4/5-week 8

In this week's episode, Lucy discusses the five stages of conflict resolution outlined in DeVito's book. The first stage is defining the conflict, followed by examining possible solutions, testing the solutions, evaluating the solution, and accepting or rejecting it. The focus is on defining the conflict, which includes both content and relationship issues. Lucy shares personal examples of conflicts with her sisters and how relationship issues can underlie specific conflicts. DeVito also emphasizes the importance of defining the problem in specific terms, focusing on the present, empathizing, and avoiding assumptions about what the other person is thinking or feeling. Lucy mentions that she and her sisters tend to avoid conflicts, which can lead to tension building up. She explores tips for dealing with avoidant personalities in conflicts, such as using empathy, "I" statements, and avoiding blaming and criticism. The importance of listening and proper communication is highlighted. Tips Hi, this is Lucy, and this is week 8 of looking at my relationship between myself and my four sisters through the lens of interpersonal communication, and this week's episode is chapter 11 of DeVito's book, which is on interpersonal conflict and conflict management. So in DeVito's book, he begins this chapter by going into these five stages of conflict resolution. So I felt like that was going to be a good place for us to start this week. The first stage is defining the conflict. The second is examining possible solutions. The third, testing the solutions. Fourth, evaluate the solution. And then the fifth is accepting or rejecting that solution. Out of these five stages, the one that DeVito puts the most focus and emphasis on is defining the conflict. Now in this one, he like breaks it down into these five key points. The first is defining both the content and the relationship issues. I thought this was really interesting because when he's saying defining both the content and relationship issues, it kind of shows how when conflict breaks out, it tends to not just to be about one specific issue, although it could be, but sometimes there's deeper problems underlying that, being like the relationship issues that he was just saying. And I know I've definitely seen this within my relationship with my siblings. Let's say a sister of mine took a shirt without asking, and then a fight would break out, and I could be like, why are you doing this without asking, blah, blah, blah. And then I bring up, you always do this, you never consider, I don't know, like the way that you're making me feel, or blah, blah, blah. But like that could be like an underlying issue, like a relationship issue, and not just the content issue that we're having, being like that one specific instance where she took my shirt. It's not just that, even that, it's I don't feel like she's considerate of me and my emotions, or whatever it is, I don't know. So that was really interesting to me. The second pointer DeVito gives for defining conflict is defining the problem in specific terms, which is pretty self-explanatory. Just being clear with what it is you're hurt by. I feel like it makes sense that that's a fair way to resolve conflict, by being clear about what the conflict is. And then the third is focusing on the present. So not kind of like keeping a list of wrongs, and going back in, and being like, and you did the same thing like a week ago, and the same thing a year ago, or whatever it is. Like focusing on the current issue that's at hand, and not just bringing a bunch of stuff in the past. The fourth is empathizing. This one I feel like I see the most with conflict resolution with my sisters, is whenever they do something that could lead to me being hurt or upset with them. I always have been able to kind of take a step back, and like allow the argument to fizzle away when I empathize with them. And this can look different depending on what it is we're having conflict about. But for the most part, whenever I take a look at the situation from a lens of like empathy, I'm able to see that they have like other things going on that could have led them to do what hurt me. And that always helps the conflict just kind of fizzle away. And then the last corner, the fifth one for defining conflict, is avoiding line reading. This is just to say that you don't want to assume what the other person is thinking or feeling, and then you make your own narrative, and it can blow up into this whole argument that didn't need to happen because you weren't trying to properly understand what they were saying. You were just trying to assume what they were saying. So when reading this, I found the five stages of conflict resolution very helpful. But for me, in my own experience with arguments I'll get with my sisters, sometimes it's hard to even get to the point of conflict resolution because we can't even get to like the conflict, if that makes any sense. Because me and my sisters, we all kind of can lean to more of like an avoidance type approach when it comes to issues that can arise just because we don't want to fight. So we just avoid that conflict altogether. And then it doesn't really help us at all because because we're not having this conflict, we can't resolve it in any way. So it just like builds this tension so that at some point it like has to all come out, and then it's a whole big deal where it could have been a way smaller deal if we had just handled it when it came instead of putting it off and like letting it fester. And DeVito talks a little bit about this. He goes into avoidance, but basically just sums it up by saying avoidance isn't necessarily a passive thing. Sometimes it can be an active thing where you're like physically leading a situation and then you like go on a run or you block music or whatever it is to keep your mind and body focused on something else other than the problem at hand. I thought that was a little interesting, but he didn't say too, too much about avoidance. So I did a little bit of research on my own. And when I was doing my research on this, I pretty much just wanted to know what are the best ways to deal with a person who has like that avoidant type personality when there's conflict. And also if you are a person with an avoidant approach to conflict, how to resolve that in yourself or ways that you can deal with that. So when it comes to dealing with avoidant personalities in arguments, Attachment Project gives some good pointers for them. And they said, communicating with empathy, using I statements, and avoiding blaming and criticism are some ways to help avoidant personalities feel safe enough to express their thoughts and feelings, as well as change their behaviors in time. So there's kind of a lot packed into that. But they began with talking about using empathy, which I already said before, I feel like is really useful when resolving conflict. Using I statements stood out to me because I've never really heard that before. But basically, it's just kind of putting the, not necessarily the blame, but like the focus on you so that they don't feel attacked. And then avoid blaming and criticism. So not necessarily like, again, putting all the blame on yourself, but also not like having this cutthroat approach where you're just like tearing them down for everything. And when you make that more calm and open environment, it can allow them to actually express what they're feeling and thinking so that you can resolve some conflict. They also had a lot of focus on making sure that you were listening to the other person. And they kept saying over and over again in this article that communication, the most important thing is not what you're saying, but what's being said to you. And just like properly hearing what the other person is trying to convey. So I thought that was really good. And then also for how to deal with having an avoidant personality, choosing therapy broke this down into seven little tips. The first is journaling. Second, utilizing stress management techniques. Third, replacing your negative self-talk. Four, build your flexibility and tolerance. Six, remember the bad experiences you had and how that they can make you grow. Six, developing coping skills. And seven, seeking professional help. So all of those are like good, I guess. Some of them are kind of random, but some of them are really good. The first, journaling. That I journal all the time. And I feel like that is such a big help with processing your own thoughts. It can help you work through your thoughts. So when dealing with conflict, you can get your mind in order so that you can best come back to the situation and express what it is you're feeling to the person that you're having conflict with. But yeah, so I just thought that those were some good tips to include. In conclusion, the biggest takeaway that I got from this week's reading was that I always thought of conflict as big blowouts and huge arguments, but sometimes conflict is necessary to get past it. It doesn't have to be so extreme. It can get to that point when you're constantly avoiding and suppressing problems that are there. But when you deal with them as they come, it doesn't have to be so extreme. So yeah, that's pretty much everything I have for this week. But if you have any questions or comments or anything like that, you can leave them in the chat box and I'll be back next week with another episode. So thanks for listening. Bye.