Reflections: Your Year with Conflict and Courage

Reflections: How did you do this year with conflict and courage?

I’ve been reflecting on 2022 and the courage my clients and I have shown in dealing with conflict, inner and outer. As those of you who have been reading my blog for a while know, I write a lot about conflict transformation as a process, which requires courage, willingness, and persistence but never perfection!

Here are some questions I’ve been asking myself and clients as the year draws to a close. And, I invite you to think about this with compassion and tenderness. There are no wrong answers.

 What were the conflicts and other difficult situations that came your way this year?

Take a deep breath and, if you choose, write or think about those situations. Then, you can reflect on your answers to these additional questions.

What did you do better or differently this year?

Accomplishments large or small all count. They could include a difficult conversation you handled more gracefully. Or gently turning away a savage inner criticism and affirming your worth instead of letting the negative message continuing to play on repeat. It could mean you practiced letting go of a resentment instead of hanging on to it with both hands. It could mean you tackled a task that scared you and got through it step by step. It could mean you chose to forgive yourself for a mistake and learn from it.

Bonus question—Were you a better, more curious and compassionate listener? This could include being curious and open to their perspective rather than judgmental, as well as accepting that there could be more than one possible story and a different truth.

Even if you did these new behaviors sometimes and forgot to practice them at other times, your progress deserves acknowledgement. Kudos!

Here are some of my accomplishments, mostly around inner conflict:

• In spite of my fierce inner critic telling me I couldn’t get a book published, I did. My memoir came out October 25^th and I’m patiently working to market it.
• I overcame my fear of new to me technology, in this case Facebook Live, and, after a lot of muttering and practice, I presented at a virtual conference on a beautiful topic, Turn Your Mistakes into Stories (see link below).
• I reframed questions on a challenging podcast so I could best share my expertise.

Lorraine Segal

After surviving the 50's and 60's, as well as twenty years in toxic academia as a tenured professor, Lorraine Segal was inspired to started her own business, Conflict Remedy (ConflictRemedy.com), happily teaching, coaching, blogging and consulting around workplace conflict transformation. She is addicted to reading novels and enjoys walking and… MORE