Conflict Is My Friend
by Jeff Goebel
I remember about 20 years ago, I was going through a really difficult time in life. Everyone was telling me how sorry they were for me, except for one person, my friend Bob Chadwick. He said this was good. I was absolutely shocked! A few years later, another difficult time, and he told me that he appreciates conflict, the lessons that he learns and how it makes him grow. He told me that he asks to have conflict present in his life daily. Again, utter disgust on my side. And again, a few more years later, as I was gentling down with my understanding of the power of conflict in my life, he told me that conflict was his friend.
It has taken me a while to understand this perspective. Today, I feel that I am at a place where I can call conflict, my friend. I say it when I reflect about being “in process,” which is another term that I learned from Bob where you are undergoing change. Earlier in my life, I felt that there was the climb up the mountain, the “climb” that was represented by pain. I hungered for the days when I would be on the “plateau.” I often liken the climb as the place in life about being the “student.” The plateau is where one becomes the “teacher.”
Now, I feel that each day brings old and new conflicts, mostly internal, since I realize that almost all conflict is within ourselves. We often project our inner conflict onto other individuals and groups, if we have external conflict. When I do conflict resolution work, I find that usually I am called to work on “others,” in order to fix the problem, and through the course of the work experience, the individuals who called me are the ones who change. Of course, so do the “others.”
In my current view of my life with conflict and being “in process,” I realize that I have arrived at a place in life where I am simultaneously the student AND the teacher. Through my growth with conflict, I am finding that I don’t take the conflict so personal or harmful to my soul, and rather, I find that I am more curious about what is going on within me and around me. I have learned to find peace, and live in peace most of my life now.
My friend, Bob, asked me, during a very difficult time of my life, four questions, which have guided my learning and growing ever since he shared them with me twenty years ago. The first question is “How do I feel about this conflict?” He wasn’t just asking me for a word that described an emotion, but to reach within my self and be conscious about where that feeling was manifesting itself in my body. This was a powerful step in my personal development, to gain the ability to have choice in each moment of my life. As Viktor Frankl said “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
The next question is “What can I learn from this situation that will help me be successful?” There are nuggets in each moment of life. To be conscious of them adds power into your purposeful movement toward a desired future. The third question threw me at first. “What do I STILL need to learn that will help me be successful?” Isn’t that odd, asking for what you don’t know? Yet, each time I ask, an answer comes to me. And finally, he phrased the fourth question like this “If it’s true that we create our own reality, what is the purpose of this reality that I created for myself?” Ouch! This question touches on my area of growth.
Since I have worked with many indigenous tribes, especially in North America, I have learned various stories about the legend “Coyote.” Coyote is known as the teacher, and coyote teaches through tricks (a second “ouch”). It is said that coyote will repeat the trick until you learn the lesson (third “ouch”). Earlier in my life, without being conscious, I would blindly go from issue to similar issue, and wonder what was happening. As I progressed in life, and years, I started seeing patterns in my life.
I also learned that we can change these patterns. At the core of these patterns were our beliefs, which affected our behaviors, which ultimately gave us the results in life, good or bad. I also learned about limiting beliefs, which prevented me from attaining desired outcomes. I learned that these limiting beliefs are deeply held and often only factual because we believe them. This resulted in manifesting what we didn’t want, what we might be afraid to see happen, and it happened.
In my journey came a phrase which has helped me with addressing limiting beliefs. If we become conscious of our “self-talk,” we can begin to “catch” ourselves telling us limiting beliefs that prevent us from attaining what we truly desire. However, there are limiting beliefs that we don’t consciously realize and direct us toward a destiny that is less than desirable and well below our potential. This quote has served me well in addressing my limiting beliefs: “One way to defeat limiting beliefs, even ones you may not know that you have, is to simply dream of a life so grand that the limiting beliefs couldn’t possibly make sense. And then start living that life today, however humbly at first.”
Bob taught me a simple process for resolving any conflict that I have addressed over the past 25 years. This process has served me well with successfully resolving intra-personal conflict, which comprises about 85% of what I do, inter-personal conflict, and inter-group conflicts. The simple steps are to ask: 1) What is the present situation and how do you feel about it?; 2) What are the worst possible outcomes of confronting / not confronting the present situation?; 3) what are the best possible outcomes of confronting the present situation?; and finally, 4) what beliefs, behaviors, strategies and actions will foster the best possible outcomes.
What I learned from Bob is that “Worst Possible Outcomes are feared future outcomes, often based on past experience, with a presently experienced emotion and physical reaction. When people believe them, they affect their perceptions, beliefs, values and strategies. They tend to be self-fulfilling prophecies when strongly held.” These words really fit every conflict situation that I have come across. I often will look at what a people’s present situation is and what their worst possible outcomes are, and I usually find that there is not much difference. They are living their worst outcomes when in unresolved conflict!
Recently, I was in a meeting of my local soil and water conservation district. I was elected to the board about 18 months ago, shortly after I bought my farm. I have wanted to be involved on the local level with the conservation movement since I was first employed with the Soil Conservation Service (now called the Natural Resource Conservation Service). One key individual on the board is a climate denier, and obviously, I have had conflict with his beliefs. Due to his position, he has been able to shut my ideas down, which include promoting holistic decision-making with our financial planning, our financial assistance program, and our land use plan. My consensus building work has been limited too.
At a recent meeting, I was really feeling shut down, and when I don’t feel listened to with respect, my tendency is to bail. Since I have watched this pattern within me over the years, and know where in my past this tendency comes from, I have been able to make different choices. In the meeting, the urge was great to leave and not come back. However, that inner patience said to be still, realize that this work is important and significant to me, and that this time shall pass. I also reflected on the significant changes that were already happening because of my work in the past several months.
I was still, and came back to the next meeting. Thus, there has been significant advancement of the work, with grant funding coming, the work is expanding to the region, and life is going well even in just the past two months. The financial assistance program is using holistic testing toward a holistic goal to award recipients, the land use plan is establishing district policies based on the testing, we have hired a community gardener to begin raising food in our low/fixed income communities, our regional irrigation water distribution organization is in dialogue about managing holistically, I am doing a xeriscape conference to address the reduction of water use in our river basin, a local pueblo is moving toward ranching holistically, and several other elements of my plan are being lined up for implementation. This has happened in a very relatively short period. And this has happened because I have learned how to make conflict my friend.
Bob also shared that “Best Possible Outcomes are hoped for future outcomes, sometimes not previously experienced, but intensely imagined, with a presently experienced emotion and physical response. When people believe them, they affect their perceptions, beliefs, values and strategies. They tend to be self-fulfilling prophecies when strongly held.” Since I have been doing this work for over 25 years now, I have had the fortune to have had hundreds of successful outcomes when working with this process. I have a confidence that has come with using a process that allows me to create the condition where conflict is my friend.
Bob also shared another important concept, which is the notion of “Possibility Thinking: An acknowledgment that both worst and best outcomes are present and inherent in each moment, up to, and often after the event. This balanced view allows the movement toward desired outcomes.” For the mind to wrap itself around the balance of the lower brain functions (survival of self) and higher brain functions (good of the community), we need to learn to “let go” to allow movement toward our desired hopes.
My friend, Bob, shared three phrases that guide me each day and have allowed me to move to a place where conflict is my friend. 1) To “let go” of fear, or simply, to “acknowledge” our fears; 2) To seek richness (by looking for all that we are grateful in each moment); and 3) To trust the process or greater power. The first step is a daily practice as fear is part of our lower brain function with the purpose of protection from threats, real or imagined. The second step for me started as a mechanical process of asking myself what are five things that I was grateful for. In the beginning, that was difficult. Now, it’s automatic and constant for me. The final step has come with this practice, which speaks to the notion that our “job” is to create intention. The greater power’s purpose is to figure out “how.” I am constantly amazed with how things show up in my life now.
These are the steps that have guided my journey to the point in life to find conflict as my friend. Of course, tomorrow morning, I may wake up and realize that none of this is true, which is the notion of Possibility Thinking. That notion is what propels me forward with greater speed toward my desired outcomes in life. Finally, one last phrase that has been profound in my journey, “If you want to be happy, be!” Leo Tolstoy
