How do I feel about conflict in my life at the moment? What factors impact how I feel about conflict? What conflict matter? Why? What do I want to learn about conflict this semester?
Right now I am extremely uncomfortable with conflict in my life--not that there is a huge amount of it, but I'm still uncomfortable whenever it crops up, so much so that I tend to avoid it at any cost. Sometimes that cost is a bit more than I'd really like to pay.
Example: I never told one of my friends that I was mad at her for dating my ex-girlfriend (while said girlfriend was dating me), so she still thinks we're friends. Even though I think I would be justified in ending the friendship, I am too freaked out by the idea of getting into an argument to tell her.
Example 2: I have a friend who likes to make Christian jokes that I find fairly offencive. Instead of tell him in a constructive way right away that I'm uncomfortable when he does that, I just don't say anything until I get to my "I can't stand this any more" point and yell at him. Obviously it would be way better if I could just say, right off the bat, "hey could you not do that around me?", but since that isn't what happens I just get sullen and passive-aggressive and eventually outright aggressive but nothing actually gets resolved.
So on a personal level I'm very interested in learning how to be more in control of these situations and how to resolve them in a way that's better for me AND others--so that I don't bottle stuff up, and so people don't get hurt when I finally do explode with absolutely no prior warning. I want to learn how to express my views as clearly and non-accusatorially as possible.
On a larger scale, I anticipate having to mediate conflicts as a priest--the three areas I'm interested in are vocational counselling, hospice ministry, and pastoral ministry. Vocational counselling may not include much conflict with the person I'm talking to, but it may mean being able to help that person mediate a conflict in his or her own life. Likewise, pastoral ministry can mean being called upon as a guidance counsellor, marriage counsellor, or youth leader, and God knows all those areas mean being able to be objective, fair, and good at mediation. Hospice ministry can involve conflicts between patients and families, families and staff, patients and staff, patients and God, &c &c ad finitum.
All this means that a good understanding of conflict and ways to resolve it are extremely important to me in my intended future. My goal is to be able to help people on a small scale. Easing the conflicts between them is a definite way to do that.
Ok, first. I'm not sure I'm doing this correctly. Second here's my stuff:
ReplyDeleteIn my small personal conflicts I am having a bit of trouble. I think personal conflicts are hard, because you are directly in the situation, as opposed to being an observer who can mediate the situation. I have a hard time taking myself out of the situation and keeping my emotions out of it. It's a difficult barrier for me to breach. But something I need to work on.
Conflict seems to be all about emotion to me. If it's my own conflict it hurts me or makes me sad. But I also consider myself a very empathetic person so I hurt for others as conflict annoys them, or tears apart their world. So I would say emotion drives my feelings about conflict. I guess that's a little self explanatory.
I think conflict is extremely important in life because everyone has a conflict. You cannot escape from it, what you can do is work to manage your conflict. Managing conflict is helpful in any field. From a business world, to a political world, from family life to international relations.
I would like to learn anything anyone can teach me. I am so excited to learn about large scale conflict and small conflict. Because I am realizing more and more how little I know about conflict resolution.
here's my other one
ReplyDeleteConflict for me is like the first stretch of a long distance race. I love running hard and fast for a short distance, but I am a lazy person and I will slow down. I am great at the start of a conflict but usually I give up and call it quits. I need to learn to go the distance.
I have no problem running full speed ahead into conflict with adrenaline pumping. But then I jut die down. The good thing about this is that if I train myself hopefully I will be able run a full marathon or at least a full race.
Conflict for me is...
ReplyDeletelike buying a new pair of shoes. On the one hand you need to wear shoes to be able to reach places but on the other hand there are many different kinds of shoes. The needed kind can differ in so many ways. Sometimes you have high heels which are not easy to wear but you still need them to match your outfit and other times you feel like putting a nice,soft pair one. Which can be comfortable and help you to feel good about yourself. There is also the decision of colors. There are bright colored ones which are way more outgoing and there are more decent ones which don´t catch your eyes at first. Both have their positive and negative sides like the decent ones which you can wear when you don´t want to be focused on and the brighter one´s which put you on the spotlight. Depending on the shoe and the color there are difficulties you have to face. If you choose the bright high heels, which would be the most difficult one to wear because you are put or you put yourself in the spotlight are the ones which are the toughest but at the end most of the times it makes you feel good because you know that you managed the challenge and have had a good out-coming because you learned a new lesson (e.g. that you are able to wear them the whole day). These are the reasons I put on different kind of shoes from time to time because it gives you another prospective.
I am so sorry I totally forgot to upload the first journal. I am still trying to figure everything out. Again I am really sorry but here is my first Journal:
ReplyDeleteHow do I feel about conflict in my life at the moment?
What factors impact how I feel about conflict? What conflict matter? Why? What do I want to learn about conflict this semester?
I am quiet comfortable with conflicts because I had to get trough a lot of conflicts which helped a lot to grow up and made me learn how to handle difficult situations.
I would say that I don´t have any conflicts going on in my life right now because I am quiet happy with being in a different country. However if I think about it you could consider my Christmas break as a conflict because I was not planning on going home over Christmas because I wanted to celebrate it in the USA but my boyfriend is not too happy about it and tries to make me come home and that brings me in a little conflict with myself because I don´t know how I should decide because on the one hand I know that he is right but on the other side I just don´t want to spend my time in Germany if I could spend it over here. But these conflicts are not really important to others it is more likely a conflict I am having with myself and therefore have to solve by myself.
Depending on my mood conflicts can more or less have an impact on me. Most of the times it is not so much about the matter than my mood and my opinion on it because I think that you need to be able to handle every conflict no matter which conflict it may be. However some affect you more than others.
I am interested to learn more about conflict resolution between nations and as a result of that the agreements between those countries. Moreover I hope to learn more about the work of the United Nation in the field of the conflict resolution.
great metaphors -- love the shoes.
ReplyDeletedo you ever have to wear shoes that are given to you -- or they're there so you just have to put them on even if they don't really fit? does it matter if they match the outfit?
The race metaphor is interesting as well. do you get to prepare for the race or do you just find yourself in th erace and hae to cope ... do you have running clothers - or just whatever you happen to be wearing? audience -- other runners? how do you know if you win? or is finishing the real goal?