Handling your feelings, their feelings, your feelings about their feelings

Part Two of the Grand Manifesto on Conflict Resolution and fighting less is:

Handle The Emotions

Seems a bit ridiculous to be saying that dealing with emotions is important in conflict situations, but, er, it is.

Not being neither a grumpy, over-sensitive arse nor a smug, overly calm arse is a life-long, constant… exploration for me.

In terms of conflict, apart from making you say crazy things you regret, emotions (especially anger and fear) exacerbate the certainty effect. They often narrow the options you can see, and make you more certain about our conclusions.

(By the way, I hate this phrase ‘dealing with’ emotions. Horrid. Any suggestions are gladly received. I’m experimenting with ‘handling’ but am not convinced.)

Handling your own emotions

First off, you’ve got to deal with your own emotions.

Awareness is the first step to this, I think.

Awareness includes knowing:

~ when you’re feeling something at all
~ knowing what you’re feeling
~ what that might be doing to your view of the world and your ability to process information.

Just being aware you’re feeling something is at times a big step.

For example, let’s say you’re at a party with a Person You Care About. Everything they’re doing, everything they’re saying is annoying you. Perhaps, just perhaps, it’s not what they’re doing, but you being grumpy or oversensitive.

Knowing this means you might not pick a fight with that Person, and then have it turn out to be you all along.

And no, this is not taken from my life.

At all.

Not scared at Disney anymore and other triggers

One of the things that I’ve gained from doing woo-woo regression work is getting really aware of my triggers.

When we were at Hong Kong Disney last Sunday (WHAT?) we visited the 4D show called Philharmagic.

Basically, it’s a (pretty tame) 3D movie where Donald gets hold of Mickey’s wand (oh, come on) and hat and gets into all sorts of trouble that involves things coming out at you.

3 year olds are loving it.

90 year olds are loving it.

Normally, I… tolerate it.

Only because I know the only effects are the 3D stuff, plus some puffs of air, some scents, and a little bit of water spraying (that’s what make it ’4D’ for those uninitiated into the magic).

Unlike Bug’s Life. Don’t get me started on Bug’s Life.

Andrew gets scared by a kid’s ride

We were taking our friend’s family around Disney in Florida a couple of years ago and we went into the Bug’s Life 4D thing. Darkness. Things falling from the ceiling. Puffs of air around your feet (this represents ‘cute’ bugs running past your feet). Being ‘stung’ in your back by a pokey thing in your chair…

I

Hated.

It.

Ellen’s Dinosaur tour? I looked hunted.
Honey I Shrunk The Audience? Kept my hand on the 3D  glasses so I could tear them off.

Back to last Sunday.

I realised, not for the first time, that I have some freaky irrational fear-thing about stuff coming from behind me in the dark.  Who knows where it comes from, but it’s definitely a thing.
When I acknowleged that thish fear-thing made me much more sensitive to things coming at me in the dark, I was able to… somehow not be so impressed by the emotion.

To go, ‘Ok, my reaction is to be overly sensitive to this. On a scale of 1 – 10, I’ll ignore anything under a 6.’

Totally worked.

Enjoyed Philharmagic for the first time (I have been, like, three times before. Ah, the Disney shame.)

What the hell this has to do with conflict

Well… if you can get aware of what your triggers are, you can learn to sort of ignore the lower-level stuff, even if it feels like a big deal.

Kind of like not being fooled by your emotions into having a bigger reaction than needed.

More about exactly HOW to do this, er, soon. As soon as I’ve found ways.

Handling other’s people’s emotions

I find I pick a lot of fights because I want the other person to not be feeling what they’re feeling.

Is that weird?

I think that, often, predicting in advance what someone might be feeling and working out how to be ok with them feeling it can help to stop conflict happening.

Byron Katie talks about what’s my business, what’s your business and what’s God’s business.

What you’re feeling is totally not my business.

(That doesn’t mean I don’t care, nor that I might not choose ways to minimise the impact of my words/actions, nor is it an excuse to be an arse, just that stopping you feeling things or getting you to feel something else is totally not my business).

Listening for what other people are feeling can help too. More about that when we get to Listening. Of course.

I have an inkling that if you’re really serious about ‘dealing with’ conflict better, the ability to not be baited by other’s emotions is an important one.

***
Things for another time

~ The path of an emotion has a certain length
~ How to not respond to anger with anger
~ Is Emotional Intelligence all it’s cracked up to be?

My task this week:

Notice stuff around emotions, both mine, other’s, and my reaction to other’s.

You’re welcome to join in of course.

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