Conflict, a Great Story but Lousy Life (credit Mr. Daniel) – Ep226

Inspired by a quote during a session, the Panel talks about the intrigue and attraction that humans have towards conflict. We look at what conflict does to a person and why conflict is good for growth and improvement. The biggest problem is that a lot of times people are either in a constant state of conflict or in a constant state of conflict avoidance. We look at the good and bad of conflict and then we give examples of conflict resolution you can use when needed. 

Think about these three questions as you listen:

  • Why are we so drawn to watch root for conflict ie:  why does it make for a good story 
  • What pain is triggered with conflict making it a lousy life 
  • What good can come from conflict   

Tune in to see Conflict Through a Therapist’s Eyes. 

 Audio Podcast Version Only

Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/  
@reidtferguson 
https://www.facebook.com/reidtferguson
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg

Episode #226 Transcription

Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello. This is through a therapist’s eyes on April the 20th, 2020 23. John, happy four 20 day man. Oh,

John-Nelson Pope: peace out dude. I’m, I’m

Chris Gazdik: really grooving man. Before the mics came on, I asked him if he knew what four 20 day was, and evidently he does because,

John-Nelson Pope: yeah, but that was around when I was in high school.

Chris Gazdik: Was it really?

Yeah. they

John-Nelson Pope: just started there. Thought that was so, No, no, it’s been around for, are you kidding me? Right? It’s been around for years. I

Chris Gazdik: had no idea. Yeah. 123 years ago they had four 20 day. That’s

John-Nelson Pope: right. You know, that’s, that was really real. My friend Abraham Lincoln, I apologize. He liked

Chris Gazdik: the weed. He, so this is through a therapist eyes.

We are gonna be talking about conflict and it was a cool quote that Mr. Daniel said to me in a real therapy session. [00:01:00] Shout out to you, Daniel. I’m, I’m super honored to have done therapy with you and I, I appreciate this quote that you gave us, and I promise to do a show on it. I, I must admit, this has been way, way, way long overdue.

I did not do it for a while. I found it in my long list of topics to do for the show. So he says, conflict is a great story, but a lousy life. Oh gosh.

John-Nelson Pope: That’s beautiful. Isn’t that,

Chris Gazdik: that’s eloquent. Kind of brilliant, eloquent. Kind of brilliant. So we’re gonna be talking about conflict today with these questions to think about with the show.

Why are we so drawn to watch or root for conflict, right? You know, why does it make a good story? And then what pain is really triggered with conflict making it i e a lousy life. You know, we’re gonna focus on what good can come from conflict because of Sure. You understand probably right off the bat there’s a lot of good things that do come from conflict.

But [00:02:00] say hello to Mr. John Pope over there. How are you? I’m doing

John-Nelson Pope: outstanding

Chris Gazdik: today and we are missing Ms. Victoria Pendergrass. She had childcare complications. I, I think is, is what

John-Nelson Pope: happens. And my my grandson will be coming home from China, actually. He’s he’s only three years old. He’s gonna bring his, my daughter and oh my bro, my son-in-law.

And you have told me that I need to be ready for conflict because he will be an ankle biter and. And I’ll be grumpy.

Chris Gazdik: Didn’t know that you were gonna do that live on the show, brother. I’m sure you’re going to enjoy the grandkids, but if you’re wondering what this interlude is about, I kind of warned him.

I’m like, look, you know, grandparents definitely get a little bit just frayed under the collar, worn out by the, the over stimulation, the sounds, the noises that are incessantly to happen like chronically for the entire time that all the leaky parts and the leaky parts indeed. All right, [00:03:00] listen, this is through a therapist eyes where you get personal insights directly from therapists, a panel if you will and personal time in your car and, and at home.

Knowing this is not the delivery of therapy services in any way, we’ve got contact at through a therapist eyes.com is a great way to get up with us to interact with. I have a special announcement that I want to be able to talk about. I’m excited to talk about, not Patreon, but buy me a cup of coffee.

Now before the mics came live on YouTube, you got excited about the coffee you wanna

John-Nelson Pope: play? Yeah, my my, yes, I drink 48 ounces of coffee a day. Okay. That’s a

Chris Gazdik: lot of coffee. So folks are not buying us actual coffee, although that would be kind of cool to have regular coffee for the show. I think that would be Uhhuh That would be interesting, right?

It would. But what are they able to support us with?

John-Nelson Pope: What the, the by mike’s to be monitors sound equipment other equipment

Chris Gazdik: stands, that sort of thing. Yeah, so it’s a direct ask. [00:04:00] We need to upgrade some things. We need to support the show. You know, we have regular subscription. Editing it, it does have a lot of backend that we need help with.

So a great way to do that is the buy me a cup of coffee. We don’t have membership like Patreon yet. It is only up on our website to make direct donations. One time donation, which is something you can’t do on Patreon. That’s why we went with this. So buy me a cup of coffee is a great way to support the show.

It’s on the website. And so we’ll talk more about that. But this is a premature announcement with it not premature. It’s just a, an announcement of a heads

John-Nelson Pope: up. It’s a, it’s, it’s a heralding of what’s going

Chris Gazdik: Pre heralding. Yeah, pre heralding. Yes. So listen, this is the human emotional experience and we endeavor to figure this thing out together.

John, I think we’re gonna have a, a fun conversation about conflict cuz I love the way Daniel put that right? Like yeah. It makes for a great story. But conflict. Particularly, maybe we should say chronic conflict can make true lousy, right.

John-Nelson Pope: [00:05:00] Conflict in itself is not not bad. Not bad. Not even necessarily.

Destructive can be constructive. Yeah. But chronic conflict wears you

Chris Gazdik: out. Interesting. How common do you think chronic conflict is?

John-Nelson Pope: I

Chris Gazdik: think playing off what you just said, right? Like Yeah.

John-Nelson Pope: I think the only place that you don’t see chronic conflict is the old leave it to Beaver tv sitcoms,

Chris Gazdik: the, the not to forget. I love Lucy and,

John-Nelson Pope: and I love Lucy. So you got a lot of explaining to do. And then the conflict resolves and or like in Bonanza.

So hearkening back to my ancient days, you had conflict that was easily resolved, but that’s not the way life is.

Chris Gazdik: Nah, it was unrealistic then. Yeah. And it’s unrealistic now. And I think that it’s, it’s just buzzed in my brain as you said that John, like, [00:06:00] yeah, conflict can be constructive. Conflict can be great.

We’re gonna wrap up the show today with a mic drop on all these things that conflict can, can be good for, but chronic conflict we’re saying leads for a lousy life and don’t we. All have chronic conflict. We certainly do. So I don’t know what that means. It’s just an interesting sequence of thought that, that I just, I think we stumbled.

I I think

John-Nelson Pope: as long as there’s people and families, for example. Absolutely. I see that there’s certain levels of dysfunction and you have that dysfunction that seems to perpetrate itself. And we’ve addressed this in prior podcasts. Absolutely. And saying that there’s a generational aspect. And so conflict is kind of born in our In our human experience.

I think you, you, you can read any of the holy scriptures, and I’m not talking [00:07:00] just of, of, of the Bible. The Bible I’m talking about Kran, Koran and also the and Buddhism and, and Hinduism. There’s that sense. Constant. Constant all the time. Yeah. Constant conflict.

Chris Gazdik: Good and evil grind. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and it’s funny, I mean, I think of marriages with emotion focused therapy.

Mm-hmm. Abandonment people and engulfment people. Do you think they’re not in constant chronic conflict? It’s more how do we deal with constant chronic conflict? Of course. How do we deal with conflict in and of itself in a single conflict? I’m actually really kind of realizing right now it’s always chronic uhhuh, more than likely we have goes on for years and years.

So how do we manage that? Is becomes the big, the big question. What, what’d you say? I’m sorry.

John-Nelson Pope: It is for years and years. You, I mean it’s and again, I was going gonna start with Kain and Abel. It goes right back. Absolutely. Yeah. Brother against brother, sister against sister. Mm-hmm.

Chris Gazdik: All right, [00:08:00] so let’s define it.

I always like to start out with defining things to a certain extent, right? Pretty simple, I think. I think these definitions are pretty easy. There’s probably not a lot of controversy out there, but you know, a struggle or disagreement between two or more parties often resulting from differing opinions, values, or goals.

Now could you read that on the show notes, by the way? No, I can’t read anything. Can you see me? I can. You’re a blur. Neil. Blurry. Neil. Yeah. I’m blurring. Yeah,

John-Nelson Pope: I’m blind. Is a

Chris Gazdik: bad, poor John. Forgot his glasses. Yeah, did, what’d you do? Go all day without your glasses or something? No, no.

John-Nelson Pope: I, I, I picked up the wrong pair of glasses and when I went to the gym and so I don’t know where they are.

So,

Chris Gazdik: so, so you are literally going blind with any kind of show prep that I didn’t prepare, but I’m sure you’ll be fine. But I went to the gym. But you went to the gym. I’m going to go walk tonight. So I, I will match you. You are my hero when it comes to that. Listen, there’s not a lot of [00:09:00] confusion about what.

Conflict is, or how to define it and whatnot. But, but I wanted to look at like in what are we dealing here with, here, what are we thinking about here when we think about conflict, think about the different types of conflict, the unresolved conflicts. And then we talked a little about, about, you know, revolving or chronic conflict.

So that, that gets into the weeds a little bit more about what are we really talking about setting up this show when we look at, at conflicts. So the types really internal and external to me. Get me thinking a little bit about a really big

difference there that, that, that lays out, I mean, it’s pretty broad, internal versus external types, but what do you do?

This is an interesting question through a therapist’s eyes. John, what do you think you deal with more throughout the entirety of your therapy sessions? Let’s just say. For a week or for a month, do you, do you deal more [00:10:00] with internal conflicts or do you deal more with external conflicts? Oh, that’s interesting.

Isn’t that, that’s a good, that’s a good question. That’s off the fly, man. That’s right in the moment.

John-Nelson Pope: Okay. Well, I, I, I, you know, I would say that as many people that, that, that are in counseling that I’ve clients I’ve worked with is, I, I’d like to say it’s existential, but it’s not. It is an external oh.

Issues that come in and it causes and it’s stim and in other words, they’re conflict. There’s, there’s that sense of that person comes in and you meet with somebody else, and in that relationship there’s some distortions that take place in the irritation that takes place and you get to know somebody and there’s conflict and that’s.

More other driven, external, external, internally driven in terms of conflict with oneself. Is that existential? [00:11:00] That is who am I, what’s my purpose here? Mm-hmm. In a sense are, are making internal Ethical decisions. And that’s a conflict sometimes, you know,

Chris Gazdik: well, there’s lots of internal stuff. You say existentially experienced.

Mm-hmm. Existential crisis. You know, those are, you know, I’m anxious, I’m self doubtful. Why am I here realizing who am I? You know? And I, and I

John-Nelson Pope: have plenty of clients

Chris Gazdik: like that. Right. But you’re landing on external. Yeah. Because throw a percentage on it. Huh? I’m curious.

John-Nelson Pope: Throw a percentage on it. I would say, I would say with my, I think it’s about half and half, but okay.

Well, but, but

Chris Gazdik: for example well wait a minute. Half and half is not a majority of art. 51.2%. Oh my goodness. Okay. Okay. Okay. I feel like you’re backing off the ledge a little bit. No,

John-Nelson Pope: I’m gonna go back. I’m gonna go back into higher, I’m gonna go about 60%. Okay. Okay. Where it’s external. I was thinking in terms of, [00:12:00] of.

For example, if I have a a client that is, is having some issues with alcohol use disorder. Mm-hmm. I mean, and we talked about that last time on this show. I wanna

Chris Gazdik: say addiction. Addiction, alcohol use disorder. Addiction is stupid. Yeah.

John-Nelson Pope: Dis fire. That’s what I think. Yeah. Well, and, and, but he came because.

His, his wife and he had a big blow up and all of that. So that was the conflict. And, and she put a restraining order on him and because she was worried about her, her, her safety and her child’s safety.

Chris Gazdik: Okay. Okay. Okay.

John-Nelson Pope: So am I, am I being too literal?

Chris Gazdik: No, I don’t think so at all. I, I see, you know what’s interesting cuz I, and I think people normally would think, well, therapy, you’re exploring yourself.

You’re engaged in an exploration of your emotions and your [00:13:00] feelings. And so we would have more of a majority tied into this. Well,

John-Nelson Pope: how do you relate to someone else? So you got stuff from, from families and you overly critical father or mother or something like that, or grandfather. I, all the stuff I had to deal with as a,

Chris Gazdik: I’m joking.

I, I just, I I I think you’re turning my mind because I, I would’ve said more internal uhhuh, but almost 50 50. You know, so I, I went just sort of the same way. So you pushed me more into a more well, but I think you’re pulling me to, to your side honestly, as we talk about this interesting unanticipated question,

do we have more internal, you know, conflicts and whatnot in our state of mind, or do we have more external conflicts with other people?

And when I think about presenting problem Uhhuh, now that’s different, right? Yeah. What brings people into therapy? Well, shoot, I mean, that, that’s probably. 70%. Yeah, 8 75, 80% on a presenting problem. That [00:14:00] brings people to a therapy process. However, when we’re dealing with that conflicted state in therapy.

We then get to a lot of the cognitive distortions, the yes. Perceptions that we have. The projection.

John-Nelson Pope: Well, and that’s the thing is, is that we, we want to equip our clients Yes. So that they can deal with conflicts that’s, yeah. Right. So it it’s an external sense to that I get with conflict. Yeah. But there’s but as far as I think they need to be able to be equipped with, with the cognitive distortions thoughts stopping you know, to being able to, to reframe and, and, and change their thinking patterns.

But that will. Deal with some of the

Chris Gazdik: conflict. You know, it’s funny, we were throwing so many buzzwords out in therapy concepts, which is fine. I just wonder how many of those people are getting, and I think they get a lot of ’em nowadays. Yeah. In culture training, we’re pandemic.

John-Nelson Pope: We

Chris Gazdik: all need [00:15:00] therapy. Yeah.

Okay. So in this little segment of understanding what conflict is, how about, you know, I want us to think about unresolved conflicts. That’s almost a type of conflict. But in thinking about this, like how really impactful in life can they be? And do we even, do we even forget that we were in a state of unresolved conflict?

Like, do we know that we’re in a state of unresolved conflict and you know, does that formulate our biases, our, our, our subconscious operation, our our life beliefs? Like how impactful is this unresolved state of conflict? What if you, I know it’s a lot there.

John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Cuz I’m thinking. I’m supposed to wait for a second.

Right? Okay. I was, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. No, you’re fine.

Chris Gazdik: Okay. You’re fine. But the audience, the audience is like, what are we talking about right now? Let’s

John-Nelson Pope: see if you have conflict, [00:16:00] and let’s say you have somebody that is overbearing in the relationship, kind of en engulfs and I’m using that in a little different terminology.

Mm-hmm. But in a sense that overwhelms the other person that and maybe is hypercritical or something in order to avoid the arguments. That person, the other person that’s receiving it. Withdrawals. Yep. And so

Chris Gazdik: chronic, chronic,

John-Nelson Pope: chronic. And it, it keeps

Chris Gazdik: going on and on. Well, yeah. So, so that’s the chronic type of thing.

But I don’t, I don’t, I think, I think what I’m thinking about here is how, how dangerous and common is it? To like, ha, well, let’s just use like the simple street words or phrases. Like, you know, okay, so I got daddy issues, right? Yeah. You know, but I don’t know that I have daddy issues. Because I feel fine had problems with my dad, but that was many, many years ago.

[00:17:00] So when you make your kids miserable, well, maybe I make my kids miserable. Maybe I displace my anger. It’s another psychological turnover. Maybe I project this on to other people, but I think I’m fine. I don’t really have any conflicts, but you and I would see, well, wait a minute. Is this a big area in your life that is an unresolved conflict?

Why are you on your third

John-Nelson Pope: marriage Ray? Right? I mean, for example,

Chris Gazdik: right? Yeah. Just so you know, he’s not talking to me, but, okay. No,

John-Nelson Pope: no, that’s a

Chris Gazdik: hypothetical. I’ve gotten one more day of marriage. I’m happy about that with the same lady, but no, no. You see what I’m saying? Yeah. And you’re, you’re interplaying with me because that’s the question that you would ask, right?

Like, Uhhuh, you’ve been divorced three times. What’s going on with that? So a lot of a therapist’s job is to search out, help resolve, at least.

John-Nelson Pope: Open up

Chris Gazdik: possibilities, open up possibilities, and at least understand to some extent mm-hmm. That, [00:18:00] Hey, guess what? Yeah. Mr. 57 year old, you have an unresolved conflict that I think I’m seeing here with this person that’s been active your whole life.

Yeah.

John-Nelson Pope: You have a blind spot perhaps, in other words, and that way Yeah, that’s not,

Chris Gazdik: it’s No, it’s a good descriptions. Yeah. It’s, it’s so you can’t

John-Nelson Pope: see it. Right. That’s the point that I’m making. And part of the, and so in other words, part of the therapist I don’t wanna say task, but it’s, I think it’s a therapist joy possibly.

Okay. Is because you, you want to get into this and it wants, it’s hard work, but it’s, it, it’s productive. You want to kind of dig around there and say, okay, bring to a to one’s awareness of one’s sense that blind spot or how one is contributing to chronic

Chris Gazdik: conflict. Right. Listen, I have people all the time.

[00:19:00] I’m think it was just used recently. It’s a very powerful tool that I have in my office. Where is called the Tomb of the Unknown. It’s right up there. Yeah, I see it. Yeah. I think I mentioned it before on you, didn’t I? Yes. Yeah. And people will have these unresolved relationships, unresolved conversations, unresolved Yes conflicts, unresolved things that are in their life, and we identify them and it, it, John it is absolutely amazing to me.

What happens when people write something down on a piece of paper about this life relationship or about this life circumstance? Sometimes you could be, I was stood up. Like I, there’s a person

really upset with actually my best friend in high school because my buddy stood her up on, on a date.

And it just, it ate at her for years. And when they write that down, they put it in the tomb of the unknown. They leave it here in the therapy office, the letting go.

John-Nelson Pope: Is powerful. You know, [00:20:00] that’s interesting because that’s, that’s something that I, I knew somebody that was in a relationship and it was highly conflicted.

And there was a, a parting of ways between the couple and the, the person that I talked to was grieving so deeply and did something very similar and he actually wrote. What happened, right. And put it in the bottle. Yeah. And he went to an over, not an

overpass,

Chris Gazdik: obviously. Okay, good. Out in the woods.

Maybe, maybe a bridge in the woods. It was actually

John-Nelson Pope: abandon a little cliff and he threw it, threw it. There, and, and after that, that person was able to, to go on.

Chris Gazdik: It’s wonderful to watch people do this here, but that’s the same. Yeah, yeah. It is. It’s very much the same. I have a lady friend, a personal friend of mine, who was given a therapy suggestion of writing things down on a they said, go buy.

Go buy a, a set of old teapots [00:21:00] or teac cups or, you know, plates and cups and whatever, and write stuff on them and go put plastic down in your garage and just throw them against the wall and uhhuh, crash them apart. Break them apart. And it was just like so cathartic, so amazing, so, so long.

John-Nelson Pope: Nobody had to, nobody was in the line.

Chris Gazdik: Nobody had the duck operation. Yes, we were safe about it, but she, it was really good for her

John-Nelson Pope: that that was something making tangible. Right. Something that, that turmoil that, let’s look at the internal part that was tearing them apart, right? Or keeping them embroiled. Right in that cycle and being able to just express it, catharsis, it’s

Chris Gazdik: a powerful, powerful reality.

Yeah. In my show notes, the word catharsis comes up a few times more. I couldn’t see

John-Nelson Pope: it, but

Chris Gazdik: he couldn’t read it. Okay. Let’s move on to another segment here of, and I think this is, think about this with me. This is fascinating and I’m actually connecting two thoughts in real time. The, the [00:22:00] reality of human focus, like has a strong, can we say The reality of human focus has a strong appeal towards observing conflict.

It makes for a great story. Right. Think about this. And I want to get into the weeds just for a minute on why is this the case? And if this is the case, the real thought that I have is, that’s probably why we have chronic conflicts in our lives. So the train wreck that we drive by the rubber necking seeing the accident, the drama that we’re drawn to this all has powerful, powerful effect on the human psyche.

And I think it has a lot to do with adrenaline and dopamine and, you know,

John-Nelson Pope: real biological, our media contributes to that greatly.

Chris Gazdik: I mean, it’s, that’s why we get so much money to the media, huh? They make cash over barrel.

John-Nelson Pope: Hey, just watch cable news

Chris Gazdik: with conflict conflict all the time. [00:23:00] What is it about human conflict that is so alluring, so sexy, so sparkly, so, Powerful to grab our attention.

Do

John-Nelson Pope: you think that maybe we can, like, if we see it on, on the big screen presuming that oth people still go to movies, but is I do. Yeah. Is that you for a moment, you can see how something plays out and you could, you could say you could feel better about yourself, that you don’t engage in that, in that sense, or the sense that you could identify with that, and that actually helps with one’s processing of their own conflict.

I’m not alone. I’m not alone.

Chris Gazdik: I’m in it. I’m not crazy. Yeah. Other people have the same experience.

John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Amazing. There’s a [00:24:00] popular term now, ga gaslighting, you know? Yeah. People love that term. They, they love that term, but, Interestingly enough, many of my clients use that term about their relationships.

Mm-hmm. Where they feel that they have been gaslighted Yeah. By their partner. And so they, they enter into conflict with that partner or that partner enters into conflict with them. And

Chris Gazdik: real quick, since you brought that term up, I don’t know if you how you feel about that term, but I was gonna say, Hey, blow that up real quick, insofar as what people use.

Well, that

John-Nelson Pope: was, that was an old Ingrid Bergman what was his name? He was a French actor, but he basically was, is called Gas Light back when, the days when they had all these gas lights since the oh, 1943 movie.

Chris Gazdik: And it’s amazing to me how many things are repurposed. Yeah.

John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. And so the term is that he was trying to drive her crazy.

Yeah. Insane. And he would say, oh, and it would be [00:25:00] dealing with the gas light. Okay. You know? And so he’d say, well, you know, the, that light hasn’t been on or anything like that, that ga that light is not lighted. Or he’ll move something around and she would start to doubt her, her sanity. So it’s telling a, a, a lie and then denying that something happened or didn’t happen.

Chris Gazdik: And do you feel like that’s most of the time what people are doing when they feel they’re being gas lit? Because I feel like a lot of times people are perceiving this, but that’s not what

John-Nelson Pope: it is. That’s not what’s

Chris Gazdik: happening. That’s not it. Yeah. That’s not what’s happening. It is not that common. Yeah.

Charles Boyer, Charles Boyer, Charles Boyer, cast. With that one. Ah-huh. Oh, we have a listener assistance on, on that. See, that’s how old I am. Okay. Geez.

John-Nelson Pope: I don’t even remember the, I, I wasn’t born when that movie came

Chris Gazdik: out, but thank you Cass. Thank you. I would’ve no chance on, on that one. What whatsoever. [00:26:00] Think about it.

Right? Drama and excitement. Mm-hmm. I think that’s what really makes the human appeal so strong. It’s exciting. It’s energizing. We get dopamine release from this. Yeah. We get adrenaline kick from it and people are drawn to it, whether it’s hate, whether it’s violence, whether it’s conflict insofar as even strong opinions.

I remember a show on Skeptics Guide to the Universe our Common Yes podcast, where two people were differing. They were like, oh, I don’t agree with that. Well, I think this and I think that, and we went and they went back and forth. You might even remember the show. Do you remember?

John-Nelson Pope: Well, I, I’m not quite sure which one, which one, because they have disagreed on other things before.

Yeah,

Chris Gazdik: yeah. They, they, they did. What, do you know which one it was? This one was a pretty good one. It was probably about three months ago, Uhhuh. And it was about I don’t know, one of the personalities on there was, was pretty strong about, well,

John-Nelson Pope: that was ai. They would did one on AI and our, [00:27:00] our sentient yeah.

Of and they’ve got into a big,

Chris Gazdik: oh, did they conflict about that? I haven’t heard that one. That was more recent. So in other words, yeah. But isn’t that one of the coolest shows yes. Yes it is. Does it become more interesting? Yes, it does.

John-Nelson Pope: If you and I were to get into a battle here Yeah. If they all listened to what Steve Novella was saying and they agreed with him a hundred percent of the time, get to chime in.

So then, yeah. So there there’s the conflict between Yeah. That’s there. Makes the show more exciting.

Chris Gazdik: Interesting. Yeah. Makes

John-Nelson Pope: the show more exciting. So, so we are, we are proudly shilling for the skeptics

Chris Gazdik: guide. I know, man. They didn’t need to give us some props. We, we’ve brought them up more than once.

Yeah. It’s a great podcast. But I think they’re wonderful. So also why people are drawn, I think that people. Are drawn towards. I, I see homeostasis, uhhuh, like we want things, it’s a fancy term to say we want things to remain in, in, in balance. We don’t like things to be unexpected. Mm-hmm. Or unreliable.[00:28:00]

John-Nelson Pope: Well, but that’s, that’s the problem, isn’t it? I mean, right. Because you could be in a negative loop

Chris Gazdik: on Well, sure. We’d, we’d get into a negative loop when conflict. That’s why it gets a little bit of a bad rap. But isn’t it reliable? Mm-hmm. I can rely on some sort of conflict in the workplace if I scan. And so that’s where I’m drawn to it.

I, because I see it, it’s reliable, it’s exciting, and we’re building a little bit of a case while this is so powerfully grabs people. The reliability factor. Yeah. What would life be like if we didn’t have conflict and I couldn’t rely on that? I would be bored. So I’m scanning and looking.

John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, you get that stereotype of heaven, you know, where everybody’s up there playing harps and I’m kind of thinking that’s not kind of a place I’d like to be and I’d like to have a little bit of iron sharpens iron.

And we start to, yes, that’s a phrase. That’s a phrase. And you, you be able to, to grow as a result of that. So [00:29:00] you have to have conflict and friction in order for there to be growth. The opportunity for growth. Yeah.

Chris Gazdik: And, and we’re gonna get to that in so far as what are the benefits in this segment, but that also.

Less attached to what we were talking about. But John, I swear you can read brother, because that was actually next on my, my list. Oh my goodness. Of

ideas. Yeah. We’re, yes, that’s, we usually are our lockstep. I’ve noticed that. Have, have you noticed? I’ve noticed that. That’s right. The, the reality of it is also, I think people are drawn towards this because we do want to grow.

It is an opportunity to explore new ideas, create things, and, and, and those are some of the benefits, you know, to conflict. And I think that’s why we get so drawn to it. Because we know inherently, oh, if something’s getting shook up, I, let me dial in here because that’s gonna help me change, that’s gonna help me have something different.

And, and I’m, and I like that. I’m excited about that. So all these other things are pretty powerful. I think this to a lesser degree, but equally so, can we say I am drawn towards [00:30:00] conflict cuz I’m drawn towards growth. Right. You know, I think I can, as a human being, right? I think that’s the way we, we are, I think when you.

John-Nelson Pope: When you don’t have conflict, let’s say you don’t have that goal, or let’s say you’re coming towards the end of your life and you don’t, let’s say you’re in retirement. Cuz that’s kind of close to where I’m at now. And you are not, you better not be. Yeah, I’m not, but, but there’s a sense that you don’t have another goal to go for.

And so conflict can be very helpful in the sense of,

Chris Gazdik: of I didn’t think about that. Yeah. Creating goals. Creating goals, yeah. Okay. Adding to the list. That’s cool. I didn’t know, I didn’t really think about that. And as far as, well that’s a follow through on growth and it’s a follow through on, on change, do you think, I don’t know if that’s what draws people though towards conflict on this segment.

I think that’s more of [00:31:00] like some of the benefits, you know? Yeah. Throughout. So here, here’s another one with, with. Making us drawn towards it. We mentioned before Catharsis Uhhuh, right? Is can we say that conflict creates the opportunity that with all of the internal stuff that we’ve got going on, boom. To blow it out, like vicariously through, like I love the m a it mixed martial arts.

It’s, yeah, it’s, I’ve been, you know, my favorite fighter just won not too long ago is it’s awesome. Like people love boxing or wrestling. People love wwe e f as a fake wrestling, but, right. It does that not vicariously. That’s hard work we’re seeing. Boy, it is. Those guys are amazing athletes. There’s no doubt about it.

But is the, can we say that through vicariously watching this or sporting events? Why that’s so, oh, I would think

John-Nelson Pope: so big. I think sporting events are, is a very good example of that because you see the grid iron Yes. And you’re, the, the whole thing is that you have two armies. [00:32:00] Pushing against each other and they don’t kill each other.

Right. So that’s the bloodshed. You know, it’s safe. So

Chris Gazdik: it’s safe. But back in Roman times, they did have gladiators that killed each other. Mm-hmm. And we might think that’s crazy in today’s culture, but you know, around the world, you’re right. Sports is an excellent example. This where you’re talking about cricket, whether you’re talking about football we have American football,

John-Nelson Pope: which is football, but but you’re, then you’re talking about football.

Chris Gazdik: I don’t wanna make, I don’t wanna make everyone around the world angry with us. I know you guys love soccer. We’re not gonna call it soccer. We call it soccer. Football, football. But conflict in sports makes sports so big, primarily, as a matter of fact, well they, they call him warriors. Is this Well, yeah.

And we talk about going to battle and with my boy, but is this even bigger as a part of why we’re drawn to conflicts and some of the other things we’re thinking about cuz of the cathartic event vicariously living through these conflicts that we watch? I hadn’t thought about it, but I think that that might be number one.

Yeah. The number one reason [00:33:00] why we’re engaged in observing and seeking out conflict as evidenced by what we see in sports.

John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, I’m, I’m good with that. I, I was just thinking that you could actually by vicariously witnessing that conflict, and it’s, in a sense it’s also chronic conflict because every year Oh yeah.

They, you have rivalries between, you know, like Alabama and, and, and Auburn and my poor

Chris Gazdik: penguins are not in the playoffs this year for the first time in 17 years. I was depressed about that, but I’m Okay. Now. Last thing real quick. We get to explore social norms and different things that are going on with power

dynamics, social issues, constantly changing dynamics and so, so these are all reasons that we’re really drawn into this.

Like this takes up a lot of our emotional and, and, and focused pointed thought time. Yeah.

John-Nelson Pope: You know, I was thinking too, and, and I’m, I’m thinking in terms of a, of in [00:34:00] business or like in academia where I’ve been in for a few years, there’s a lot of conflict in, there’s a Yeah. In that. And so there’s inner office conflict, inter personnel conflict in just academia.

Where In academia, yeah. Yeah. And so, and you’d say, well, these guys are so intelligent and they got all, they are, they got it all figured out. They,

Chris Gazdik: no, no. All those liberal folks in colleges got it all peace loving and figured out. They,

John-Nelson Pope: they’re playing the bongo drums and, you know, peace drums and all that.

It’s not that way. You say a drum circle? No, no. It’s cutthroat sometimes. Oh yeah. Wow. What a word. Yeah. Really? Yeah, it’s very much that way. And very competitive. Jocking. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not unusual. Let’s say you have somebody that’s coming in on board and you’ve got that’s a professor and that that person is very ambitious and wants the job of the department chair.

Chris Gazdik: Well, don’t we see this in one? And they sabotage it. Absolutely. Business, high [00:35:00] business, corporate ladder, you know, all the ants crawling to get to the top and, you know, make more money and do more, get accolades. I mean it. Mm-hmm. It’s a constant rub. Yeah. People are drawn and sucked into that.

John-Nelson Pope: And we have religious traditions that say, okay, we’re going to step away from that.

And yet it’s very corrupting in a sense that power corrupts

Chris Gazdik: well, here’s a nice transition to a segment of, you know, what. What pain is triggered with this, because people have this in the workplace with conflict, like we said, and it’s exhausting. Yeah, exhausting. And I think that that’s something that we need to pay attention to because we’re not handling our emotions in conflict or such as oftentimes people have with their job.

It’ll burn you ass out. It will,

John-Nelson Pope: you can get depressed, you can react, you can stuff it, you can internalize it and it can cause you to have health

Chris Gazdik: [00:36:00] problems. Not because I’m the founder or anything special about me. I tried to create a good culture here. But I think, for instance, at our workplace, there’s not a whole lot of that.

There’s not a lot of conflict. There’s not a lot of, you know, and you don’t walk out like exhausted interest. I can’t imagine Interesting workplace that’s doing that every single

John-Nelson Pope: day. Ing interestingly enough not even in my churches, has has there have been such a harmony. In as it is here. Oh, wow.

And I, I would say, holy crap. And interestingly enough, I was on a good team when I was in the military and there was a wonderful ways of handling conflict in In the military? In the military, yeah. In the military, yeah. And so that was a very good experience for me. This has been a very good experience being in this workplace.

Wow. Okay. I’m sucking up to you, but

Chris Gazdik: That’s true. That’s pretty. [00:37:00] No, no. I know. I mean,

John-Nelson Pope: you, you, you do very well with conflict. Hmm. We haven. You’ve been proactive.

Chris Gazdik: Yeah, we’ve had some, yeah. Today we had conflict with the bathroom facilities, if you knew. Yeah, we do have No, I told DW about that. How so? Yeah, I know you did.

I worked on that. So Did anyone fix it? You did. Oh, thank you for your help. I finished it off. We had some drama here at the workplace. So let’s, let’s go into this and, and look at like what pain is triggered and, and, and really what are the negative impacts of. Of conflict, particularly chronic conflict.

And, and you’ve got the, the usual things that you would think, you know, what trouble that it causes. We just talked about burnout and this type of thing, but I mean, if you, if you run down a list, you know, you, you got emotional pain, physical pain, psychological pain, and different social pains. And so that, that’s a way to think about like, well, what kind of stuff gets triggered here?

And I don’t know what’s, what, what would you say? Let’s do [00:38:00] another top of the list thing, John. Emotional pain, physical pain, psychological pain, or social pain. Like what do you think conflict triggers the most of? I don’t know. Okay. I

John-Nelson Pope: think it people are different. Like okay, like this, alright, yeah, it’s true, but a person.

A lot of people that have health problems that are they, yeah. But it’s, it’s induced through stress. Right. And, and conflict con and chronic conflict because their blood pressure remains high. They’re, the heart rate is fast. They have problems with their, their bowels, their those issues. And so

Chris Gazdik: anxiety.

Well, it’s funny because I was immediately when I thought that, I looked down on my list and I’m like, well, probably physical pain is not really the high on the list. But No, I mean, you’re exactly right. I mean, the, the, the uhhuh, the conflicted states that we get into can manifest in real heart [00:39:00] issues.

Cardiacs realities. Yeah. Bad strokes. Yeah. All of it. We know that stress is related to all of these things. It’s been mentioned and talked about, but Not really, but I think it’s the

John-Nelson Pope: whole ball. It’s that whole Wellbeing you, you become unwell if you are constantly living, stressed out Yeah. And wanting to avoid conflict or for example,

Chris Gazdik: Ooh, ooh, we haven’t talked about that yet.

And engaging

John-Nelson Pope: in it, but avoiding conflict

Chris Gazdik: is Go there. Yeah, go there. Well, I, that’s a big segment of our population.

John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Well, I’m, I’m, I’m a good example of somebody that, that doesn’t like conflict. Right. I don’t wanna tell people bad news. I don’t want to tell them that I disagree with them

I I think that you can see people that, for example, you’re afraid that you’re in a an abusive relationship. And if you stand up for yourself, you’re gonna get whacked. You’re gonna get killed. Get killed.

Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. So it’s interesting. [00:40:00] I, I think. To a certain extent. Can we say that all of us are conflict avoidant?

I don’t think anyone but some more than others. Well, some certainly more than others, for sure. Yeah. But isn’t it interesting that we all seek, we just spend a lot of time talking about how we’re drawn towards conflict. It’s a dance. It’s a dance, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah. We’re

John-Nelson Pope: like MOFs to the flame, right?

Yeah. Yeah. We’re gonna burn up with conflict, but we’re drawn to it.

Chris Gazdik: Wow. Yeah. I never really thought of it that way, but it, it really is a bit of a moth to the flame. A And I think we’re drawn more to like other people’s conflict. Yeah. That than are ours, so that we are not, we try to have our cakey, that’s why we don’t all burn up.

Right. Get zapped. We want to avoid it, but we’re drawn to watching it uhhuh. We want to avoid it, but we’re drawn to watching it, and oftentimes we get pulled right into it, like a moth into flame. Oh god. [00:41:00] Humans are so. We’re difficult, aren’t we? Yeah, we’re complex. We are, we are complex indeed. So that, that’s what, you know, gets triggered by it.

But what are the negative impacts? I mean, you’re talking about some of the physical and emotional distress. We’ve touched on the damaging relationships. Go ahead.

John-Nelson Pope: I have get migraines when I want to avoid saying something that time. Oh wow. Really? Yeah. I give myself migraines. Okay. Yeah, headaches.

Chris Gazdik: So, and you know, that’s connected to like, oh, wait a minute, what am I not talking about?

Well, when I, when,

John-Nelson Pope: when I first had my my first migraine about 30 years ago, I thought I was having a stroke. But you know, now I’ve been able to put two and two together and I have.

Chris Gazdik: Migraines you figured out Yeah. How to do that. Yeah. Which I think you do do with that. Yeah. In, throughout the journey of life.

Yeah. I, I hold my stress in, in my stomach. Right. So I, I’ll get even maybe it’s TMI for the audience, but you [00:42:00] know, the, the irritable bowel stuff kind of gives me, I just hold my stress and my, you know, my abdomen and, and energy is there. It’s just like you know, when I’m tense and you holding

John-Nelson Pope: something, this the thing, something with therapists, I’m, I’m talking over you.

I apologize. The thing with therapists is we, we will tell, we, we will do toot

Chris Gazdik: Don’t tell our secret man, don’t do it. Okay. You know, go. I’m,

John-Nelson Pope: it’s tmmi, it’s tm. We’re very open about, we are very open about our bodily processes. Okay. Part of that is therapy itself. Mm-hmm. In the sense that it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

It is not, and it is just, in fact, it helps keep you from being. All in a sense, constricted

Chris Gazdik: in life. Well, isn’t part of managing life on life’s terms. Mm-hmm. Being able to be genuine with what you experience and, you know, transparent. And you know what’s funny, John? Aren’t younger therapists having very difficult time doing that?

[00:43:00] And then as you become more Yeah. Mature and, and, and experience, it’s kind of like you know, when

John-Nelson Pope: I took my first counseling course, it was over 40 years ago, and there was this one guy, his, he was, his da name was Dave Moylan. Oh. And

Chris Gazdik: Dave, please don’t email us, Dave. Okay.

John-Nelson Pope: He’s gone, he’s gone to his reward.

Oh, okay. So he, he’s with the good Lord. All right. He would, and that was back in the days that you could smoke a pipe and, you know, in therapy, in therapy and things like that.

Chris Gazdik: And, and, oh, oh, we can’t do that today. I didn’t know that. Just kidding. Okay. Yeah, I’m

John-Nelson Pope: kidding. I’m kidding. Yeah, that’s right. So he I mean, he was just very open about it and we were all scandalized and all of that.

But, but he was, he was actually very true. I mean, it was, it was, it was absolutely true what he

Chris Gazdik: was talking about. You know what’s funny, John, remember we talked about marriage not too long ago, and that triggered a thought for me where it’s like, if I could tell newly weds, you know, [00:44:00] anything that would be helpful, the, the two things I would tell and I’ve talked about, but the one, the one of those was really like, you know, strive and work towards getting to a place where you can say anything to your partner that you feel you need to say or want to say.

Like, isn’t that. Like part of what leads to healing? What leads to wellness? What leads to, yeah.

John-Nelson Pope: Openness and authenticity. Transparency. Huge. Yeah. And, and so

Chris Gazdik: in some ways, can we say that that defeats conflict? Yeah,

John-Nelson Pope: I would think so. I think when you go into the, the, into the therapy room with session and have a session with somebody, you get to practice on being open and transparent and vulnerable.

In a safe space. In a safe space and not be judged so that you could do it, do it with your spouse in real space or your partner or your kids or your

Chris Gazdik: parents in relationship to others. In

John-Nelson Pope: relationship to others. Yeah. Yeah. [00:45:00]

Chris Gazdik: No, that’s, that’s good stuff. What are the negative impacts? Physical and emotional distress, damaging relationships we’re talking about interestingly enough, decreased productivity.

You know, burnout. There’s a lot of things that kind of go into this in the workplace, but you know, it’s quiet. Quitting. What’s that? Quiet, quitting. Quiet

Quitting. Yeah. That’s a phrase. I’ve heard of that before. Go, yeah, go a little with that.

John-Nelson Pope: So burnout. It’s it’s in a sense that you’re not getting what you want and it’s dead, and you’re being passive aggressive about not so you, and so if you feel like your bosses or your colleagues are not doing their share or they’re putting too much on you, you just basically quite quit and not do your work.

But that’s a form of conflict and it’s

Chris Gazdik: this is paid one when he paid it. It is a, it is a quiet conflict. Thank you, Neil. He just saved me. Mm-hmm. Oh, there were two pages. [00:46:00] Yeah, there were two pages. Oh, I don’t, I just, I just realized it, but I can’t

John-Nelson Pope: see it anyway, so

Chris Gazdik: you’re gonna made me crack happy for some reason today, John, but yeah, it, it, it is, this is the quiet conflict or the quiet conflict, if you will, of quitting.

And, and that’s some of the negative impacts. I mean, there’s economic impacts. And the last one on this segment I want to really kind of highlight is yeah. What about division Divi? Like, you know, we, in American politics and I think really around the world, guys in the, in, in Europe, you know, what kind of divisiveness do we see in Israel today in the news?

Mm-hmm. What kind of divisiveness? Well, they’re going through that right now. Massive. That’s why I pointed it out. Massive. Right. Massive divisions. Great Britain and Brexit for all of that matter. You know, we, we see great divisiveness in our political spheres, even though America probably gets picked on the, the, the worst, justifiably so, because we have a [00:47:00] ridiculous divisions right now in the way that things work.

I mean, is this not a part of the negative outcome of conflict and un. Resolved Conflict. Conflict,

John-Nelson Pope: special, not working out the, the ways and pathways for peace. And part of that is to be able to be willing to be open and vulnerable, but also to be open to, to listening to the other side.

Chris Gazdik: Here’s an interesting thing.

Oh man, I don’t have time for this. Dang it. I’m gonna try to squeeze this in and talk real quick. There’s a cool psychological study that I came across. Can’t quote it, and I’m not gonna try to look it up, but just take it for me for what it’s worth. In, in trust. They, they took my buddy pointed, pointed this out to me, Adrian did.

And I appreciate that, Adrian. Yes, man. He’s awesome. We know him. So, so, so they took, they took pain mm-hmm. And measured. Ability to tolerate pain and the hurt that you felt from the severity of the pain. And what they did is they put people’s [00:48:00] hands in an ice bucket and the pain of course is gonna be there.

And then they measured how long you could tolerate that and what you could do and how bad it felt. And then they measured strangers coming together in the same room and doing pain. And I’m trying to be really, really brief cuz it was a complex study, but it was a really cool outcome because then they took friends that got together that knew each other.

You and I, for instance, we put our hands in buckets of pain. So having social contact with people you trust helped you in endure deeper pain and longer pain. Support

John-Nelson Pope: groups are excellent. Say cancer support groups or lots of

Chris Gazdik: spouses or partner groups and this is why. Yeah, but check this out. They took two strangers.

This got, what got me to thinking about this is conflicts on a mass scale countrywide and between countries and stuff, right? They took conflict or pain. With two people that didn’t know each other and before, well, they tested them before and they got the baselines, and then they took other people that didn’t know [00:49:00] each other and to see what would happen when they had the participants play a game together.

Mm-hmm. That’s all it was. Whatever it was, it was Game of Checkers or a game of pre pursuit or whatever game to connect before they engaged in the pain test. What do you think happened to the results after people connected that way? S. By far easy to see. Yeah. Their tolerance for pain was way greater.

Greater their, their level of, of experience was, was, was less. It was a powerful experience. And you know what Adrian told me, he’s like, why don’t we get world leaders together? It’ll play a stupid game of monopoly or something for

the evening, and then tomorrow morning they go ahead and engage in discussions and negotiations and whatever.

Like, would it be a different world? I don’t know. But it’s interesting psychological study, isn’t it? I, I

John-Nelson Pope: think it, I think it very much is I I, I’m kind of get the idea that maybe why, [00:50:00] aside to whether one is religious or not being in a group, a common group of, of beliefs, there’s a sense that people can share.

One, you do one more share, one another’s burdens,

Chris Gazdik: right. You know, you can endure more, more, way more. And it is a powerful reality that we can psychologically test. Yeah.

John-Nelson Pope: Victor Frankl who wrote Man’s Search for Meaning from Death Camp to Existentialism was a, he was a psychiatrist and he survived the Nazi concentration camps.

And what he noticed and observed were that people that did that actually survived the longest were not the ones that were the healthiest necessarily. Right. They were the ones that cooperated and helped one another and shared their very meager piece of bread with another.

Chris Gazdik: Right. Yeah. So it’s a powerful [00:51:00] demonstration of emotional strength.

When you can execute those types of strategies, it’s a perfect segue to what do we do to resolve conflict? Let’s spend a little bit of time on those types of things, building upon ’em. Cause we, I think we’ve made a little bit of the case. John, hope you’ll agree with me that, you know, on, on the benefits that come from conflict.

So that’s, that’s kind of easy to see and somewhat easy to understand. But, but let’s look at like, well, how, how do we do this conflict? Do you have. A, let me see, we have a YouTube comment though. Even animals, insects, bacteria, viruses have conflicts and it serves them to stay alive. Exactly right.

Absolutely right. Yeah. Evolution, e evolution. So, do you have any kind of cool activities or things that you might have couples do or, or how to work through conflict? I mean, is there any cool tricks in the tool bag that you, you’ve [00:52:00] got cuz I, and you didn’t have the ability to prepare, so I, I probably

shouldn’t put you on a spot, but I know we all have our little things and whatever.

Well, what,

John-Nelson Pope: what I do is, is, is have my clients actually say at, when I began with marital counseling or even premarital counseling, is Oh, will love that. Okay. Is to have people share what they appreciate about, so they come out not talking about what’s wrong. But what did they appreciate about the, the their their partners

Chris Gazdik: forcing them to get out of that conflict?

Chronic stance. Right,

John-Nelson Pope: right. So they kinda say, yeah, well maybe it’s not as bad. As we were making it, maybe we can. And so they are appreciative of one another at that point from the get-go. So they’re more open to when it is time to come up and say, we have to work on our communication, which is always the big one.

Or [00:53:00] finances or something like that. Oh, yeah. What sex? Yeah, sex. And that’s parenting. Parenting. Oh yeah. So but, but that gives them that opportunity to, to, to actually go deeper. But you first do, it’s like a, the gratitude list. It’s, it’s, yeah. It’s a what is it? A, a complimentary SI sandwich. You put two goods and, and sandwich is kind of the bad in between.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And so you always l You always leave on a positive note.

Chris Gazdik: It’s interesting that we have these foundational things that you mentioned, just a few of them in there. And I, I have a cool activity I think that I, I’ve used in therapy, I’ll, I’ll say it in steps format, but is it fair to say, interestingly that most of the things like that appreciation list of your spouse are designed to get out of the problem thinking?

Yeah. That, that, that perpetuate the negative, the [00:54:00] negative side of this interaction mm-hmm. And forcing us to think about it in a different way. Mm-hmm. Here, here’s my activity that, that I do, John well, that’s not my activity. I, I heard it in my travels and I’ve used it, I should say. So it’s real simple.

It’s a writing activity. Two people that are in conflict, oftentimes spouse, you, you, you make a concerted agreement to separate. For a time, get a piece of paper and pencil out and do an activity. Then you come back when you mutually agree is time an hour later or you know, the next day or whatever it might be.

And you share what you wrote and what you spend time writing is, the very first segment is the events. And this is a description of what happened. Yeah. And then short, but to the point. Then there’s the problem. It’s a simple statement. It’s a, it’s it’s limited to one sentence and there’s reasons for all this.

And then you go to the third, which is a list of potential solutions. Right. [00:55:00] When you come together at agreed at a point in time, cuz that’s the only time you have a conversation is when two people agree to have said conversation. You then read to each other the experience of what are the events. Now you do not question.

You don’t. You don’t. You can make it a game if you want. You don’t question the other person’s perception of what the events are. But in hearing what their perception is, it can point out like, wow, you see this whole event as even being a different event. Very pointed. But then you move to the problem and you simply state the problem.

If you end up having two different problems, you actually separate and you can do a written thing for each one of them and have two sets of solutions, right? And then you go to the solutions and you can have as much solutions. You can have as much talk time, as much airtime towards that as possible.

Question. This is.

John-Nelson Pope: Would that work very much in like a workshop thing where you’d be doing, doing

Chris Gazdik: companies, you can do it in three or [00:56:00] four hours. Parenting, you can do it in marital conversations. Right. It’s yeah. Really any conflict. Yeah. You know, however simple you wanna make it or drawn out you wanna make it.

I, because

John-Nelson Pope: that sounds like something people have done cuz I’ve, I’ve done some work with church conflict. Okay, sure. And, and so that Organizational

Chris Gazdik: Organizational, yeah. Right. But isn’t it interesting that this little activity that I drew out is similar to your appreciation list in that it forces the person or persons to transform their thoughts into another direction.

That solution focused, can we say that’s a big part of conflict resolution? How

John-Nelson Pope: do we get from, let’s say if, if you’re on a scale scaling, how do you get from a four, which is, let’s say not so good and you want to go to a 10, you, you have to take it one step at a time and, and you do this gradually, right?

Over time,

Chris Gazdik: solution focused. Solution focused is a whole branch of therapy, isn’t it? A solution definitely

John-Nelson Pope: is. And it, and [00:57:00] it does gradual. Incremental change, but it, it’s actually works very fast. It can be brief solution focus. Right.

Chris Gazdik: So, so I think, and we could go on and on, I suspect John, with, with like going back and forth with different tactics or activities and prescriptions of things that we try to try to do with people.

But if we, if we think about this a little bit more broad, they’re, you

John-Nelson Pope: don’t want ’em to just take those, what those rubber foam bats and hit each other.

Chris Gazdik: That’s a real thing. That was, that was a very seventies thing, wasn’t it? Was it? Yeah, it was a little before my time. Did did you ever go to a conference where they brought out the, the dummy bats and stuff?

Oh, yeah. Oh, you see on YouTube, his face, Bobo

John-Nelson Pope: and Bobo, the doll punching Bobo, the, the doll.

Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I don’t know Bobo, but yeah. Yeah. I, I, I know we did a lot of those types of things which. I don’t know. You, you seem to poo poo it a little bit. Do, do you not put much value in the ex in the[00:58:00] experiential kind of forms, like a shalt and things like that?

No. No. Yeah, it can have great value. No, no.

John-Nelson Pope: Empty chair. Yeah. Gestalt. Absolutely. Yeah. Being able to do that, you tell, to tell somebody that’s not there very much. Yeah. It’s very powerful because that gives you that opportunity to, to rehearse and to also resolve a conflict set of fun. Cathar

Chris Gazdik: expressed a long

John-Nelson Pope: time ago, and you maybe have unre a mother that beat you with wire hangers and all of that, and she’s gone, oh, Jesus.

And then you get her on that chair. It’s real. Imagine her, it, it’s very real for the, for the

Chris Gazdik: client. Did you get into the experience? Yeah. Right. And

John-Nelson Pope: that’s the catharsis and that’s the whole point. And so yeah.

Chris Gazdik: I dok. Yeah. Listen, we mentioned earlier, genuine and open conversation if you want, which is very difficult.

To resolve conflict. The more genuine you become, the more effective you will be. Yeah, [00:59:00] definitely. Is that for a quote? That’s a fair quote, right? What did I say? Neil? You might wanna write that one down. Yeah. In conflict, can we say the more genuine that you become, the more productive you will be? I would say that’s true.

Genuine is huge. You know, I love this term when I was brainstorming this as well. I’m sure you’ve heard the term principles before, personalities, uhhuh. Yeah. You ever hear that in aa? Yeah. I love that phrase. Yeah. What, what, what is that in, in aa, in your experience that you. Or maybe you haven’t. I thought you did.

I, yeah, I have.

John-Nelson Pope: Well, I don’t know if I’ve heard that. I’ve heard it in other things. In

Chris Gazdik: other, in other domains. Yeah. Well, and a, they talk about like, look, oh my gosh, you know, these people are crazy. They’re awful. They sit there talk about alcohol. It makes me want to drink even more. Well, it’s terrible and, and there are some pretty dysfunctional people in groups, but the reality of it is, if you think about the principles before the personalities, then you [01:00:00] get at these positive aspect

And I would agree with physicalities. Will, will, will warp stuff.

John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Well, and I, and I agree with that because I think that person that says they don’t want to do that, they’re trying to avoid the inner conflict that they’re going through or the conflict that Yeah. That’s

Chris Gazdik: psychological side. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, we could go on a long time with that. Yeah, because that’s some, that’s some of what we did within the therapy environment though, Uhhuh, because that, that is an in-depth look at like, well, what’s really going on for you? How does this connect? But to the other things in your life, I want

John-Nelson Pope: you to say that, that thing from aa, again, principles before personalities, that’s back when I was, man, I keep talking about military, but that’s what we did in our leadership Okay.

Is so we had to say the personalities, you have to lay that aside, right? You have to work as a team. You have to be able to, to, to admit your, your, [01:01:00] your deficits, but also be very upfront about your

Chris Gazdik: strengths. I’m glad that you just did that because I, I wasn’t quite sure and I, I, I didn’t know how to get back to it, so I just moved on.

But it, it, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting to think, to hear what you meant by. We found good ways in the military to resolve conflicts. And that’s Yeah. Right there. Some of what you meant by that, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. One

John-Nelson Pope: of that is, is that the leaders, for example, with the Marine Corps, that they, they actually bunk with the when they’re out in the field, they actually bunk with the with the men.

So there’s a sense that they share that burden with one another. Humility. Humility,

Chris Gazdik: yeah. Sense of humility. Yeah. Yeah. Almost as much as being Yeah. Genuine. Yeah. Defeats conflict. That’s

John-Nelson Pope: right. The stereotype of the military person is van glorious. You know, it’s somebody that’s all about themselves. It’s anything but that.

It’s the person is putting the, the [01:02:00] group above themselves. They’re important, the individual is but everybody’s working together and pulling.

Chris Gazdik: Here’s some standard stuff. John. I’m pretty sure that you’ve, you’ve heard before I statements are always better than we statements. Yes. I mentioned earlier, timing of discussions is important.

You have to have good timing. Oh. I wanted to highlight like a recent chapter of my marriage book. It, it applies here with when, when, so far as timing as it goes and how to talk about things. Some people say too, The other group not saying enough and likely both are not saying what needs to be said.

Right. So the quote is also, Ooh, I like that. Say the things that make you feel uncomfortable. Yeah. That’s the most recent chapter I just wrote. Yeah. In the new book to come out sometime in 2023. Yeah. Now

John-Nelson Pope: you’ve, you’ve, this is what, 20 some years in practice? How many you’ve been going on? Going on

Chris Gazdik: 20? Me?

Yeah. 20. This is 95. Yeah. Yeah. Almost 30, almost 30 years. Oh my God. Are you serious? Yeah. That’s trip.[01:03:00] You guys are making me feel uncomfortable. Oh, you’re, you’re feeling the way you make me feel? No, no. 97. I graduated ninth school in grad school in 97. No, no. Oh, he needs to feel better now. I still, yeah.

No, I still two years. Yeah. Oh, that’s gonna make you feel better. It does. It does. It’s also true. It really is true. Listen, learning how to compromise is a big part of, you know, conflict and, you know, our valuing growth and being open to growth is another thing that kind of comes to mind. And so let, let me end on this cause we could probably go on with it, but we did a show on this as well.

You can look it up in archives. Would you like to know three steps that I believe will. Any conflict between two people, I would like to hear those three steps. We literally did a whole show on this. I don’t know, Neil, if you have time to look up cuz we’re taxing in for a landing. What show that was. I think it might have been a short that we created.

I’m, I’m really not sure. But he’ll take a quick peek at that. [01:04:00] Three steps to avoid any conflict. If, and, and you take these in order and you only go to the next step if you need it because the first step probably gets conflicts resolved or stopped at least. And the first step really is simple. You wouldn’t think it to be complicated but, or super difficult though to do.

Honestly, all that just sets up the notion of tell the person to stop doing what they’re doing. You know, we don’t do that very often.

John-Nelson Pope: Will you unpack that? That’s a good psycholo. Can, can you talk, develop that a little bit more?

Chris Gazdik: I don’t have time to go deep on all of these, but Sure. When. When you have somebody that’s hurting you or harming you or bothering you, we oftentimes are humans avoiding conflict, uhhuh, right.

Conflict, avoiding, I should say. And so I find that when you literally make an assertive statement like, John, can you please stop [01:05:00] looking at me right now, it’s, it’s, it’s got me feeling. I can’t see you now anyway. Okay. That would, okay. That one doesn’t work. Stop looking at this blurry vision across the room.

Okay. I’ll go with that. Okay. That’s funny. So, so just taking that step and doing that activity to tell somebody or, or to suggest or to ask, sometimes even maybe demand that they stop doing what it is that they’re doing to you. I find that that stops immediately, a lot of conflicts that people generally just don’t do.

You know, we, we don’t want to make an assertion that way and whatnot. Right. You got. Maybe episode 40. That sounds probably right. It was very early on. Is that a short or a whole show? It’s a show. Oh, it is a whole show. Okay, cool. Yeah. That’s awesome. We took a whole show on this last little piece. The second step is back off and give that person space.

Yeah, right. That resolves [01:06:00] conflicts. So you see it’s actually a combination. Hey, I need you to stop doing what you’re doing to me. I don’t. I don’t like that. And then you back up. You don’t retreat, you don’t run away, but you back. And you create distance and space to, to create a, a, a, a calm, a a non-anxious presence.

A non-anxious presence. You know that phrase? Yes. All right. Where do you know that phrase? Oh, I, it’s just, it’s

John-Nelson Pope: through Travis. It’s, yeah, I was, I, I was, I think that’s the Roger’s court conditions are actually that’s derived later. But yeah, I think Okay. Yeah.

Chris Gazdik: Some non-anxious presence, some training there.

And then the last step, if you’re still in conflict is get objective third party assistance when needed. Yeah. And that could be the person’s friends, your friends, your court judge or something. But that, you know, so it’s so op Ask for help.

John-Nelson Pope: Ask for help. Yeah.

Chris Gazdik: Or advice. Yeah. And advice. And. Right. So tell the [01:07:00] person to stop doing what, doing back off, give ’em some space, and then thirdly, get some objective third party assistance when, when needed uhhuh, that will resolve, I think, a hundred percent of conflict.

So,

John-Nelson Pope: so the second thing, the second point that you were making is respect the distance. How’s a component

Chris Gazdik: for it? For sure. Yeah. Right abs. Absolutely. So John, we gotta get outta here. I think we’re running a little bit late, but good topic. Good show to do that too. So closing thoughts, comments. I mean, I think conflict is such a common thing that we’re dealing with and hopefully we’ve gotten a little bit of understanding of it, what it is, why we’re drawn to it.

Maybe we

John-Nelson Pope: could delve into it a little deeper in terms of let’s say a consulting work conflict in organizations and something of that. Oh

Chris Gazdik: yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Maybe later down the line. You know, it’s funny, John, I, I feel like our shows all play off. They’re starting to really get to the point where they play off each other and we’re taking, we’re able to take deeper dives on specific parts of the [01:08:00] different concepts like we did with the addiction stuff recently, so, right.

Pretty, pretty cool. So definitely check out the old shows. That’s not a plug, that’s just saying like, look, it’s great content for you to get these topics. And these things kind of worked through and worked out. Listen, conflict. Common conflict can be unresolved. Conflict really does trigger pain and hurt and harm.

It also has positive, creative, strong growth components, and we must learn how to manage conflict. I know out there we have a strong amount of conflict avoidance, but I want to encourage you, I want you to kind of understand that

we can do this. It’s a part of relationships, it’s a part of relating on a macro level and on a micro level.

Macro level is country. Big picture organization’s. Micro level is your marriage, your friends, your, your, your parents and kids. It conflict can be really, really scary, but it can also be really, really rewarding and you can get to a [01:09:00] place of tolerating conflict really, really well. It’s an important part of life that I invite you to pay attention to yourself and learn about so that you can continue to grow and get creative new things in your life.

Isn’t that what we’re really drawn to? Take care, be well. We will see you next week.

John-Nelson Pope: Take care. Thank you.

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