Ragged Cover Home Page
Articles Home

Full Article List


[Conflict Resolution] The Philosophy of Fear and Confrontation


Is there now, or has there been, a person or two in your life that you have difficulty in maintaining a civil relationship with at times? It may be your spouse or lover; it may be a friend or a superior at work. We usually say "I have a love-hate relationship with this person."

Fight OR Flight; Attack OR Evade; Right OR Wrong; All OR Nothing; Win OR Lose - all are a form of what we can call "The Philosophy of Fear and Confrontation." When we believe that a potential outcome has only two possible alternatives we come from a place of scarcity thinking and invariably add a good deal of stress to the system being addressed and limit what is possible.

In every interpersonal conflict both sides wind up wounded, albeit one side perhaps more than the other. Whenever a person feels that you must be wrong in order for me to be right, we invariably denigrate not only the other person's point of view, but their overall character as well. We move away from attacking the issues at hand, and get involved in attacking each other. Arguing between right and wrong is often simply an excuse to prove myself somehow superior to you. "With my superior insight, with my superior intellect and knowledge, with my superior position in the world, I look to show you how your perception of reality is incorrect." When I think of you and your opinions as being somehow inferior to me and my opinions, it is no wonder that you are not willing to agree with the opinions I put forth. In order to agree with my opinions, you would have to be willing to believe that you are somehow inferior to me.

When engaging in conflict resolution with others, staying locked into grappling between one of two possible outcomes requires that we both shut down our ability to notice additional alternative realities. When two individuals are locked into a confrontational mode of exchange, both parties to the conflict lose the possibility of acquiring information that might offer generative solutions that either side has yet to think of. We lose the possibility of understanding that in some important way, our limited range of thinking tends to make both of us somehow "wrong." Or, to say it another way, we fail to realize that "We are both, both wrong and right, at the same time." We lose touch with the fact that given new sources of information, both of us might come to a different opinion.

Often, the first step in successful conflict resolution requires that you acknowledge that your philosophy of fear and confrontation limits your ability to notice how a different way of thinking and a different way of using your body, would lead to a much wider field of possibilities.

For the average person, the more you feel attacked, the more you will look to defend. The more you look to defend, the more you narrow your field of vision, tighten up various muscle groups, and limit the flow of blood and oxygen in your system. And guess what happens at such times. When my adversary notices that I am preparing to defend, he perceives instead that I am preparing to attack him. What does he do in this instance? Why the very same thing that I am doing! He tenses up and prepares for the worst. In this moment of entering into mortal combat we get swept away by the vortex of fear and confrontation that is being generated by the both of us. When we react from this place of "high alert" on a regular basis, we quickly wind up weakening our immune system, and severely limit our ability to defend ourselves from the onslaught of physical and emotional disease. In Aikido this leads us to say that "The best defense is no defense," which is another way of saying "The less defensive you are, the better able you are to defend yourself."

Charlie Badenhop is the originator of Seishindo, an Aikido instructor, NLP trainer, and Ericksonian Hypnotherapist. Benefit from his thought-provoking ideas and a new self-help Practice every two weeks, by joining 7,000 subscribers to his complimentary newsletter devoted to Seishindo Somatic Life Coaching. You are also invited to learn more about the Seishindo approach to Anger Management issues, which draws from the wisdom of Aikido as well as scientific research. Participating in Charlie's on Anger Management Workshop can help you adopt the wisdom of Aikido to achieve a peaceful victory over anger.


MORE RESOURCES:

New York Daily News

Colombian Coffee Growers Sue Over 'Mother Goose and Grimm' Strip
Editor & Publisher - 13 hours ago
By E&P Staff The Federation of Colombian Coffee Growers has launched a multimillion dollar lawsuit against cartoonist Mike Peters, over a Jan. ...
Colombian coffee growers sue US cartoonist Colombia Reports
Colombian Fedecafe Demands US Caricaturist Prensa Latina
all 155 news articles


Coffee Becomes First GOP Senate Pro Tem
KTUL, OK - Jan 6, 2009
Oklahoma City - Glenn Coffee of Oklahoma City has been installed as the first Republican to hold the No. 1 leadership position in the Oklahoma Senate. ...
Coffee vows to circumvent governor, voters on tort reform Journal Record (subscription)
NEW: New GOP majority announces ambitious plan Norman Transcript
Fiscal issues gain focus in Oklahoma Republican agenda NewsOK.com
Tulsa World - Durant Daily Democrat
all 32 news articles


Coffee retraces down as players grab profits
guardian.co.uk, UK - 11 hours ago
Sugar, coffee correct down from Tuesday's steep hike (Adds byline, dateline. Writes through with US comments and closing prices for US ICE markets) By Marcy ...
DJ ICE Coffee Review: Eases From Six-Week High As Oil Drops MarketWatch (press release)
SOFTS-Coffee falls on profit-taking, arbitrage in cocoa Forex Pros
SOFTS-ICE cocoa gives up end-of-year gains, raws also down Alibaba News Channel
MarketWatch (press release) - Forex Pros
all 16 news articles


WHDH-TV

Topless Coffee Shop Gets Permit From Planning Board
WCSH-TV, ME - 23 hours ago
VASSALBORO (NEWS CENTER) -- A proposal to open a topless coffee shop in Vassalboro has been approved for permit by the town planning board. ...
Topless coffee shop proposed for small Maine town The Associated Press
Topless Coffee Shop Idea Stirs Debate WMTW
Topless Coffee Shop Being Voted On In Maine ChattahBox
International Business Times - Riverfront Times
all 144 news articles


The Gossip Girls

Shenae Grimes: Coffee Chick
The Gossip Girls - 7 hours ago
Giving herself a little extra boost to get through the day, Shenae Grimes was spotted out for some coffee in Los Angeles this afternoon (January 7). ...


Canada.com

A perk for coffee lovers: java may lower oral cancer risk
Scientific American - 9 hours ago
Raise high the coffee bean! Good news, coffee-drinkers: a new study shows your beverage of choice may lower your chances of getting oral, esophageal and ...
Coffee may protect against oral cancers Reuters
Coffee might lower risk of oral cancer The Gazette (Montreal)
Health Matters: Coffee Fighting Cancer WCTV
About - News & Issues - 7Online.com
all 23 news articles


Colombian coffee growers to sue over US cartoon
The Associated Press - 13 hours ago
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian coffee growers are brewing up a lawsuit over a US comic strip joking that violence is so rampant there, maybe "there's a ...


Coffee, a cheer up and a critic
Arizona Daily Star, AZ - 1 hour ago
• Possibly the riskiest move Russ Pennell has made this season: After returning from last week's 0-2 trip to the Bay Area, he walked into a Starbucks near ...


CES: Your Free Press, Hard at Work with No Coffee
Barron's Blogs - 10 hours ago
Also, someone has taken away the free coffee… The paper shredders are, however, still here, and are actually being demo’d. Tech Trader Daily is a blog on ...


Coffee Co. Meth Raids
WTVY, AL - 9 hours ago
Since New Year’s Eve, Coffee County Sheriff's narcotic investigators have been going non-stop in breaking-up ten crystal meth labs. Making some 16 arrests, ...
‘Operation Pseudo’ results in 43 charges Southeast Sun
all 2 news articles

Coffee - Google News

       
   
Google
 
     
 
Action adventure books by Keith Hoare
   
 
Article Home | Ragged Cover | Copy Writing | Book Marketing | Writing Articles
 
Pendle Writers .com © 2006