(Check out the audio version on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/8YiFmTEwm4s?si=1tAYA3NVBAWA4BvC)
Hope this finds all of you well.
I haven’t posted in a number of months. Life events will do that.
The beauty of a hiatus—voluntary or forced—is it offers a chance for self-reflection and re-evaluation of impactful happenings and relationships.
In a world where no (wo)man is an island, the style with which you convey your desires has a major impact on how willing others are to accommodate them.
It’s easier to give grace to people we like.
One recurring challenge you will face is the need to air grievances and resolve conflict in a manner that doesn’t poison relationships.
There are few important goals we accomplish solely on our own; there’s no artificial intelligence (AI) substitute for emotional intelligence (yet) and so many problems can be avoided if you steer clear of the common triggers most likely to set someone off.
Healthy communication and conflict resolution on their own can be difficult. When you have to navigate both simultaneously, it’s no wonder that anxiety and pain are familiar by-products for everyone involved.
Fortunately, there are a few precautions we can heed to veer away from potential collisions.
Three tips for avoiding toxic communication:
- 1} Your Life is a Game: (Personal) Attack Others at Your Own Risk
- 2) One Man’s Freedom Fighter is Another Man’s Terrorist: Perspectives and The Folly of Moral Absolutes
- 3) Win the Battle or Lose the War?: Keep the End in Mind
1) Your Life is a Game: (Personal) Attack Others at Your Own Risk
How to avoid personal attacks and toxic communication.
Proverbs 15:1:
“A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”
Words are powerful.
A verbal jab intended to ding someone who has bothered you in one way or another—feels great, no doubt.
And rather than devote the cognitive energy to laying out your position clearly—or, if you’ve been met with repeated brick-wall-like reception—calling someone “stupid” or (insert insult) can seem like the best course of action.
The Importance of Pointed Questions and Clear Directions
You tried to be cool, get your point across quickly, and they weren’t having it. Absent just walking away and swallowing your displeasure, what other choice do you have?
Alas, name-calling is one of the first route markers on the road to a strained relationship. Too much venom, not enough discretion, and too few apologies accelerate the process.
Guilting and shaming tactics are close cousins to personal insults, often employed as means to silence dissent or manipulate others. If you ever heard phrases such as “Don’t you care about….” or “Everyone else thinks….” attached to a side of an argument, you know what I mean. Those are intellectually-dishonest and I don’t have much respect for them.
When others try to “win” an argument through underhanded means, it’s infuriating.
Controlling the behavior of others is a tough task. We’d do better to focus on ourselves here, even when we’re the victims of someone else’s bad behavior.
As always, check yourself first. How can you improve? Are you undertaking actions that arouse strife, even when you’re standing on the “right” side of a disagreement?
Can you be more communicative? Open to feedback? Curb your attitude when adversity comes to your door?
Nobody likes finger-pointers with double standards.
Beyond that, how do we call out bad behavior?
Start with empathy: Look to understand how the other person might be feeling and spell that out plainly; that reduces the odds that someone sees your grievance as just a bash session or personal attack. Don’t demonize anyone else and look to establish a conversational platform of understanding and free non-contentious communication.
An example:
“The situation is stressful, yes, and we can all (me included) find ways to handle a number of matters better. I know I can be moody and a disinterested communicator at times. “
You would do well to explain the negative impact of their behaviors on yourself as well….
“It really hurt my feelings that you thought I was selfish. Don’t like what you did and how you judged me.”
If this is a friend, family member, or anyone you’ve got some semblance of a bond with, this should register with them.
Talk about the action and the problems, not the person.
And be very careful about ascribing motive to someone else’s behavior.
Which leads us to the next tip…..
2) One Man’s Freedom Fighter is Another Man’s Terrorist: Perspectives and The Folly of Moral Absolutes
Understanding perspectives in conflict resolution.
– “I don’t agree with this view, so there’s something wrong with it and the person who is sharing it.”
– “You don’t want to do what I want you to do; that means you are selfish and don’t care as much as I do.”
– ” I’m not aware of all of the information pertaining to this situation, so if you say something that I’m not aware of, you must be lying.”
Variety is the spice of life. Human beings boast a range of viewpoints and proclivities, most of which are not inherently-evil.
Those differences ensure worlds will collide.
Conflict resolution and the willingness to hear out other perspectives (not agree with, but listen to understand before reacting)—those are vital skills.
You’ve got to be careful pronouncing judgment on someone else, especially in charged, emotional situations.
Maybe there was no malicious intent behind words and actions you considered innocuous—doesn’t mean there was no impact on the other person.
A single thoughtless comment is all it takes to create a rift.
Someone at a family gathering says something slick and now factions of cousins and uncles are at each other’s throats like The Hatfields and The McCoys.
A concrete example of the delicate balancing act required to maintain group harmony can be seen in caregiving, when the care of a family member is on the table.
What should be done? Who should do what? How do we divide up responsibilities? What’s the procedure when there’s no consensus on next moves?
Those situations are fertile ground for conflict and grievances about fairness and equity. Complaints about someone not doing enough/too much or disagreements about how certain care and service is handled.
Everybody’s got an opinion and thinks it should be done their way.
And there’s never a shortage of well-meaning stakeholders ready to volunteer someone else to do the work:
“Somebody should take grandma to physical therapy four days a week.”
“Thanks for the suggestion. Why don’t you do that?”
It’s always easy to be generous with someone else’s time and money.
And when someone does something we don’t like, it’s because of some negative underlying trait they have:
“Bill doesn’t want to contribute to the company’s annual charity drive to support kids in Africa. He’s so cheap. Might be a racist, too.”
Maybe he sees the idea of being forced to be charitable—to an organization that may steward funds carelessly or be misaligned with his values—as a contradiction in terms.
Or maybe Bill just has other priorities for his money, like taking care of his own family first.
You know, because charity starts at home.
Enter the Fundamental Attribution Error:
We attribute the behaviors of others to their disposition and credit situational elements for our behaviors.
In other words, when we have a bad day because our cars broke down or we lost our wallets and subsequently lose our tempers with the people around us, we know that it’s because we are frustrated.
We fail, however, to extend that same courtesy to others.
That’s an excerpt from one of my earliest articles, itself an excerpt from my (first) book.
Check out the full article here:
Increase Your Interpersonal and Social Intelligence
When we behave badly, it’s because situational factors are to blame. When someone else behaves badly, it’s because they are (insert negative trait) at their core.
See the cognitive imbalance there?
And that bias occurs not because of any inherent malice, but because we struggle to put ourselves in the minds of others, especially while under stress.
Understanding this, maybe we pause next time before being quick to smear someone because they handle a situation differently than we do.
Instead of pointing out that your cousin didn’t comb your mother’s hair a certain way, maybe you give her a hug for devoting time to transport mom to the pedicure appointments she cherishes several times a month.
In collaborative situations, a “Thank You” before we offer our take on what can be improved goes a long way. Much more palatable than some half-baked suggestion from someone who isn’t on the front line themselves.
You will find that people get much more empathetic about what certain situations entail when they are thrown into the fire themselves and no longer have the luxury of tip-toeing around the perimeter.
Start bearing some of the costs of your ideas in the here-and-now and you might find yourself singing a different tune about what makes the most sense. “Lazy” and “disinterested” might be terms that disappear from your lexicon when it’s now you carrying the responsibility to execute on the vision of some collective.
People forget that you need to balance your needs against the resources requested from you to contribute to other initiatives. And if you dare say that a prolonged course of action has a negative impact on your own life and health, it’s you who is being selfish and inconsiderate.
“Why can’t you skip your cooking class the next four weeks to attend this meeting? I’d do it myself, but I’ve got kids at home.”
It’s that behavioral double standard, an inability to put oneself in another’s shoes, that’s at the center of these conflicts and the toxic communication that surrounds them. That’s why it’s so easy for people to cast aspersions on someone else, labeling them as “selfish” or concluding they don’t care enough about (insert goal).
Never mind that a lack of consideration for what someone else is going through and how that might produce differences in the “How?” and “Why?” behind certain choices is, by definition, selfish.
An irony lost on too many of us.
And heaven forbid someone criticize them for a divergent opinion and preference; they are the first to complain about the lack of grace and understanding sent their way.
Hypocrisy at its finest.
“Is He a Hypocrite?”: What Real Faith and Real Christians Look Like | (How to Grow a Church – Part 4)
Double standards. Outrage when we feel someone has wronged us; justifications and rationalizations when we do something that impacts someone else.
Toxic communication and poor conflict resolution habits splinter groups. Problems that could have been solved with a kind word (or, even better, intentional silence) linger on, dissolving bonds.
Don’t be so quick to call someone a liar/wrong/evil if they don’t agree with your position on a matter.
Matthew 18:15-17:
“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’
If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”
This verse doesn’t fit smoothly into what we’re talking about, but I like shoehorning scripture into my content, so let’s go with it.
Forget about the ex-communication part of this verse. And the suggestion to bring multiple witnesses….the Fallacy of Consensus is a real danger among those who assume numbers dictate veracity.
It’s the face-to-face accountability here that’s of value here. When differences and conflict arise, go straight to the person and try to have a transparent discussion with them. Leave the name-calling and behind-the-back gossiping out of it.
If someone brings an issue to you, stop and think about what they’re saying to you.
If someone is alleging you’ve committed an offense, how do you handle it? It’s easy to talk about what the other guy should do when you’re not on the receiving end of a grievance. And most people struggle with actually considering how they may be contributing to conflict, dismissing any consideration that they may be at fault.
No one is infallible. Apart from God and the Holy Spirit, no set of tools, vantage point, and code of conduct is universally-supreme.
How to Get Closer to God | (How to Grow a Church – Part 3)
Context matters. A rose in a well-manicured garden is an adornment. That same rose in a patch of ivy is a weed.
Our goals and priorities dictate the next best move, which is why we need to keep the bigger picture in mind.
3) Win the Battle or Lose the War?: Keep the End in Mind
Conflict Resolution Strategies: Keep the Big Picture in Mind.
Most of what I push on my platform centers on time-tested themes rather than micro-level responses to predictable events.
When you start viewing your life through a big-picture lens, you begin slipping the punches that stagger so many others.
Begin With The End in Mind: Facebook, Instagram, and Violating Expectations
Ever hear of a pyrrhic victory?
You win a battle, but the costs are so high that you might as well have lost.
That’s the de facto result of how we approach many of our interactions with other people. We are so focused on getting what we want—when we want it–that we do not consider how our moves today impact our environment tomorrow.
I’m a gamer. Haven’t played video games with any consistency in ages. Halo, Smash Bros., Street Fighter, WCW/NWO Revenge—just to name a few that devoured countless hours of my time.
Nowadays, it’s the occasional board game gathering and (more than occasional) sports contest that capture my attention.
Winners—who consistently find themselves in the mix—understand that hard work and the ability to manage the egos and priorities of other players is how you stay on top.
In team competition, diplomacy has more staying power than single-minded drive. There are certain games, even first-person shooters, where you need to be able to call on others to assist with capturing a flag or holding an objective.
Even with enemy squads, we witness unspoken truces to not attack each other for a period so you can both take aim at bigger threats.
I’ve seen them in my personal life, in business, among family and friends, and on sports teams I’ve been a part of. Yes, someone did what was needed to come out on top of the here-and-now challenge, but relations are now so sour that the group dynamic has been damaged for the foreseeable future.
Why should it surprise you if you talk crazy to someone—no matter how justified you may feel—that they’re in no rush to be in your space next time around? Or that you took advantage of someone and you were later knocked off-balance because you underestimated the potential reprisals?
What matters more: Being “right” or having family/friends/coworkers be comfortable enough around you to speak freely and want you around? Get what you want this time or maintain an environment where everyone remains motivated to see everyone win going forward?
Listening to your spirit can help you there.
“I Don’t Know What to Do”: How to let Peace (and the Holy Spirit) Be Your Guide
Stop trying to strong-arm someone else into cooperation with your preferred course of action. And then, if they disagree, tell them there is something wrong with them instead of simply leaving it as a difference in perspective.
This is the kind of behavior that we need to run away from. It’s the sort of harmful communication you should not want anywhere near your own family and friends.
If someone sees a situation differently than you, there has to be something wrong with the other person, right?
Just because you put out the immediate fire right in front of you doesn’t mean that there do not exist other lingering embers, ready to go ablaze when you need it least.
We can witness this dichotomy of right and wrong in many religious circles.
We preach about God and his teachings, while turning a blind eye to our own shortcomings—some of which drive people away from religion.
We talk about “Christ” this and “believe” that. but when it comes to actually modeling the behavior, it’s always the other guy who isn’t walking with the Lord. 
It’s not easy, but you have to balance your own needs along with those of others. Operate in a manner that gives you peace and aligns with what you are led to do. If you have to detach yourself and minimize certain interactions because others don’t want to play by the same rules, do what you must to protect yourself.
Keep the main thing the main thing. You’re going to be judged anyway—often without justification—so you might as well go after what matters to you most.
“Why am I single?”: Judgment Destroys Relationships | (How to Grow a Church – Part 1)
And do your part by not adding fuel to toxic fires.
I said this article would contain three tips, but a fourth seems fitting….
4) Your Happiness is Your Responsibility
Setting Boundaries for Your Happiness and Mental Health.
You always have choices, even if your plight appears grim or set in stone.
We’ve got one (earthly) life to live; prioritize what matters most to your happiness and peace of mind.
You are Not Responsible For Anyone Else’s Happiness: 3 Tips for Preserving Your Mental Health During Periods of Change
Learning how to say “no” saves you a lot of grief and time. You will grow tired and resentful if you accommodate every request that comes your way. Deciding that your time and energy is yours to dole out as you see fit does not make you a “bad” person.
Part of that responsibility requires speaking up, letting others know the rules of engagement for interacting with you. Your co-workers, friends, and family are not mind readers; It’s not fair to get angry with them for their behavior if you don’t vocalize what is acceptable and what is not.
Boundaries Elevate Relationships and Enhance Quality of Life: How To Get Yours in Order
You have to muster up the courage to do that, lest these suggestions will remain flat and lifeless.
You may discover that some distance from people and situations that are a threat to your mental health and goals is warranted.
Addition by subtraction.
If people want to criticize you for choosing yourself, you can learn how to put that fear of loss of acceptance in its rightful place:
Proverbs 29:25:
“Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.”
1 John 4:18:
“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”
Practice the skill of minimizing pressure to conform by consciously-straying from commands you disagree with. Train others how to treat you.
Stress from worrying about what others think and internal pressure to comply with requests to avoid conflict weighs you down and generates anxiety.
Again, how do we avoid toxic communication and get better at conflict resolution?
1} Your Life is a Game: (Personal) Attack Others at Your Own Risk
2) One Man’s Freedom Fighter is Another Man’s Terrorist: Perspectives and The Folly of Moral Absolutes
3) Win the Battle or Lose the War?: Keep the End in Mind
4) Your Happiness is Your Responsibility
Can I guarantee that these practices will solve all of your conflict resolution troubles?
Nope.
We live in an imperfect world with imperfect people, many of whom are unreasonable. There will be times when you are faced with folks who will dig into their positions no matter how indefensible those stances may be.
Heck, some of you reading this might be those very same villains, impervious to reasoned, even-handed discourse.
Understanding how to stay away from toxic communication and seek solutions that are less corrosive can only help.
Take authority and be the author of your best existence.
I’d love to hear from you:
Ever feel pressure to comply with a request from a loved one?
Looking for a better way to combat guilt-tripping?
Reach out to me here.