Show Notes
In this episode, Peaceable and Kind host Derek Vreeland describes a way of conflict resolution using a script of healthy communication through negative emotions. This script comes with a number of ground rules that promote understanding, empathy, and active listening. A peaceable life is not found in avoiding conflict but working through conflict in a way that leads to forgiveness and shared solutions. You can download the script here: https://derekvreeland.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/An-Approach-to-Conflict-Resolution.pdf
Scripture verses mentioned in this episode:
Romans 12:17-18
Matthew 18:15
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Transcript
Narrator: Welcome to Peaceable and Kind, the podcast where we explore the transformation. Each week your host, Derek Vreeland, will delve into the stories, scriptures, and practical steps that help us embody these essential Christian virtues.
Derek Vreeland: Welcome back to another episode of Peaceable and Kind. I am your one man host, Derek Vreeland. And I have to say, I have been enjoying creating these podcasts for you. I hope you’re enjoying listening to them. I appreciate the feedback that I’m getting. If you have not subscribed, make sure you get subscribed to this podcast. on whatever podcast platform you use. And if you would like to leave a review, that helps. Just give me five stars. Even if you hate it, give it five stars and then in the comments tell me what you don’t like But I’d love to hear your feedback. I hope that you are enjoying these podcast episodes. I hope that they are helping you on your faith journey. And I plan on continuing to create content if you plan on listening. And today we’re going to talk about conflict resolution. One of the things that I have experienced over my many, many years as a pastor. is people that get into relationship conflicts, whether it is coworkers in some kind of conflict, a married couple. adult children, with parents, all sorts of relationship type conflicts pop up. You know, if we’re gonna live life long enough with other people, we are gonna find ourselves at times at odds with people, in a disagreement. And it seems to me that we don’t innately know how to communicate through those conflicts. Perhaps you’ve had this experience. You’re in a major disagreement. You’re upset with someone. Again, maybe it’s your spouse or a coworker, and you have all these feelings. And you want to resolve it, but you’re not sure how to best communicate with them. Well, that’s what I want to talk about today. Let’s start though with just a couple of scriptures. First, Romans 12, 17 and 18, where the Apostle Paul Really hear communicating words that just flow right out of the spirit of Jesus. Paul writes, Do not repay anyone evil for evil. but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all And I think as followers of Jesus, this is our default setting that we want to live in peace with other people. We want to live peaceably. particularly with the people we’re working with, particularly with family members and friends. And I like the way it’s worded here. If it is all possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably. Often we find ourselves in a conflict, we can make attempts at resolution, but it has to start with us. It does require two people, but we have to be the ones to initiate. Now, the person on the other side of the conflict may or may not want to have a conversation with you, and that’s their choice So I like the way this is worded. As far as it depends on you, you do what you can to live peaceably with all. And in a conflict, when you feel angry or you feel frustrated or you’re aggravated you’re confused or annoyed, how you deal with those negative emotions is important I know for years I had really poor habits of simply ignoring and suppressing any of those negative emotions. I thought, well, the way to deal with my anger or frustration is just to bury it as deep down in my heart as I can. Well, the problem with trying to ignore negative emotions or suppressing them is they have a cumulative effect. They begin to build up. I felt for years that I was taking all those negative emotions and I was stuffing them in a wooden box and I had this wooden lid on it that I kept driving more and more deck screws down into to keep it suppressed. Well, after some time those negative emotions begin to leak out. And sometimes they can leak out in an explosive way. Maybe you’ve been in a meeting or at a family gathering, and someone all of a sudden, out of nowhere, just sort of explodes in anger or frustration. Often that’s because poor habits of conflict resolution, poor habits of dealing with negative emotions And so I have developed a way of communicating through relationship conflicts that I think can really empower you. To communicate how you feel and to seek resolution. But it does begin with you. That’s what Jesus taught us In Matthew 18, Jesus says, if your brother has sinned against you, then you go point out the fault with your brother, just the two of you alone. That’s Matthew 18, 15. So Jesus says, if you are feeling angry or frustrated, if someone has sinned against you, if they have hurt you in some way, If you’re feeling anger towards them, then you have the responsibility to go to that person and have a conversation. But how do you do that? How do you even start that conversation? Well, that’s what I have for you today. I have created an approach to conflict resolution that’s really grown out of my own personal journey of Trying to live a peaceable life. It really started in my marriage, learning how to communicate disagreements without an argument. And then I began to teach it to others, particularly married couples. So I’d have a married couple, they would uh reach out to me as a pastor and say, hey, we’re having trouble in our marriage. Uh can we meet with you? And often in those conversations, what I found is they simply didn’t have the tools to communicate through their conflict. So I developed it and used it first among married couples and then in larger family dynamics. A few years ago, I was invited to a youth summer camp and I taught a workshop on conflict resolution and I taught this approach to conflict resolution, this script I’m about to share with you. I shared it with a bunch of middle school and high school students And then that night the camp director came to me and said the high school boys are in the midst of an argument would you come and help mediate the conflict? And so I got a bunch of high school boys together uh in their dorm room and I said, Hey, most of you went to my workshop. Now we’re gonna do it. I pulled out the piece of paper set and I said, Let’s walk through this together. So, this is simply an approach. It’s not the only approach. It doesn’t work in every situation. But it is one way to communicate through conflict, to seek a common solution. When someone has hurt us, it’s easy for us to turn our words into missiles That we fire back at people, right? This is what happens in an argument. Someone says something in an argument And it makes us so angry that we choose words that are like missiles that we fire back. Like, oh yeah. Oh yeah, you gonna hurt me with those words? Well, watch out. I got a zinger for you. And that really goes against what Paul was saying in Romans chapter 12. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. If people are using hurtful words towards you, don’t respond in kind with more hurtful words, that’s what only intensifies arguments. So, I want to offer to you this script, and that’s what it is: a way of communicating through conflict. But before I get to it, let me lay down some ground rules. First, if you’re going to enter into this kind of conflict resolution, you have to suspend judgment Nobody is the good guy, nobody is the bad guy. We are not trying to determine who was right and who was wrong in this situation. Instead, what we’re trying to do is to seek understanding Another ground rule is in this type of conflict resolution, we can only work through one issue at a time. Often in conflict resolution, as you are working through the conflict, other issues present themselves. And often I’ve told people just write those down on a list. And say to the person in the conversation, that’s a valid concern, but can we have a conversation about that issue at a different time? Let’s stick with one issue at a time Another ground rule is don’t defend yourself, don’t deflect, and don’t diminish what anyone is saying Again, the goal here is to seek understanding, to try to understand where the other person is coming from. Another helpful rule is we are seeking to validate emotions You may not agree with what the person is saying to you as you’re working through a conflict, but again, we’re not We’re totally suspending judgment. We’re not trying to find out who’s right and who’s wrong. So you might disagree with what they’re saying, but you want to validate how they feel. Another rule and very helpful tool is that when you’re in the thick of conflict resolution and you don’t know what else to say, and you’re somewhat stuck or confused, ask a loving question. So if you’re if you’re working through things and it may be getting a little heated and you’re but you and the person you’re talking to are feeling all sorts of negative emotions and you feel a bit stuck, pause, take a deep breath, and simply ask a loving question. We’re going to talk a little bit about forgiveness in this conflict resolution script, and it’s helpful to know that forgiveness doesn’t mean what they did was okay. So if you’ve been hurt by someone and you’re in the process of offering them forgiveness, it doesn’t justify their actions. And we’ll talk more about that as we get through this script. When you are angry, this is another important rule. When you’re feeling angry, avoid always statements. Avoid the kind of totalizing statements where you say, you always do this, or you always do that. Avoid that kind of language because typically, if you say that, the person listening to you will go through their memory banks and they will find one time that they weren’t. acting like that or or doing that thing that irritated you. So avoid always statements. Another important ground rule. Work to win the relationship and not the argument. We’re really trying to prevent arguing. We’re promoting understanding. So the end goal here is not simply to prove yourself right. Again, we’ve suspended judgment. Instead, you’re trying to win and restore the relationship Another rule Don’t assume motivations instead ask So if you’re working through the conflict and you’re expressing hurt towards another person, don’t assume the motivations behind their actions. Well, you said those really unkind things, and I think you did that because don’t assume motivations, instead ask. You can use language like, I’d like to check out an assumption with you. Uh, did you say that thing towards me because this or that happened? Ask a question, don’t make assumptions. Keep the Bible or all references to God out of this conversation. This is a huge rule. Now, if you’d like to pray before or after you start this conflict resolution, prayer is always good. But in the middle of the conversation, that’s not the time to have Bible study Because if you’re working through a conflict and you try to bring Scripture or God into the conversation, you will be tempted. To bring the Bible and God on your side to prove, yeah, me and God, we we got this right, and and we’re gonna use scripture to show you how you are wrong. So keep the Bible, references to God out of the conversation. This is not the time to quote Scripture. Couple more rules Feel free to take a break at any time. If you’re working through this conflict resolution script and you are stuck and you’re out of loving questions, it’s okay to say, let’s take a break. There’s a scripture in Ephesians that says, be angry and sin not. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. And some people wrongly assume that that means you have to stay up all night until you resolve the conflict. And I don’t think that is exactly what Ephesians is talking about. instead Ephesians is trying to teach us that anger is a symptom of a problem and you need to deal with that problem quickly. But sometimes the best thing you can do in conflict resolution is call it a night, get a good night’s sleep, and try again the next day. So at any time feel free to call a break. And the last ground rule here is that reconciliation requires two people, but forgiveness only requires one. If you’re going to use this approach to conflict resolution, you have to have buy-in from the person on the other side of the conversation. If you’re going to work towards a common solution, it is a two-person initiative. However, If the person who has hurt you doesn’t want to enter into a conversation, they don’t want to hear anything about what they’ve done or how you feel, you can still work through a process of forgiving them. Which is the process of putting them in the hands of God, sort of turning them over to God and let God deal with them, and you can walk in forgiveness. I think sometimes if we choose not to forgive, but rather nurse the anger and resentment in our heart, it only hurts our own soul. So it does require two people, but you can still walk in forgiveness if it’s just you. Okay, so that’s some general ground rules to begin this. So let me walk you through what this conversation looks like. Now, if you’re more of a visual person, I have a PDF copy of this script in the show notes. Just click that link and you can see this. Maybe that would help you as I’m walking through it to actually see it. So click the link in the show notes and you can see it for yourself. But let’s begin. This approach to conflict resolution starts with the person who has been hurt. They have to communicate, like Jesus said, they have to go to the person who hurt them, who sinned against them. and communicate their feelings. So how does that start? The best way to get the conversation going is to phrase your, let’s call it, opening statement, something like this. your actions and you name the specific actions or if it was a one-time event, the action You name their action or actions, and then you express how it makes you feel So your opening line is your actions, you name those actions, make me feel, and the next thing you want to say after makes me feel. is you want to use a feeling word. In that link in the show notes that has this conflict resolution script, I’ve also given you a number of feeling words to communicate negative emotions. Because sometimes we just don’t know how to put language to how we’re feeling So perhaps you’re feeling anger of some sort. Well, there’s a number of feeling words that you can use. So you can name their action. When you spoke to me like that, it made me feel mad. It made me feel aggravated. I felt upset. I felt disappointed, stressed, annoyed. It made me tense. There’s a lot of different feeling words. But that really I think is a huge first step when you can put language to how you feel. So this is where it begins. The person who has been hurt says, your actions make me feel, for example, when you said that thing to me, it made me feel aggravated or mad. Now, as we said, it takes two people to enter into this conflict resolution. So the person you’re talking to, they have a way to respond. And their best response is a question. And that question is, can you help me understand? Now we have to look at this conflict resolution from both vantage points, both from the perspective of the person who has been hurt. and the person who created the hurt. So if we can think about it from that perspective of the person who created the hurt If someone comes to you and said, you know, when you said that thing to me, it made me really angry. I feel very frustrated and aggravated because of the way you spoke to me. Now, when you hear that Typically, the response is to want to defend yourself, right? Oh, well, you you just misunderstood. No, I was just making a joke. I I didn’t mean to hurt you So that kind of response is an unhealthy response. That’s more of defending and diminishing. So if you are the one who created the hurt and someone’s coming to you, don’t throw up your defense mechanisms. Instead, ask a loving question. Can you help me understand? Alright, so let’s go back to the perspective of the person who started the conversation, the person who feels frustrated or aggravated. They’ve communicated how they have felt. The person has said, can you help me understand? Then the person who initiated the conversation needs to give specific examples Again, you’re not trying to assume the motivations of the person who hurt you. You’re just trying to give them very clear, specific events. When we were in that meeting on Tuesday morning, you said the following. Another time this happened, we were in the hallway. I’m sort of using examples from more of a coworker conflict. We were in that hallway after we had that lunch together, and you said, so you’re trying to name specific events. Now This is completely without judgment. You’re simply naming what they did, and you are connecting that with how you feel Alright, the next step in our script, the person who created the hurt, when you have heard the examples, you again are not trying to defend yourself. You’re not trying to prove well you’re right. You’re not evaluating what they are saying. You’re simply trying to understand. You’re trying to connect how your words or actions have created negative emotions in this person Once you come to a place of understanding, now you’re ready to proceed. And you have three statements, actually two statements and a question. The first statement is to say to that person, I understand. Now again, you might understand that your words or actions created that negative emotion, but you may not agree with them Actually, this has happened to me a number of times when my wife and I are working through a conflict. When she expresses something I’ve said, something I’ve done, something I have not done. That’s created negative emotions in her. When she’s given me those specific examples, sometimes I’m evaluating and I’m thinking, you shouldn’t feel that way. Now I would never say it, but sometimes I’m thinking, that’s dumb. Why would you feel that way? But again, evaluating someone’s emotions is not helpful. Again, I’m not trying to figure out who the good guy and bad guy is here. I’m simply trying to resolve the conflict. So by saying I understand, I’m not saying I agree. I’m simply saying that I understand that my action Maybe it was a one-time action or ongoing actions have created this negative emotion. By saying I understand, I’m validating how they feel. I’m acknowledging that I I see that they are frustrated or aggravated or mad. And again, there are many, many different negative emotions. I’m just working with anger feeling words. And to validate the emotions of someone who is hurt is a large step towards reconciliation. So again, I have at this point I have two statements and a question. The first statement is I understand The second statement, and this is the person who created the hurt. The second statement is the apology, I’m sorry And this is pretty common within our culture. Christians and non-Christians, religious, irreligious people sort of know the power of the apology, expressing sorrow to that person. And sorrow normally follows the understanding of the emotions that have been communicated. Oh wow, I. I want to have a good relationship with this person. And man, I said some things or did some things that made them angry. And I feel bad about that. I’m sorry. Typically, this is where a lot of people want to stop. They have wrongly assumed that the end of a conflict is when the apology is offered But there’s one more thing that needs to happen in this step, and it’s a question. And notice how for the person who has been hurt, and notice for the person who created the hurt. A lot of their communication is in the form of questions. So they’ve already stated, I understand, I’m making the connection. The apology, number two, I’m sorry. But here is the next powerful step towards resolution. And it’s a question: Will you forgive me? These four words are maybe the most powerful four words in this entire form of communication towards conflict resolution. Will you forgive me I believe that that question has to follow the apology because apologies aren’t enough. Now, think about this from the perspective of the person who started the conversation, the person who has been hurt. If they express their feelings, if they give examples, and the person who hurt them says, I’m sorry, what’s the typical response to that? The typical response to I’m sorry is that’s okay. It’s okay. And I don’t think that that’s a healthy way of communicating either. Because it’s not okay. You’ve already spent all this time and energy communicating all these negative emotions. It isn’t okay. So when the person who created the hurt says, I’m sorry, don’t respond with, well, it’s okay. Instead, allow that person to ask the question, will you forgive me? See, questions like that bring us closer together because now the person who has been hurt has the opportunity to respond and take a step closer to the person who created the hurt. And they will respond, yes, I forgive you, or perhaps I’m not ready to forgive you right now. The forgiveness piece is really big. And so I always encourage people in a conflict, don’t rush to forgiveness. Remember that forgiveness does not mean what they did was right. When you say, Yes, I will forgive you, and that is the next line in the script for the person who has been hurt, When you say yes, I forgive you, you’re not saying I deserved what you did or said. You’re not saying you’re right, I’m wrong. You’re not saying it’s just okay. You’re not saying, oh, it’s just no big deal. Let’s just forget this ever happened. When you say, I forgive you What you’re saying is, I will no longer penalize you for the hurt you created. I’m thinking about a time I had a conversation uh with my wife. uh while we were getting ready for work and I was standing uh in the doorway of the bathroom and I had my hand on the uh door frame. And uh she didn’t know my hand was up there and she went to close the door when I wasn’t looking and she closed the door. and smashed my fingers. Of course, I yelled because I am a big baby. And she she said, Oh, oh, oh, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. And uh now at that point, you know, we weren’t working through a whole conflict. I said, it it’s okay, it’s okay, I forgive you. It I know you didn’t mean it, it was just an accident. Now, I forgave her And in forgiving her, it didn’t mean that my fingers didn’t hurt anymore. It didn’t mean that I deserved it or that it was okay. But by saying I forgive you, even though my fingers are throbbing in pain, I am saying I’m not going to penalize you for the hurt. you created. I’m not going to require that your hand is put in the door frame and I smash your fingers. Right? That is the old eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. Which yes is in the Old Testament law, but Jesus tells us this is not the way we’re going to live. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, you’ve heard it said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I tell you not to retaliate. The process of forgiveness is choosing not to retaliate Now, just like my fingers were still hurting, sometimes in a relationship conflict, you can still feel a little ache and hurt in your heart. and you through that hurt can say, Yes, I forgive you. It doesn’t mean the hurt automatically goes away. I think sometimes the process of healing after a relationship conflict takes a little bit of time. But forgiveness is one of the steps towards healing. So the person who created the hurt says, I understand. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me? And the person who has been hurt then says, when they are ready, yes, I forgive you. Meaning, I’m not going to penalize you for the hurt you created. I’m not going to try to pay you back. I’m not going to hold it over your head in some form of relational manipulation. I forgive you. And again, that is not the end of the conflict. Some people want to end with just an apology, some people want to end with forgiveness, but there still is one final step. And it’s a question to be asked by the person who created the hurt. Notice again, they are asking lots of questions. Questions bring us together. Accusations push us further apart. But the last question to be asked by the person who created the hurt is how can we do life differently? When you phrase the question like that, you are taking what was their problem, the person who came to you to say your actions make me feel, you are turning their problem into our solution. How can we do life differently? This, in Christian terms, is the act of repentance. We’ve already gone through the Christian act of confession. And the offer of forgiveness, but confession and forgiveness is not enough because we don’t want another cycle of this kind of hurt So if you’re the one on the receiving end and you do understand that some action created a negative emotion, if you want to rebuild that relationship, then you will want to have a conversation for a while, how can we do life differently? And it is a we question. What can we do differently Again, we’re not pointing the finger of blame. We’re not trying to pick good guys and bad guys. So the person who created the hurt is not saying, what can I do differently? But it’s a joint conversation. What can we do differently? To wrap up, I’ll give you another story just from my own life. And it was a conversation that my wife and I had years ago when I was first starting in ministry. I was a young pastor. I was very uh driven to work hard for the church. I would say, this was when I was in my late 20s, and I would say that my family and work balance was out of whack. Um, I was spending way too many hours uh working for the church and not enough time with the family. We had two young kids at the time, and my wife was a stay-at-home mom. And she would want to call just in the middle of the day, just to chat. And I’m the kind of person that when I am working, I do not like interruptions I get very focused. I get sort of in the zone when I’m doing any kind of work. And I hate interruptions. And so she would call me at the church office. This is before the days of texting and cell phones. This is years and years and years ago. So she would call me at the office just to chit chat and I would be in the middle of working on something. I would take the call, hey, what’s going on? Oh well, you know, one of the kids knocked over their cereal and I had to clean it up and I was like, uh-huh, mm-hmm, yeah, mm-hmm, okay. And she would get the hint and say, well, I guess I’ll talk to you later. Okay, bye. And I’d hang up. Well, she’d had enough of that. And we had a conversation where she said, you know, when you’re short with me on the phone It really makes me upset. It makes me feel disconnected from you. It’s like you have your life at church. I have my life at home. And I’m really hurt by that. And when she said that to me, I had no concept, no way of understanding. I thought, well, that’s dumb. I didn’t say that to her, but that was my reaction. Like, why would you feel that way? And I didn’t say those things to her, but I was trying to understand, so I just said, Well, I I I don’t get that. Why why do you feel that way And she just began to describe her day, having two toddlers at home and never having adult interaction and adult conversation. And she just wanted a break from cartoons and diapers and feeding just to have an adult conversation. As she was describing that, I put myself in her shoes and I thought, wow, that would be really, really tough. And so after she gave me those examples, I said, I understand. I really came to a point where I understood that me being short with her on the phone. How that would make her feel disconnected and hurt and upset. And so I did apologize. I said, I’m sorry. And I said, Will you forgive me? And she said, Yes. I will forgive you. And then I said, well, okay, I don’t want to do this again, so what can we do differently? And I first said, I was the first one to speak. I said, you know what? When you call me and I’m at the office, if I’m not meeting with someone, if I’m just working on my laptop, I will shut my laptop down and I’ll give you my undivided attention. And she said that’d be great. And she said, I know you don’t like to be interrupted when you’re at work, so I’ll try not to call you ten times a day And so it was a beautiful resolution to that conflict. And it ended so beautifully because we were together able to come up with a solution that worked for us. So, this is the big picture of simply an approach to conflict resolution. This is not the only approach, but this is one way. And I think if you can get this script And share it with the person you’re in a conflict with and say, hey, can we walk through this together? I think that you too will find more resolutions to your conflicts. So that you can live at peace whether you’re at work or at home or with your friends. So make sure you click the link in the show notes to download the PDF. It has the whole script. You can share that with the person you’re communicating with. It also has all of those feeling words for negative emotions. This is a tool that I think will help you tremendously. So go download it, go try this, and then reach out to me and let me know how it goes. I would love to hear stories of conflicts getting resolved using this form of conflict resolution. Well, that’s all we have for today. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Go in peace and be kind.
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.