If You Avoid Conflict You're Avoiding Resolution

Learning what we were never taught

A few days ago, I was reading an article about how parents were giving their children ChatGPT in voice mode so the parent wouldn’t have to keep talking after they ran out of steam. One of the parents thought that his child would finish his thought and be done with the LLM. When they returned to the child hours later, that child was still talking to ChatGPT about Thomas the Tank Engine. The parent realized that he would never be able to keep up with the LLM or be as endlessly fascinating, and that this had not been a great decision on his part.

What also worries me about the increasing use of technology, especially for social purposes, is that we’re becoming even less capable of living in the real world, which is full of uncomfortable situations and realities that don’t meet our expectations. Not everyone’s going to want to hear endlessly about our current hyperfixation, and that’s okay! A reality we can and should contend with.

People are cutting off their long-time friendships without any discussion. Folks are leaving their homes less and less. Loneliness is at an all-time high and increasing every day. And our ability to sit with our own thoughts was already a challenge, now it’s becoming near impossible when there’s so much to distract ourselves.

All of this is technically morally neutral, but the impacts are real. Sort of like drinking three days in a row is morally neutral, but our bodies will still respond in kind with a wicked hangover.

Us humans are social creatures who evolved to thrive with a tight knit community and cooperation across groups. When we don’t interact with each other or have deep and meaningful relationships then we become increasingly depressed. Our intention to keep ourselves safe and feeling good actually starts to backfire and ends up making us feel bad.

Part of what fuels our increasing isolation is our fear of being vulnerable and of conflict. In many of our families of origin, we were required to present a false self in order to stay safe, and any meaningful conflict resolution was completely absent.

If we have never been allowed to be ourselves, then even if we’ve been fully out in the world, we might be physically present but internally we’ve retreated into ourselves. For many generations, parents have thought of children as extensions of themselves—beings who should not offend them or say anything that is out of alignment with the family. Children often have been expected to be “perfect” in order to soothe the parents’ unhealed parts. Learning to live this way then creates misalignment, resentment, and anger in future relationships, jobs, and situations.

Another valuable tool missing in our families of origin is the ability to communicate effectively—to know, or at least try at knowing, what’s going on in ourselves, and take the steps to speak freely and hear the other person speak freely themselves. We may have had examples of people yelling but never really saying anything. Or it was family members remaining “quiet” but then passive-aggressive with resentment at every turn. Don’t talk, don’t trust, don’t feel. When that’s the secret motto of a family, then how could we have ever learned how to have conflict resolution?

Conflict often feels like a bad word. When it’s said, see if you can feel what happens in your body.

In my experience, most personal conflicts can be resolved—and not only that, but after the resolution, in many cases, the relationships I have are stronger for it. Conflict tends to arise when we have a certain understanding of ourselves and the world. When that understanding doesn’t match what’s happening, it starts to cause friction and discomfort.

This can also happen within ourselves, and I think applying all these concepts internally is also incredibly powerful for healing and feeling at peace with ourselves.

It’s only through curiosity, inquiry, and a willingness to listen that we are able to come to know ourselves and our loved ones better. Through these dialogues, we may actually learn more about ourselves—things we couldn’t have known until we were met with something outside of ourselves.

Alan Watts once said that because he is a philosopher, he loves when someone has a different opinion than him, because it pushes him to think in new ways about his ideas, which in turn leads to more refined understandings of himself and the world.

I know part of why we avoid conflict is because we never had a good example of it. I also wonder how many of us were met with anger and violence as children—and that’s what we expect of the world. But it’s an old set of experiences we should test and challenge.

If you tell your friend that you have been feeling uncomfortable with how you are feeling left out because you weren’t invited to an event that it seemed like you “should” have been invited to, then most likely you’re going to hear back that it was a matter of logistics or a misunderstanding rather than a personal dig.

This is something that actually happened to me. I wanted to let it go, but every time it came up I felt this horrible sensation inside. When I brought it up to my friend, in a really careful way so as not to place any blame or make assumptions on their part, what I found out was that they thought I already had plans for that night. They ended up inviting me, and everything was fine. Whereas in the past, I might have tried to push it down, eventually leading to me fading away from the relationship due to my unexpressed feelings.

In another scenario, I approached a friend about how I wasn’t feeling cared for in the ways that I would like. This person often didn’t reach out first, and they also didn’t ask about me or my family. I cared for them, so I wanted to express my need in the hopes we could make it work. They said that they didn’t realize this and would try harder. Unfortunately, the changed behavior was absent, and after a few months of this and other conversations, we did part ways.

No one screamed at me. No one beat me up. I know that might sound extreme, but our bodies hold histories that can only be rewritten by new experiences.

The friends and community members I have around me right now feel incredibly deep and safe, and I know it’s because we’ve been through some seriously trying times together. It wasn’t always guaranteed that we would be growing in the same directions, but for the ones who are still around, we’re forging this path together.

It’s really beautiful knowing that I can be around people who speak their needs—and even that sometimes that’s going to poke me in my most sensitive spaces (hello, lingering sense of unworthiness!). But also knowing that I can handle the discomfort in my own body, and if it really feels pressing, that I can communicate that to those in my outer world.

What gives me hope is remembering that conflict isn’t the opposite of connection, it’s often the doorway to it. The world keeps telling us to make everything smoother, faster, more efficient. But the real magic happens in the messy, imperfect spaces between us, where honesty meets care. Every time we stay present through discomfort, every time we choose conversation over avoidance, we help rebuild the muscle of humanity that technology alone can’t sustain.