Managing Conflict with Family & Friends

I'm very tired cos past few days not enough sleep and I am getting heaty again. Felt an ulcer grow at the opening of my throat..... if 1-2 weeks not healed i gonna go to the doc's..... Really tired but I was reading my emails when I came across this which I think is really good and true, so read on....

Managing Conflict with Family & Friends

Do you often feel the desire to lash out at your partner, family members and friends? Do you often find yourself questioning their love and concern for you?

When an upsetting event occurs - say a family member does something that you think is incredibly insensitive and stupid; or a friend says something you feel is hurtful - you have a choice of how you are going to explain it to yourself - what you are going to tell yourself about it. This will influence how angry, stressed, or upset you become over the event.

Because we take our family members and friends' affection for granted, we assume that they'll always see eye to eye with us or behave the way we expect them to behave. When we observe an action or remark that seems to contravene our expectations, we immediately suspect that they're trying to upset or disparage us.

Let's say your wife secretly buys you an LCD TV for your birthday. But because it cost so much money, you are displeased with her for not discussing it with you first. Besides you've always preferred plasma, it doesn't have the features you want, and so on. Your wife is left dumbfounded and you're fuming over why she would do something foolish like that. You've completely missed the point. You've ignored the wonderful motivation behind the gift and focused on the flaws.

Or say for example, you're having a beer with an old friend. The conversation turns to your success in life. Wanting to compliment you, your friend tells you how far you've come, how much of an inspiration you are to others, given your background with a dysfunctional family. But rather than seeing this as a compliment, you become offended, focusing on the fact that he brought up your family.

Learning to change what you tell yourself -your self-talk- can break the cycle of negativity that can often poison our minds when we get angry. We all have 'scripts' in our minds that tell us messages and stories about family members and how they behave.

We talked about how you might be upset over your spouse's extravagant gift for you perhaps - you telling yourself things like "she has such poor judgment", "we don't need such a big TV", "there she goes again, spending money excessively", "why can't she ever do what I want her to do?", "why did I marry such a woman?"

Of course, none of these things make any sense to you once you cool down and became your rational self again. But, at the moment of anger explosion, your self-statements seem 100% true to you. If you engage excessively in them, you distance yourself from your loved ones who are baffled at your outbursts. Over time, you may even begin to believe in some of the damaging statements.

The next time anger threatens to spoil a family event, try these simple steps:

Step 1: Retreat and think things over. Never respond immediately to a family anger or stress trigger. Give your body and your mind a chance to calm down so you can think rationally. Research shows this may take at least 20 minutes.

Step 2: Examine the evidence. The most convincing way of disputing negative self-talk toward a family member is to show yourself it is factually incorrect. Do not lie to yourself, but-like a detective -simply and honestly look at all the evidence at hand.

For instance, when you allow yourself the time to calm down and look at things objectively, you'll realize that past experience proves that your spouse isn't extravagant with money, and is in fact usually frugal. You remember that she always has your best interests at heart.

Step 3: Find a more positive and useful way of interpreting the behaviour of family members. Learn to read the intention behind the behaviour instead of judging the action. Your loved one is only trying to show his or her love and support for you, not to cause you stress.

A Slice of Life is written, produced and presented by Eugene Loh unless otherwise stated. If you wish to share the scripts with others, please credit it to 'Eugene Loh, A Slice of Life, 938LIVE, a station of MediaCorp Radio'.