Resolving Conflicts in a Cooperative Way to Manage Stress

Conflicts emerge when there is a lack of understanding and when misconceptions exist. People that base their understanding on opinions and assumptions rather than facts, often find themselves in conflicting situations. Therefore, to reduce stress, your knowledge has to have more meaning and facts to support it. While you work on building convictions, focus now on how to resolve conflicts cooperatively with others.

In this session, we will help you to learn how to express your feelings with ease and deal effectively with interpersonal conflicts. Using the worksheets, practices, and a diary, you will be asked to perform a series of activities. Be prepared. We will share stories with you involving conflict between two individuals. Using the storylines, you will be asked to help solve the problems. These practices are designed to help you build your interpersonal skills and awareness and improve your problem-solving skills, all of which will help you reduce stress.

Story - Two individuals argue heatedly over work

Practice

If you feel safe with your partner, get together as a couple. (If your partner is violent, avoid this practice). Think of something that you disagree on. Open up a discussion with your partner. Discuss your feelings and thoughts and openly and calmly discuss how his/her behavior makes you feel. Try to use constructive conflict skills to find solutions to solve the problem. Move on to discuss what each of you is willing to change to come to an agreement. Let your partner know which consequences you will accept resulting from his or her unwillingness (if applicable) to make changes. Use what you learned in the guide to see if you can reach an agreement with your partner. State your feelings honestly and show supportive facts that verify what you mean.

Next, we will ask you to set some realistic goals. Make it a habit to practice good behaviors daily by setting goals. Goal realization is essential for finding relief from stress. When we have goals, it acts as a motivator that gives us the incentive to achieve by reaching our goals. When you are able to recognize your goals, you become aware of what you want from life. In this situation, we ask that you make it a goal to conquer your stressors or at least reduce them to manage your stress. Work to achieve your goals once they is set; otherwise they will cause you more stress. Set realistic goals that you can achieve. Guided relaxation techniques such as deep guided meditation can help you relax and prepare for stressful situations.

Meditation Activity to manage stress

We spoke of using meditation tactics in this guide to help you relax. Practice the deep guided meditation technique below daily. By guiding your body to relax often, you will be more prepared to handle any conflict that you encounter in the future.

Deep guided meditation often helps us to balance our thoughts and become friends with our discomforts. It is useful for reducing anxiety and manage stress.

Meditation - start by finding a quiet area in your home. Recline in a relaxing position. Close your eyes, focus on your breathing, and body sensations. If you notice yourself tensing, let it go without fighting it. Notice your discomforts, and focus on your breathing. Breathe in, exhale, and continue until the discomforts ease. Next, take a mental journey into a peaceful garden. Notice smells senses, etc and listens to bird chirps as the warm summer breeze grazes your hair. Picture yourself walking toward a beautiful waterfall and observe the smell, feel, touch, tastes, as you move closer. If you feel uneasy, breathe in and exhale again repeatedly until you find some relaxation.

Now, it is time for you to create a diary.

Diary

Keep a log of your daily activities. Record any conflicts you dealt with. Record how you handled the situation, what caused you stress, the consequences followed by your actions and responses to the situations. Write as much information as you can to describe the situation, expressing your feelings clearly and specifying what you want to see change. Review the consequences that may occur from the changes. For those of you that do not like to write, use a voice recorder.

Summary

In this session, we used CBT self-guided techniques to assist you with solving problems. We helped you to build skills that allow you to solve conflicts effectively. Again, the more you practice the techniques, the easier it will become for you to solve problems regularly. Solving problems is the best way to manage stress. When problems develop, don't delay; find a solution as quickly as possible. Putting off the problem builds stress. In our next session, our focus is is on helping you to bring each side of your personality into harmony with the other. We will use some REA techniques (Resent, Expect, and Appreciate) coping techniques for dealing with verbal attacks and anger. We will also help you to process internally how to relate to how other people may feel. We will teach you how to use empathy to resolve problems with others, how to control intense arguments and how to build healthy relationship skills while bringing both sides of your personality together.

Help is available online - use the links below to learn more or to take a test.