How to Find Peace in the Middle of Conflict

Most of the conflicts we have in our life happen because we're placing meaning onto a situation that honestly isn't there. How do we find real progress through the most difficult experiences and fights with the people that we love? You got to get yourself into safety first. Think about this as you enter any conflict. What's the direction you want to go to peace? So much of progress through conflict is.

Progress through your own inner conflict in.

How you show up in dealing with obstacles, debate, frustration, fights, upset about other people. Because maybe you're in a situation right now where you're really mad at somebody or you're in a relationship, you know, and your spouse is always upsetting you. And there's this thing that they always do, and it just pisses you off, and you still haven't figured out, Even though they do it all the time, it still gives you inner conflict, you inner turmoil. It upsets you. Like, you love the person, but you want to kill them. You know, I do think that most people make conflict too big. In fact, I often have to tell my clients, who are some of the most influential people in the world, some of the wealthiest people in the world, I have to tell them, you're not in conflict right now. And they're like, what? I'm like, this is not a conflict. No, we're this, we're that. I'm like, what you have right here is two people with different perceptions. That's not a conflict. So we're gonna talk about what, what, what do I mean when I talk about conflict? Because most people think they have a problem. They don't. They have a disagreement in perception. There's no problem there. That's a misunderstanding, not a conflict. That make sense? Often we blow things up. It's like, no, you just didn't understand what your husband was saying. There's not a huge conflict. There's no war. You're not going to be abandoned and left. It's just that right now you don't see eye to eye. And that doesn't mean that there's a conflict. It doesn't mean there's a battle. It doesn't mean there's like a catastrophe. It doesn't mean all these other things that we place on it. Right. Most of the conflicts we have in our life happen because we're placing meaning onto a situation, a person, an event that honestly isn't there. Like, we invented the meaning based on our preferences, not reality, based on our worries or our fears, not even what they actually said or did. Have you ever had that thing where you accuse somebody, you get mad at somebody, you get in a tearful, frightful upset, and all of a sudden they're like, yo, I wasn't even. That's not even what I. What's wrong with you? Have you ever been there? I've had a lot of those in, you know, especially when I was younger, I. I was just not good in relationships because I was a short spark plug. I was like, short fuse, as they say. Like, I grew up in a situation where there was so much violence and conflict around me. I, like, my head was all in a swivel looking for, like, danger. And so I brought that danger mode into a lot of relationships where there wasn't any danger, where there was nothing to be that upset about, where I was making a big thing at no big deals. Have you ever been there? So I. How do we work through all that? How do we find real progress through the most difficult experiences and struggles and fights with the people that we love? I think that today will be a surprise for you. I recognize that sometimes you're in a really bad place and you are in conflicts and battles and wars that it feels like you haven't been able to get out of. And so I want to thank you for being part of the growth day community. I want to thank you for being somebody who is working on yourself, especially in times when it feels dark, especially when you feel like you can't repair that relationship, especially when you actually are dealing with some jerks or some mean people or facing some true hatred and being in a relationship that could be dangerous or upsetting. I know that can be the reality for a lot of people. So I do encourage you, if you're in that place, to always make sure you seek out counsel, you seek out a therapist, you seek out a safe center. You seek out something. If you're way above, like, you're way.

Like.

Like the situations you're facing right now are way beyond, like, your capability, way beyond your knowing how to deal with it, or way beyond a place that's safe. You got to get yourself into safety first, and that's really important. You'll hear me talk about that as we go through progress, through conflict. A lot of it is a return to a baseline of some sense of safety or trust in the future with the situation or this person so that you can actually communicate what you're trying to communicate. So you can actually be in a state of progress to improving things versus in a constant state of defense. Right. And that'll be important. I do want to Share with you though, that most of life you could find a reason to be in defense mode versus progress mode. You can also find a lot of reasons in this modern world to be in self righteousness mode versus progress mode. You can think that you're always right and they're always wrong. I talk with people all the time, and especially, you know, the higher level you go up in high performance world. I know I'm preaching to the choir here. For many of you, like, you're the person of growth and learning and excellence and development of your life and you can't understand why other people won't develop themselves. And it frustrates you. And then you find yourself some days like, what's wrong with all these idiots? And the problem is sometimes you're approaching them like idiots and they know it and they feel it from you. And that ego can start taking over your relationships where you feel better than, smarter than, more correct, more right than everybody else all the time. You know, one of the greatest positions you can ever have in any conflict is the ability to go, I sense this, I felt this, I could be wrong. Is this what happened? Is this what's going on? I think a lot of progress happens from humility that we can go, I don't know exactly what's going on. Let me engage in learning so I can advance the situation versus act from defense so I can protect myself. It's always about protecting my ego or is it about advancing the situation? And a little, let me go like a little aside on the conversation of progress. Since we're talking about progress through conflict, let's just get a little bit of understanding of progress. Right? Progress means that there's a vector, there's a direction that we want to go. You cannot have progress unless there's direction, right? There's somewhere we want to go. Progress is also measured by velocity or rate or speed of change. Am I moving towards where I want to go or not and at what clip? There's also a sense of emotional valence, which is, am I satisfied with the speed I'm going through this situation with that I'm progressing towards my goals with a lot of conflict actually is a speed issue. It's a timing issue. Sometimes it's like you just. You're upset and you need something handled right now. You need them to acknowledge you right now. You need them to say you're right right now. You need them to comply with your requests or your demands right now. And in your hurry, you amplify the conflict.

Hey, my friend, sun is going down behind me. And I just want to thank you.

For watching my YouTube channel.

You know, so many of my subscribers are always asking me, brendan, how do I go to another level of my life and stay consistent in my personal development and really get progress? You know, we all want to be more motivated, more productive, more confident. We want to be better leaders. We want to be better at our craft.

But how do you do that on a consistent basis?

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In your hurry, you amplify the conflict. I can tell you one of the greatest ways to experience conflict is ask, what's the opposite of that? Well, probably a sense of peace. Right. Peace in the situation, peace with the other person. And so often I'm like, why don't I just start there? Why don't I start in a place of peace with other people? What would happen if I wasn't in a hurry with them right now? If I just took all the time in the world to listen to them right now, to try to understand right now, to take some time to think, what do I really want now? What am I really requesting now? To not be in a hurry to get my words out, even if they're pressuring me and even if they're in a hurry. What if I breathe like I was in peace? What if I breathe like I was in command of the situation? Not from ego, but command of this situation. Like, I'm centered, I'm good. There can be a disagreement and another person could be even mean or mad, but I don't need to be that. What if I was in command of myself through the conflict? Because if we can get you centered, it's a lot easier to get your progress. But if you are angry, upset, screaming, fighting in defense or in ego, it's going to be a lot harder to get this thing turned in the right direction. Remember, progress has a vector. That means a direction. And so think about this. As you enter any conflict, what's the direction you want to go to peace? That right, that's what is the resolution of conflict, A sense of peace, a sense of stability, a sense of order, a sense that whoever is in the conflict both sense that they won, a sense that they'll have a shared future together, that things are going to be okay. I want you to realize a lot of progress through conflict is valiance. Valence means how you feel. Is it positive or negative as you are progressing or moving through a conflict? Valence is, how do I feel? Positive or negative? And what intensity is there? And so I think a lot of people, honestly, they feel immediately negative and they feel immediately intense as they go through conflict. Some of the biggest breakthroughs in my life came through realizing, what if I begin with the end in mind, as Dr. Stephen Mr. Covey taught us? What if I begin in the end in mind? What is the end of this conflict? Peace. What if I just start there? Let me get my breathing peaceful, Let me get how I hold myself peaceful. Let me get my thoughts peaceful. Let me treat this other person from that place of peace, even if they're in war. Because, see, most people, they've never been taught anything about conflict, so they only know war. Are you married to Somebody who only knows war. Are you married to somebody who's always fighting and screaming in defense? Are you that person who only feels like your heart race and anger boil or sadness brew? That's not anything wrong with them. It's not anything wrong with you. It's that you haven't been taught a skill of how to deal with it. Now, in our modern therapy type culture where everybody's an armchair therapists, what you're going to be taught is that you should assume that the other person, you know, they're in a place where, you know this. They must be acting out right now from childhood trauma. There must be something, you know, you're an adult, they're an adult, but you're going to immediately jump to blaming. Something must be, it must be his mom, it must be her dad, it must be, do not be a person who tries to diagnose things. Therapy and you know, actual licensed, like clinical therapy has some skill set to managing and understanding trauma and drama and more importantly, disorder. And if you immediately think the other person has a disorder and you want to start talking about their mom or their dad or their childhood in a fight, get ready for a bigger fight. Because I'm here to tell you, conflict almost never has anything to do at all with any given situation, moment or experience in childhood. When you are an adult, conflict is not a childhood issue, it's a competency issue. Lots of people had negative childhoods, but they learned competency how to deal with, with things, how to mature, how to be present with things. And I really want you to hear this because if you really struggle in conflict, don't look 50 years back. Instead go, why haven't I learned to deal with conflict? It's a skill issue, it's a competency issue. And I can tell you I've come into a lot of very, very difficult situations. The highest level mediations, I mean you could imagine, between married couples, court referred married couples in divorce. I've been in that room as a mediator between huge businesses, business partners breaking up, and immediately they'll try to start diagnosing each other and they'll assume there's something bad that happened to the person in the past that made them this way. We need to stop doing that. That is almost always counterproductive. And by the way, it's applying meaning to something that we can't know and we probably weren't even there. What we have to do is go, maybe this person's just never been taught how to do this. Maybe they are following a pattern from the past. But that's not as relevant right now as maybe they literally, as adults have not had the ambition to develop themselves yet. They've not yet had the permission to learn to try to test out their thoughts and feelings and needs and desires with you yet. With you yet not in life. See, most people, they're not in conflict in every area of their life right now. You're in conflict with them. And yes, I know sometimes we're in that situation where. No, Brendan, you don't understand this person with. They are in battle in every area of their life. I'm like, that's true. That might be true. That's very rare. You're in single digit territory now. But the large percentage of people are a, they're not experiencing a mental health issue right now. Not a disordered one and not a clinical one. They might be stressed, but that's not the same as clinical anxiety. They might be upset, but that's not the same as coming from a place of PTSD or trauma. We can't be that person who diagnoses them. Unless that's your job in a therapeutic setting. It's not gonna help you in your casual relationships. It's certainly not gonna help you in your business relationships or conflict. You need to meet yourself and people where they are now with the skills they have now.