How to solve any relationship conflict

We can solve almost any relationship conflict by gaining awareness of what I'm about to share with you right now. It’s simple yet not easy.

Each of us has a specific way of dealing in conflict. I'm going to call it a “protection”.

It’s a survival strategy that usually originated a very, very long time ago. Commonly it’s a default protection that we adapted as children. It’s how we thought we needed to be in order to "make it". We don't have to necessarily know WHY we have this protection. What's very helpful to know is what your particular protection is like. Most of us have more than one of those.

In conflict, we lose the full capacity of our brain, which puts us in a regressed state. Often it looks a lot like fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. When we get emotionally triggered, unsafe or threatened we are super likely to resort to and reach for that super deeply ingrained protection. We are fighting for survival as it was understood by our child self.

This has us solving our current problem with a solution from many many years ago. Logically we cannot solve the current problem with an antiquated solution.

Here is where we need a different approach. The first step is to recognize that we're in protection mode. Once we do that, we then make a choice to connect to that deeper, vulnerable part of us that needs protection. Only then, once we have done the work to make that part feel safe we can proceed to solve the current problem.

Here is my very personal example of how my vulnerable parts and my protections work together.

In a relationship conflict, my regressed state makes me want to flee. A telltale sign that I'm in protection is that I want to leave, I don't need anyone, I'm perfectly happy alone. This isn't actually true for me, it's my protection acting up. One I developed many, many, years ago.

Having this awareness is key. The next step is to choose not to engage in the action protection wants me to engage in. For me, it’s fleeing. For some of you, it might be blaming, shutting down, drinking, avoidance, hyper-rationalizing, etc.

Yet if I use this tool, all I need is to receive this simple message: when Marta wants to leave, it means that she is in protection mode. I have just repurposed my protection from an acting agent to a messenger that deeper things need to be addressed. A great question at this moment is: what is fleeing (or blaming or drinking) protecting me from?

Leaving protects me from heartbreak, feeling vulnerable, and so on. Now instead of building my case around how I need to leave right now what kind of injustice happened to me how the other person is to blame, and that the only possible solution is leaving…
…I can go and address the part of me that needs love and healing. For me, it's the part that's afraid of being left out or abandoned and would way rather do the abandoning herself.

The protection merely points us in a direction where we can work on self-understanding, and self-knowledge, and deepen self-healing self-love.

This works in any conflict:

Step 1: I witness myself wanting to go into protection. Just being aware of it suffices.
Step 2: Don’t act out of it, use it as a sign that there is something underneath needing attention.
Step 3: Attend to the vulnerable part underneath until I feel the protection no longer being necessary. Do not turn against the protection, it won't go away!
Step 4: Regain full brain activity and go on to solve the current situation.

I hope you try it and let me know how it went!