LIT’s 3 Steps to Overcoming Inner Conflict

We can all think of some person, or group, or life situation that has caused us frustration and grief. Whether it’s a major, life-disrupting issue that causes problems in all areas of our lives, or just something we can fuss about and get over relatively quickly, it happens to all of us. Sometimes we can get over it with exercise or some other kind of physical activity. Other times we might need to talk to a friend or someone we can trust. Sometimes we might seek help from a therapist or support group(s). The challenges are real and can make us feel stuck and frustrated, and if we don’t resolve the issue(s) we can lose our spirit of peace and radiate our frustrations out to others in our environment. Our inspiration, creativity and general sense of positivity and progress will diminish and we’ll feel the effects of frustration, anxiety, and sadness.

I’ve found there are 3 key steps to remember when trying to resolve grievances.

1. Practice VERSes: Vent, Express, Release, Share. Be humble, do some soul searching and acknowledge how the person, group, or situation/event made you feel. Don’t avoid, but rather embrace the emotion and allow yourself to vent or express it sufficiently in a safe setting — cursing, yelling, punching pillows if necessary, or simply talking it out. Just acknowledging the emotion may be quite difficult at times. Many of us may be ok with acknowledging that someone or something made us angry, but can we acknowledge that we were hurt by others? Can we acknowledge when we feel used by another? Or abused, or mistreated, intimidated, manipulated, gaslighted, taken for granted, ignored, made to feel small, unnoticed or unworthy, or embarrassed? For some, this may be easy, but others may try to avoid acknowledging these feelings because they think it exposes weakness and gives the one(s) they’re angry at more power and control over them. I’ve been one to do that many times in my life. I didn’t want to admit that I felt taken advantage of or manipulated because that would be admitting that I had some weakness, and then I risk being “excluded from the group” because I’m not tough enough or smart enough. I’ve found, though, that following through with the other steps helps to resolve that issue.
2. Remember that everyone is trying to get their needs met; their positive needs for love, acceptance, peace of mind, safety, security, respect, understanding, happiness, compassion, fun, health… and the list goes on. There are also the “negative” needs, like releasing anger, sadness, and fear. We want to be able to acknowledge how each party was trying to get these needs met; how you were trying to get your needs met, and how they were trying to get their needs met. This allows us to have compassion for both self and others.
3. Remember that we all make mistakes when trying to get our needs met. Anger, fear and sadness, along with inexperience and lack of knowledge/understanding can result in mistakes for all of us. Mistakes are just inevitable, and they are a crucial part of the learning experience. Mistakes are lessons and we use them to help us grow and learn and develop, to become stronger, wiser, and more compassionate.

Don’t worry about using these 3 “steps” in this order. It may be useful to go back and forth between them as you move through them. In the end, you should be able to find that peace and love (positivity) are the underlying motives and goals for everyone, including the ones who bring us the most conflict and challenge.