Learning To Navigate Conflict Consciously
And stop repeating the same patterns of dysfunction.
“You can be right, or you can be free.” — Byron Katie
There’s something about conflict that gets right underneath the skin.
Not just because of what’s said… but because of what it seems to mean.
Like if someone misunderstands you…
it doesn’t just feel like a miscommunication.
It feels like you’ve been accused of something.
If someone doesn’t agree with you…
it doesn’t just feel like difference.
It feels like they’ve pulled away and disconnected from you.
And if you’ve ever been in a moment where your body starts tensing, your voice tightens, your chest flares…
and you have to say something — or fix something — or make them see what you see…
That’s not really about the other person.
That’s your protector coming online.
Most of us think conflict is about what’s happening between two people.
But more often than not, it’s what’s happening inside one person — being projected outward.
It’s not even always about the disagreement.
It’s about what the disagreement threatens.
Am I going to be misunderstood?
Am I going to lose connection?
Am I going to feel like I don’t matter?
So we rush.
We explain.
We defend.
And in doing so, we often miss the very thing we needed most:
A sense of safety that comes from inside.
A sense of being with ourselves.
A sense of not needing to be agreed with in order to feel real.
You can’t listen clearly when you’re in survival mode,
and most conflict triggers survival mode.
That doesn’t mean something is wrong with you.
It means something in you got activated.
Something that’s been there a long time, that’s speaking loudly.
The body remembers what it was like to be dismissed.
To be punished for speaking up.
To be told your experience wasn’t true.
So now, when tension arises — even something small — your system goes:
We have to fix this. Now. Or we’ll lose everything.
And the other person might have no idea that’s what’s happening inside you.
They’re just watching you get louder. Or quieter. Or disappear.
And maybe they’re doing their own version of the same thing.
One thing that helps me —
and I’ve had to practice this a lot —
is pausing and asking:
Do I want to be understood…
or do I need their agreement to feel okay with where I’m at?
Because those are very different things.
One is about connection.
The other is about survival.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be seen.
It’s human.
But when our sense of clarity depends on someone else validating it —
we’ve left ourselves; abandoned ourselves; handed over our power.
We’ve handed them the steering wheel and given away our autonomy.
And we’ll feel that.
In our breath. In our chest. In the sharpness of our words.
Or the silence that feels like it might swallow us whole.
Conflict gets easier — but not when other people change —
when we stop abandoning ourselves to avoid the discomfort of saying the hard thing or doing the hard thing.
Conflict gets easier when we start speaking and moving from a place of solidity instead of frailty.
Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is take a breath and stay with the part of you that wants to run. Build your capacity to hold difficult emotions without moving to fix them so quickly; to let the feeling reveal what it’s protecting.
Because every argument, every flare, every shutdown…
is a doorway to something deeper.
If you’re walking through this…
If you recognize yourself in any of this…
I made a workbook that goes right into the heart of it.
It’s called Navigating Conflict Consciously, and it’s designed to help you see what’s operating in you during those moments when your protector takes over.
To assist you in coming back to yourself & operating from a place of inner strength.
It’s not a guide to “better conversations.”
It’s a mirror — to help you understand why you lose yourself in the first place.
You can find it here.
Go gently.
This is tender work.
But it’s also the kind of work that changes everything.
Walking it with you,
Hayley
