trust in ourselves.

In addition, we should get rid of the habit of making excuses and stubbornly standing our ground. Sometimes it’s very difficult to frankly admit that the opponent’s arguments are more weighty than ours, but it’s necessary to learn to do this. Over time, we will begin to understand that admitting mistakes and changing our beliefs is not shameful at all, it is shameful to be stubborn just for the sake of image.

And there is also a rather interesting technique that allows you to prevent the development of a conflict. It is called “psychological aikido”. This is a technique for reacting to criticism, which consists of three stages: agreeing with the arguments of the interlocutor, strengthening them and addressing the interlocutor with a proposal and a question about resolving the conflict issue. So, a person who accuses you of something is waiting for your reaction, excuses, dissatisfaction, aggression, and instead may be completely confused by your agreement with the claim, recognition of the conflict and an attempt to resolve it.

Our life is impossible to imagine without conflicts, they encourage development, improvement, reflection (but these completely positive things happen to us only under conditions of decent and balanced behavior during the conflict). Successfully resolving a conflict is an extraordinary skill that a person acquires with experience, of course, if they are not ashamed to admit their mistakes, are interested in self-control methods, and learn to perceive the world around them positively and treat others, who are not like themselves, with respect.