When a conflict is in the way…

You know if you have an ‘issue’ with someone.  You don’t want them around you, you feel resistant at the mention of their name, the thought of the last time you saw them, or seeing them again gets you fidgety.

If you want to own your heart space then,  you’ve got work to do.   At the moment you’ve made this conflict bigger than you.

It may not be time to speak with them but it is time to take ownership of your issue with them.  Listen to yourself.  What benefit do you get from leaving matters as they are?  Strength? Power?  Avoiding rejection, sidestepping your feelings or an outburst – safety?

Decide consciously if you want to keep carrying this tension (subtle as it may be).  I used to have a gripe with myself which regularly gave me head and neck pain!!

What would you re-claim if  you were to heal the rift? Health? Freedom around family events? Friendship? Self-respect?

Why wait?

Here are 6 tips to support you to better enjoy a  family gathering.  Please take some quiet time to read, absorb and get a pen and paper out to plan your participation.

The more you predict stress, I suggest you put more time into reading and preparing yourself.

Tip 1: Know what you want to experience and why

It’s so easy to focus on what we don’t want from the event.  Instead turn around to focusing on what do you want.

Become very clear about what you DO want and it is much more likely you will unconsciously do things that support this to happen.

I like to start from what I’d really love to experience.   For instance – relaxed, connected, warm, inspired…

Now recognise what some of the hurdles could be – a particular topic of conversation, person or occurrence.

Be prepared:

Imagine yourself being relaxed, satisfied, warm and inspired (or whatever it is for you) how would you respond to this person or event?  Maybe you’d say nothing, leave the room temporarily and breathe deeply out in the garden or perhaps you have a simple sentence you could have ready to say that supports connection, is honest and in keeping with your intention ~ being relaxed, connected etc..?

Come back to focusing on what you’d like to experience at the event.  And see if no matter what you can keep your attention on this.

Got an object you can put in your pocket or wear that will remind you of your intention?

Tip 2: Focus on what you can contribute

Let go of what you want to get and ponder what you can give.

How could you bring these qualities to life at the gathering?

If you want to feel relaxed and warm – could you step up in a way that you might not normally and bring something or do something at the gathering that would support this quality for everyone?

Tip 3: Breathe and shift

If someone says something that really triggers you.  You have a choice in your response.

You can snap.  Or you can find a bigger space inside yourself – breathe and shift physically and emotionally.  If you are sitting stand up or if standing, sit.

Taking a deep breath, remember what it is that you valued and why you came to this gathering.   In my example – I went valuing being relaxed, warm, inspired, and connected.  Now what action can I take that supports this even when I am triggered? I.e. When Auntie Diane starts complaining about how she dislikes Christmas and had an awful time trying to get the ham she normally brings to share.

I’d breathe, sit on the kitchen stool and re-connect to my intention – relaxed, inspired….then I would…

Tip 4: Connect to what matters to others

Instead of hearing what others think then you can guess what they are feeling and valuing.

I could guess – sounds like Auntie Diane really would like some reassurance that her efforts are appreciated? Or maybe some feedback about whether the ham tastes ok?

Instead of switching off, having another drink, or defending ourselves, joining in bagging Christmas or attacking the person speaking we could ask “So are you worried about the ham Diane and would you like some feedback?”

Even if your guess is wrong, you have made an attempt to genuinely connect and honoured your intention in attending the function and trying.

Tip 5: Recognise your old coping  strategy

Before you leave to attend the gathering, notice what you usually do to cope with the tension at a family gathering – smoke?  Drink a little too much?  Go into the kitchen and wash up all day?

If you do the same things you usually do to avoid the pain of being with family, you will likely get a similar outcome to the past.

Use tip #4. And also try identifying an alternative plan that also fits your ‘what I want to experience’ statement at the top of this article.

My option might be to move around and talk to someone about what they’ve done this year that’s inspired them and then go to a quiet space for a breather if I need it.  When I re-emerge, to find another familiar face and see if I can find out what inspires them.  Slowly getting through the afternoon – relaxed, connected and inspired.

Hmmm.  Maybe I could let them know what inspired me this year?

Tip 6: Appreciation and humour

Scientific evidence relates appreciation and humour with significant health benefits and feelings of wellbeing. To me these are the best gifts anyone can give me…

When it comes to humour, you may just hold as part of your intention you would like one good laugh!

As for appreciation – you’ve probably felt in your own heart the joy of someone appreciating something you have done or said.  Yes?  If you are honest and vulnerable and sprinkle your gathering with a few genuine expressions of appreciation, you will likely help hearts to connect – starting with your own.  Even if you have little contact normally, small things that mattered to you are worth sharing.

Linda Rysenbry, NowRelate, Australia offers relationship coaching and mediation.  To contact locally, call 0438 364 636 .  Internationally, phone +61 438 364 636 or on skype.  More info at www.nowrelate.com

Step number one is to make peace a priority.  Look at the way your day is arranged and adjust it to make   s p a c e (read time)  for yourself to reflect and connect in with yourself.  This will enable you to meet everyone else in your day from a more fresh open spaciousness.  I highly recommend doing it at the beginning of the day.

Step number two then is as soon as you notice that you are losing it or getting tense.  Have something you know works for you to center and calm yourself as needed. Breathing a few deep breaths is always a good one.  Especially if you are in a meeting, with a child etc.

I like to go outside into the sunshine (hopefully) and close my eyes for a couple of minutes, notice what I can smell and put my hand on my heart…then breathe quietly.  It literally just takes a couple of minutes.  But boy it feels good.

We live in a busy world that seems to reach out to hook us into believing that we have to race around and in racing about, it’s pretty hard;  well I’d venture impossible to really sit deeply in a sense of inner peace.  So step number three is to go slowly, or at least slower.

Here is St Francis…

Never be in a hurry,
do everything quietly
and in a calm spirit.

Do not lose your inner peace
for anything whatsoever.

Peace to you,
Linda

This quote stimulated a reader to wonder if acceptance is a way of meeting other needs or indeed a need in itself. I’m grateful for this question.  On first take you may think – who cares?  does it really matter?  Well, it is pretty important to know the difference.

Distinguishing between strategies and needs is essential for:

• creating connection instead of arguing opinions back and forth, until someone quits or accommodates
  
• making decisions which are fulfilling and meaningful
• feeling grounded and connected to yourself.

One way to check is to ask yourself ” is this something every human being has a need for?”

Secondly it’s helpful to remember that there are shades of needs.  Or layers.  We seem to have deep core needs and then layers of other needs.  As if there is a spectrum from needs to strategies.  Strategies are how we meet our needs.

For instance walking in the bush is a way of meeting a need for connection with myself.  Going to for a holiday is not a need rather a way or strategy for meeting needs for rest, fun connection etc.

Because there is this spectrum effect.  I would say acceptance is a need  more than a strategy in my book.   Nonetheless its one that it’s worth looking under to see what other needs are met by acceptance, in case there are other deeper needs connected.  There may or may not be.

Acceptance is a pre-cursor to meeting needs for peace, healing and other important needs – that’s been both my personal experience and also what I witness with my clients.

Acceptance, by the way is very different from resignation.  I find acceptance in its essence to be very vital and free.  As opposed to resignation which has many thoughts still attached to it eg. “I have no choice”.  Thoughts like this let me know that I am not really in touch with any feelings and needs yet.

My guess is Marcus Aurelius is saying acceptance is a universal need which leads to our deeper core  needs being met.

warmly
Linda

I found this totally inspiring.  It came to me from a colleague in the USA – Miki Kashtan.

Grief can carry us through to healing when we notice, accept and give it space.  I see that it is important to honour loss – big or small.  Tucked away in there  are likely to be seeds for new dreams or softer heart connections, a new inspiration or perhaps even forgiveness that will carry me forward and nearer to myself.

This week I am aware of the passing of a dear elderly member of the family.

with love and gratitude for a life well lived and loved
Linda

Life flows through circles
Do you remember Simba, the  Lion King and the Circle of Life? It’s old as far as movies go but bear with me…

Next time you find you are stuck in a sticky spot in a relationship, I recommend you remember Life is a Circle.  Being stuck suggests you are only seeing one half of the circle.

Get the other person’s perspective and most importantly understand what it is that matters to them.    In other words get the FULL circle – your side and all of theirs.  Forget whether you agree with them or they agree with you.  Try being a curious scientist.  This can get you to first base.

I get involved in mediating or supporting when the other person’s half or our own is too scary or hot to feel safe to do this with each other.

Remember Life is a Circle and flows around and around in a wholesome healing way when we let it complete the cycle or circle.  It’s when we hold on to half the circle, that we suffer.

Explore here if you know you have something you need to complete with!

Best to your heart

Linda

I find it fascinating (ok I’m like that about relationships stuff!) and VERY useful to notice whether my inner-being is reaching out, clinging or grabbing to the other, the opposite or my preference….straight up and down.

Some people or situations may trigger one or the other.  The other week I went for the fourth time into my son’s room and asked him about something minor.  That was definitely me clinging, trying to sneak closer! and bless him he said “Er Mum, this is the hundredth time you’ve come down here”  I paused and thought “Oh yes, thanks.  I’m missing getting to be with you” .   His response? ” Ooookay, only I really need to study now.  So could we do that later?”

We agreed to actually do something together.  Nice.  We were both being straight up and down. I find honesty and openness at least with oneself but preferrably the other as well, leads to being straight up and down and that usually feels AMAZING.

This make sense to anyone else?!

Love and smiles

Linda

I’ve just come home from a seminar about Making Step Families work.  I’m struck by how much we human beings find comfort and a sense of place through having a label.  In a family ‘mother’ or ‘father’ are given particularly hefty currency.

I remember longing to ‘lose’ my label of mother a number of years ago.  That role seemed so overwhelming and heavy.  Tonight I saw people learning to live with no label.  Who am I if I’m not ‘the mother’?  Oh my contribution is to be me – and that will be what I bring to the family.

When we are simply ourselves then instead of standing for a role -

• we stand for the things we stand for…love, wellbeing, understanding, responsibility,  respect…
• we are freed of being defined by what we do eg. mother, father, son… which can carry so many layers of what you should/n’t do.
• our unique self is in the foreground of our life not behind a label

Aaah.  Doesn’t that sound inviting?  I’m a “Linda”.  A Linda who is mothering, partnering, lovering, daughtering, mediating…

I think I even saw family re-defining itself as not being determined by blood, rather by mutual cooperation, care and even love.

Could it be another expression of our universal family emerging….

Are you in a blended family?  What have you learned about what makes step families work? I’d love to hear.

Love Linda

We are working on a link for those wishing to follow my blog.  Then you wont  need to keep checking back to see if I have been awake and blogging! More on this soon.

Meantime I hope you will be active in sharing questions and your own experiences so we have a growing community here.

Life is relationship and relationship is life …watch the unceasing interactions of nature and people, seen and unseen. Magic!

Today, home is cosy on a wet winter’s day!
Linda