My personal blog this week is referencing a personally conflict
that I have endured that has come with a cost greater than I would have liked.
Using Steward Levine’s 10 principles of new thinking, it somewhat allowed me to
review my personal conflict differently, but has not had a direct impact on the
conflict, itself. My personal experience relates to my childhood and my
dysfunctional family dynamics. Dysfunctional is a major understatement to my
family conflicts, which still occur today. In order to understand the conflict,
I must outline the setting.
I was born in the early 1970’s with parents that were high
school dropouts, very young, and struggled to parent throughout my entire
childhood. My mother had a happy soul and filled her life with fun, and did not
have a mean approach about her. My father was the total opposite who has lived
an unhappy, bitter life, and continuously strives to wreak havoc on everyone in
his path, no matter the topic.
I am the only girl out of four children, and second in the
line-up. I have had ample amount of resentment toward my father due to the
years of child abuse and lengthy visits to foster care. However, I have always
tried to look at the glass half full verses leaning on the negative feelings to
drive what kind of person I being.
My final personal conflict began almost two years ago, when I
had enough of the family defamation that my father does whenever we get
together. This conflict was hard for me because I don’t like confronting the
past and dealing with drama. I tend to avoid all family dramatic situations.
However, I stood up to my father and have paid the emotional price since the
conflict.
When it comes Steward Levine’s 10 principles, I reviewed my
thinking ability with logic, and winning as the major factors that apply to our
family conflict. Secrecy, however, is the root of the conflict over the years.
Secrecy
The family has a large history of secrets that no one talks
about, but those secrets randomly appear when there is a conflict. My family
does not participate in family reunions, and we only get together when there is
a funeral, which is sad. In Levine’s ten principles of new thinking, the
ability foster resolution with collaboration sounds great and realistic. I have
often tried to take the higher road and minimal conflict in conversation by
trying to remove myself from the situations. At the same time, it demonstrates
a coward approach when I feel I need to be a leader and help rid all the
nonsense. The process does wear me down, as I feel we can never get to solid
ground in the communication.
Winning
In our family conflict, it always appears their needs to be a
winner. My father is like the family bully who likes to push everyone’s
buttons, especially if you do not agree with him. In Levine’s principle of
being open, one must reprogram oneself to be open. I can honestly say that I
often use things I have learned in the critical thinking modules to just
listening to the feedback prior to provide an input into the conflict. The
hardest part of being open is the feeling that the received words are more of
an attack than a discussion.
So my conflict two years
ago happened at the zoo. My small family and new grand baby were meeting up with
my father and his new wife. The first conflict occurred is when I secretly
purchased a hotel room for my father. My father had been on down on his luck
and lost his job. I thought I was doing a helpful thing, however it was a
complete embarrassment to him and he threw a fit like a small child. My father
expressed that I was showing off how much money I made and didn’t need my help.
After talking to his wife, he didn’t need help as he was late arriving at the
zoo because he had to stop and gamble. I
let that go and just ignored that I was a horrible child, and then round two
started, this time in the zoo. My father
was not happy with how the elephants were being treated, as they needed water.
After being told about three times to tell the zookeepers, I snapped. I let him
know, in the park, that he is an adult and he can tell the zookeepers about his
dissatisfaction. Because I stood up to the family bully, my father did not take
to me for over a year and a half. I was like really, all because of elephants.
It was deeper than the elephants and it had to do with winning. It had to do with 42 years of never standing
up to my father.
The valuable lesson I did learn is relationships are not a game.
As Levine talks about the truth circle as being important to winning the
conflict, I reflected back on that day at the zoo thinking about why I thought
it was important to set my father straight.
Logic
When it comes to logic and trying to understand the
dysfunctional dynamics of my family, one has to be creative. I have reflected several times in the last
few weeks since a family member passed, wondering how I was lucky enough to be
different. I do feel I have had the opportunities that have broadened my
perspective over the years. Being a parent myself, having the military
discipline structure, and the educational background has given me the tool sets
to look at things from a very different lens.
My altitude toward my childhood used to be very hidden as it was an
embarrassment, whereas now I consider it the main driver in my successful journey.
I am a firm believer that you cannot change the past, but you are the driver of
the future.
Conclusion
Although my conflict is not personally resolved with my father,
I am aware of how to approach the situation differently in hopes of getting a
different result. I know in many of our courses we have talked about positive
and negative feedback, which works very well in a business setting, but not on
a family conflict. It is very hard to foster positive relationships within the
family as it seems everyone has a need to win, use of creative logic does not
exist, therefore we remain in secrecy waiting for the next family event to
relive the opportunity. At the end of the day, I enjoyed reading the principles
of new thinking as there are some ideas I can use when the family meets again. I do avoid conflict, therefore if I applied a
bit more effort in resolving conflict there could be a different result.
References:
Levine, S.
(2009). Getting to Resolution: Turning conflict into collaboration (Vol.
2). San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishing, Inc.
