Whenever my lovely friends speak to me about their work or relationships I enjoy listening. It builds trust and yes, we learn from our own mistakes, but the experiences others share with us provide an opportunity to learn also. However, whenever someone describes their friendships, relationships or work environments to me as blissful with extremely extended periods of mellow or peace, I see a red flag. There is a small possibility that I am used to unhealthy dynamics, but conflict is normal and healthy.

When things are going well always, things usually tend to explode at one point when an issue arises. It is too good to be true, and generally indicates a hint of fakeness depending on the circumstance. The people I work with, especially the higher ups tend to fluctuate between warm and cold always. Conflict doesn’t mean fist fights and screaming, it just means differences, disagreements, communication and compromise. I prefer someone keeps it real with me just so I know what it is always and where we stand.

To truly earn peace of mind, we must accept criticism and disagreement. More importantly, we must be aware of social tactics on how to properly criticize others, when to criticize, when to let people save face and how to elevate our relationships and grow. One thing I was poor at growing up was projecting myself onto others. I used to be mad at people for not checking up on me, or for not moving how I thought they should move or how I would move in their position. But that’s so delusional, everyone is busy and caught up in their own complex lives, you just need to accept and respect it.

Back to conflict, no two people are the same. The key to healthy conflict is just being experienced. This comes with slowly learning to negate the impulsive statement and mentally recalculate what you say compared to what you really want to say. Feedback is good, absence of conflict is fake. I want to know what I did wrong so I can improve, and in a workplace or relationship, bottling up will just explode later. So, it must be expressed, this may cause disagreement, but disagreement is the first step in communication. If you can communicate with your spouse how you’re feeling or that a comment they made was unfair, they may indicate that it was unintentional and as a result of a bad day at work. Had you bottled it up and not mentioned anything, you could’ve spent a whole week in the silent treatment limbo, feeding your ego and not compromising and opening up only for it to explode later on.

Parenting is similar, I have yet to have the pleasure of being a parent, but I am a cousin and a son. Kids who grow up with excessively critical parents either rebel or dissociate in their teens and disconnect later. You must let kids be kids, instead of screaming at your son for drawing on a wall, why not steer this artistic spasm he’s having into a colouring book, or some woodwork. It doesn’t hurt to try before impulsively trying to discipline them.

The natural human response to criticism is usually defensive, people will close off and try to explain themselves. So how do we go about it then? Simply put, tweak what you usually say and avoid negative added words like “but”. Some people think you can just simply compliment someone then add “but you can do this” and it will work. People are not that gullible and just like desperation is evident, so is fakeness. The best thing to do is reshape your criticism. Let it be open ended so that people can think for themselves. It takes time and effort to supress our impulses, but it is rewarding. Have confidence in yourself and don’t fear conflict. If you’re a good professional, a bit of conflict in your workplace will elevate the team. If you’re in a loving relationship, a small disagreement isn’t going to sink the ship. I like to actually believe that the mere engagement in communication due to disagreements, conflicts and criticism is an indicator of love and that people care.

All the best

H