Conflict resolution – External or Internal

All wars are not fought on the battlefield against sworn enemies. Conflicts arise between family members, extended family, close friends, colleagues & team members at your workplace.

Daily conflicts are experienced by all of us; they may be external or internal. External conflicts are disagreements with other people, whereas Internal conflict is friction created within ourselves.

A perception of stress, fear, and negativity is created in anticipation of the birth of any conflict. In reality, conflicts are an inevitable part of our daily activities as everyone has their own individualistic thought process.

People deal with conflict in different ways:

1. Avoiding conflict:- When people don’t express their own opinion and just move away from any kind of confrontation or discussion. The issue of conflict continues to linger.
2. Defensive reaction:- A strong verbal remark is the start of a confrontation between the 2 parties
3. Compromise:- Everyone involved in the dispute compromises to resolve the main issue and ignore the smaller aspects of the problem.

We need to handle conflict carefully, to transform negativity into a healthy ambience. With this approach, conflicts become a platform for collaboration and creative solutions. This allows everyone a space for expressing their opinions and freedom to vent their fears and emotions.

Conflict resolution allows us to listen to what people are really trying to say while ignoring verbal attacks. Criticism gets replaced by empathy to get a perspective of the opposing side, without losing sight of the common goal.

External conflict resolution fundamentals can be used to deal with internal conflict that arises within us. We can apply the same practice of listening to ourselves. This requires us to create inner stillness, enabling us to withdraw from the external world by looking inward. This practice deepens our awareness and makes us more conscious of the underlying anxieties and friction that causes restlessness within us. Unconscious decisions taken by us, which are against our value system, haunt us. It is extremely common to be in this situation as we are influenced by powerful people, opinions, wealth, affluence, status, etc.

We justify our thoughts and actions based on our ego and rigid mind unconsciously camouflaging the purity of the Self making us uneasy and agitated. The key is to stay in touch with our innate intelligence, which keeps us aligned with nature and the universe. How does one achieve this state?

Practicing compassion and gratitude and various meditation techniques keep us connected to our inner self thus all our thoughts and actions emanate from the Universal Truth.

Any moment we experience anxiety with our thought or action, we should go inwards to identify the nature of this inner conflict. This exploration kick starts a journey where we begin to peel off the layers that have clouded our clarity and perception to be in harmony with our thought, word, and deed!

“Outer conflicts arise only because of inner conflicts. When you are living your truths, you feel blissful, and there is no conflict”- Sadhguru