Working through conflict and confrontation

Conflict and confrontation.

They come at us all. They come in different ways, through different vessels, but come just the same.

Personally, I think of conflict and confrontation as two distinctly different things.

When I think of conflict, I think of a challenge or disagreement of the state of things.

When I think of confrontation, I think of a conflict moving to an unhealthy place filled with negative emotion. Often this can lead to a physical or highly charged emotional confrontation.

Conflict can be healthy, and it's something many of us run into on a nearly daily basis.

Yet, as I sit here and think of how I handled conflict 20 years ago versus today, there is a vast difference.

In my earlier years, when someone would disagree with me on something, I thought of it as confrontation and acted out of anger.

Back then, my issues with self-doubt weren't handled as they are now.

Then there is the maturity factor.

When we're younger, we think we can do anything and usually know much more than we do. We may have the surface and book knowledge on things, but there is no better, or hard, teacher than life.

I would once act out of anger when questioned on something. I've learned that questions help us. And they usually help those asking it.

I can think of several times a boss of mine would come to the younger me asking why I did things a certain way or why I didn't follow their direction.

I'd immediately get my guard up, think they were judging me, and become combative. Out of the four instances that come to mind right now, only one of those times were they judging me.

Had I had the experience I do now, I would have known to take a beat and realize that usually there's a reason they're asking the question.

In the world we currently find ourselves what I'm about to say may seem contradictory. Negativity and the whole "cancel culture" are pervasive but what I've learned in my life is that most people are not out to hurt us.

Don't get me wrong, some people are out for that, but it's the minority. It took me a long time to realize and accept that. The noise in my head always figured those coming to me with these things were an enemy when they were being the opposite.

Being open to healthy conflict and understanding it can be a learning or teaching moment is critical. With outside parties, once we learn this, it can help them and us.

But what do we do about internal conflict?

This is more difficult because it takes honest self-reflection.

You saw me mention it here, and if you've read other posts, you've heard me talk about my challenge with self-doubt. My challenge with it is twofold. First, the life I lived from childhood to young adulthood fed it. Second, it's a tactic often used in spiritual attacks.

How do we battle that?

For me, it was finally seeing the things that I would do that didn't equal up to what that noise was saying. And most importantly, coming to understand that God didn't create me in a failed state. He made me to His specification, and that shouldn't be taken lightly. He didn't put me here to doubt myself, quite the opposite.

When the noise tells me I'm worthless, I do something worthy. For me, that's helping others.

When it tells me I'm unlovable, I remember all the people in my life that do love me. I also keep a note thread on my phone with things people have said that express this, and I read it often. If it was a physical book, the pages would be falling apart.

When it tells me I'm stupid, I remember that I've excelled at every job I've had. I've written books, songs, and poetry. These aren't traits for that.

In short, I lean on the examples I've built into my life and in my relationships with others to remind me that those voices aren't factual, but they're the conflict trying to rise to confrontation.

Speaking of that, we'll get into confrontation a bit now. Honestly, conflict and confrontation are subjects that could make for massive entries, but I'm trying not to do that.

Whenever I'm asked to describe myself, the first two words that always come to mind are fighter and survivor.

When people that know me get asked to describe me, it's usually along the lines of honest, loyal, compassionate, intelligent, stubborn, and driven. Then there's almost always an add-on of something like, "Oh, and if I'm ever caught in a dark alley, I want him there."

I mention that because I lived it when it comes to a physical or emotional confrontation. I learned a lot growing up, but then I was trained in it. And while I'm not trying to stroke my ego, I'm good at it. That's just a fact of life. Some of us fight, some of us don't.

It's a physiological reaction for a reason. Yet, pushed to a level, everyone fights.

Emotionally, verbally, physically, we can all be pushed to that point.

When you find yourself in a place where you are forced into a confrontation, nearly without fail, the right thing is to simply walk away.

There will be times it isn't an option, but I'll touch on that in a moment.

I know it may seem contradictory to my talking about being a fighter. But what you have to remember is the large majority of the time, if a confrontation is started, the issue is actually on the side of those starting it. Not with you. And you aren't losing anything by walking away, but you are helping the other person.

There was a time when I was in basic training that we were practicing hand to hand. In basic, I had a massive chip on my shoulder. I'm pretty sure it was big enough that it had a sign on it saying something like, "Go ahead, try me."

Those that I wasn't close with gave me a pretty wide berth. Those that were close to me just followed my lead. The drill instructors did what they do and tried to break me.

Anyway, so we're doing hand to hand, and the drill instructors pick the kid that none of them liked. He wasn't physical, but he was smart as all get out. He often used his intelligence to demean the drill instructors. That's never a good idea.

Also, remember this was back in the day that the drill instructors could lay hands on you.

They pick the kid and call me in with him. I'm trying to take it easy on him when the instructors start yelling at me to go at him hard. Usually, I liked a fight, but this wasn't fair. I took a couple of steps back, and one of the drill instructors came in and squared off with the kid.

I jumped in front of the kid, and the drill instructor just started going after me. I won't lie. He whooped my butt. But at the end, he leaned down over me and asked why I did it. I told him I thought our job was to fight for the oppressed and those weaker than us.

The confrontation that ended with me was created because of the drill instructor's unjust opinion. That and he was being a bully.

I ran into that drill instructor later, and he thanked me for that day.

Then there was a time I didn't handle confrontation well.

I was managing a team for a company. At that particular time, a large project was going on with another group, and while my team wasn't intensely involved, we had a part in it.

My boss at the time hired a friend of his to manage the project, and everyone knew it was a mistake. The guy wasn't experienced in it, didn't take ownership and every goal not met was blamed on someone else.

He especially liked to blame my team.

One day my boss calls me into his office. His friend is walking out as I'm walking up, and he grins at me. I go into the old boss's office, and I can tell he's extremely upset. I found out later that he got torn up pretty bad because those above him knew the project wasn't progressing.

My old boss proceeds to tell me that I'm useless as a leader. I'm costing the company tons of money because it's my fault that the project is failing. This stuff pretty much rolled off me. It hurt a little because it came from a person who should have supported me, but I also knew it wasn't the case.

Then the line was crossed. He started telling me how incompetent and useless my team was. He finished it with me, and my team's future at the company was now being tied to his friend completing the project. If it failed, my team and I would be the ones getting fired, not his friend.

I've been told I'm an intimidating person. I find this funny because I think I'm far from it. I'm short, average looking, and try to not advertise what I've done. But I do understand there's a presence that we give off and may not realize it.

I'm also told that when you cross a line with me, which usually includes hurting those I love, women, children, or animals, I get a look that can intimidate the heck out of people.

Well, he threatened people I love, and that crossed my line.

Instead of walking away as I should have done, I leaned on his desk, looking him in the eye, and said something along the lines of, "He's going to fail, so you may as well fire me now, and when you do meet me outside because if you think you're man enough to threaten people I love then I'll treat you like the punk and bully you're trying to be."

We've all had bosses we didn't like. That were bullies, so I can hear the "Yeah, you tell him!"

But what I should have done was realized that he was scared. Not just for himself but for someone he cared about. And many times, people like that will strike out at those they know can handle it because they don't expect any kind of rebuttal.

We need to understand when people are acting out of a place of fear or hurt versus acting out of malice.

The last example is one that was pure malice.

Not long ago, I'm walking out of Walmart, and I'm almost at my car when I hear a woman yelling. I looked around and saw the car, heard the woman yell to leave her alone, so I set my bags down.

I then heard her yell to leave her child alone and saw a man reaching into the back seat, so I ran over.

I pulled the guy out. It was one of those movie situations where he unfolded his body and was almost a foot taller than me and obviously went to the gym a lot.

I know I said I can fight, but it doesn't mean I'm 25 anymore or stupid.

The first thing going through my head was, "Don't get hit."

I dodged a couple of punches, wrapped his right arm up, sidestepped up the car, jumped on his back, and locked my legs in so he couldn't throw me off with his left arm.

A bit later, another person joined in, and the man got ahold of his throat. I saw the other man turning blue, and at that point, I tensed, stretched, and yanked his arm as hard as I could until I heard the break and scream.

Don't take any of this as me showing how tough I am. There is a multitude of things that could have gone wrong. I got lucky that the man didn't know how to fight and counted on his size and straight blunt force. This let my training work.

He could have had a gun or a knife, which could have ended a lot worse than it did.

The point of the story is that there are times where it's right to confront a situation.

For me, those situations are when others are in harm's way, my life is in imminent danger, or the noise I talked about becomes too loud.

Confrontation with yourself is hard. I can still remember the first time as a kid when the noise got to such a point that I reached out, picked up a knife, and cut my leg.

I remember the next time I didn't have a knife, but I had a cigarette and remember the smell as I slowly let it burn my leg.

This isn't the right way to deal with this, but it would be very ingenuine to not own up to the fact that I've done those things and that it is a coping mechanism many still use.

Now when the noise gets to the point where it's not just a conflict but an emotional and physical manifestation of pain and anguish, I reach out for different things.

If I'm clear-headed enough, I start with writing. It's my safe space. I turn on music and just write. Usually, it seems like just rambling, but when I'm done, I can go back through it, and when I do, I'm able to recognize what kicked that latest episode off.

If writing doesn't cut it, I put on gloves and beat the crap out of my punching bag. Many times, to exhaustion.

But when it's too much to handle, where I'm not able to have a clear head to work through it, I begin where I end in the times where I am clear-headed. I pray.

I mentioned before that things come in two ways: one internal, one external.

God answers both of those if you let Him.

He knows why He created you and can combat all the noise against why He put you here.

Then there's the spiritual enemy, and the enemy is already in a losing fight with God, so it's a futile effort, and that's known.

We're human, and that comes with a lot of complications.

We let others influence how we act, react and feel. We're tough on ourselves. The saying that we're our own worst critics wasn't born out of fiction.

But with God, I've come to understand that someone is by my side and backing me up with every conflict and confrontation that I have. And I couldn't think of anyone else I'd rather have in a dark alley by my side.