127: Is Avoiding Conflict Ruining Your Relationships?

Rosie (00:00)
saying, my god, you said it on the show! But we really wasn't recording.

Roula (00:07)
Here we go. Okay, okay. This is... You're acting like Tilly now.

Rosie (00:14)
⁓ yeah, sorry.

Roula (00:16)
Should I give you my cheek so you can lick it? That's my makeup.

Rosie (00:18)
delicious. Carly says, hi ruler,

you gorgeous lady. Look until he's licking me. Hello darling. Hello, bubba.

Roula (00:31)
Thank you, Kylie. It's so good

to have you here all listening to us talking about life and how it happens to us all the time.

Rosie (00:36)
Yeah. Yes, it is about life.

⁓ she licked me up the nostril and in the ear. ⁓ you're not, I'm not doing that to you.

Roula (00:46)
Do you want to go

and do you have like a wipe next to you sanitizer? No. Okay. Yes. Here we go. All right. This is a difficult topic and we have to make it happen in 15 minutes. Hopefully. Yes.

Rosie (00:50)
Not so good. just whop it on my shit. Classy like that.

Okay, here we go. Yes.

So don't ramble, please.

Roula (01:17)
Confrontation. So Rosie, a lot of people avoid confrontation because they want to keep the peace.

Rosie (01:17)
No.

Yeah.

Roula (01:30)
And I know I do this with some people, not everyone.

Rosie (01:35)
interesting.

Roula (01:35)
How do you see it? Is it wise to avoid confrontation for keeping the peace?

Rosie (01:44)
or I don't think it's a yes or no answer. It depends. Sometimes you've got to pick your battles. Some people know it's not worth it. I've had friends in the past, they complain and carry on and you give them advice or you challenge them and they just never change. So in those situations, it's not worth it. They're the surface level friends. But a friend like you Roula, we've had conversations and we challenge each other. We confront each other.

And I think it's, is misunderstood because it sounds very aggressive. And I think it can feel that way because we've kind of been conditioned to, yeah, keep the peace, be polite. It's impolite to disagree with someone. You can't do that, especially as a woman, how very dare you.

Roula (02:35)
Yes, we're conditioned to not make the other one feel whatever negative feeling, uncomfortable. Yes.

Rosie (02:41)
We don't want to make them feel uncomfortable. Yes, Barb says it depends

on how well you know the person. I would agree with that. ⁓

Roula (02:48)
Exactly.

You have to be also in a place to confront someone. You need to have a certain trust that you are heard when you confront them. Because if you're confronting someone who you don't trust, and I mean you don't trust, you feel like they're going to lash out on you, they're going to get defensive, they're going to gaslight you. There are so many reasons where we don't want to confront that person because we don't feel safe.

Rosie (02:59)
Yeah.

safety, yeah.

Roula (03:20)
And to feel safe, there are moments where we need to confront people. Because what I see, if there are important topics in our life that we sweep them under the rug because we don't want to confront, this means there is a dysfunctional in our life. And this dysfunctional comes from a place of safety and trust.

Rosie (03:46)
And I think there's fear involved too, because we can't control how the other person reacts.

Roula (03:54)
And this is where I say is that it's not our problem how the other person reacts.

Our responsibility is to speak up for ourselves. And yes, we pick our battles.

Rosie (04:07)
or our responsibility,

hang on, it's our responsibility to speak up for ourselves. Say more on that. That's a really interesting point.

Roula (04:17)
What happens more often than not is that we don't confront someone. We don't speak up and we build resentment. We think they're not doing what we want them to do or they're not saying the words we want us to hear. They don't feel it with us. Then we have these negative feelings about that person, but they all come from our inner self because we have not told them.

and confronted

them with what we want.

Rosie (04:50)
And that comes down to accountability, one of our favourite themes on the podcast.

Roula (04:56)
Yes. The other thing, Rosie, is that it's a practice to know. You don't want to confront people so they run away. No, you want to talk to them from your heart so they can understand you. And if they don't know how to understand you, then we have to prepare to prepare ourselves and make ourselves in a place where we know how to confront so that the other doesn't run away. You know?

Rosie (05:02)
Yeah.

⁓

Roula (05:25)
the fight or flight? And this is what happens with confrontation.

Rosie (05:27)
Yeah, and different

people react different ways. So how I might confront you would be very different to how I confront my sister. I'm using her as an example because she and I are very different in terms of confrontation. And this isn't to say that I don't do this, but it's an example where in general we're a bit different. She will shut down and retreat. So I have to come about it in a

gentle away. Whereas with you, I don't feel I have to filter myself. I can just come out with it and I don't have to worry too much about perfecting the delivery. Because if I'm a bit clumsy with my words, I think it was in last episode, I said something about you don't give a shit what you say to me or something. I totally, totally did not say what I meant, but you didn't hang up the call and go, well, fuck you. know, but if...

Roula (06:25)
Yes,

Rosie, look, it is self-improvement work in learning how to say how we feel and what we want from the other and not really be worried about how they're going to feel. It's their job to work on themselves in accepting whatever. This is one.

Rosie (06:33)
Yeah.

But at the same time,

⁓ sorry, continue.

Roula (06:50)
The second thing, which I'm losing my thoughts now, is that I don't know what I was going to say. So the first thing is it's our self work on ourselves to know how to confront the others because we want them to do something for us or say the right thing or understand us. So it's on us to get them on board.

Rosie (07:14)
So that it kind of is our responsibility then with how they react. You said it wasn't, there is a responsibility there. If we want them to.

Roula (07:21)
Our

response. Yeah, our responsibility, Rosie is how we say our words. If I'm going to confront you and I come to you angry and tell you always this word always, which make people just check out right away. If I'm going to confront you and attack you and be come with a loud voice. Yes, it's then I'm making you run away. I'm not bringing you on board to listen to me. And this is where

Our responsibilities is to know how to confront others. when no, no, not every time. It's lot of practice and we need also to let the other take in what we said and let them. Yes.

Rosie (07:55)
And we're not going to get it right every time, we?

yeah, they need processing time, don't they? Yeah.

They might not be ready to do a deep dive straight away. They might go, okay, I've heard what you said. And they might need to go away and process. Cause when you confront someone, it's usually at a pretty deep level and they're going to have to do some inner work. And I quite like what Barb's just put in the chat. It's to do, it is a learning experience, but also to do with our body language. And it's a...

Roula (08:24)
Yes.

Rosie (08:34)
I guess an exercise in being honest and real with the other person.

Roula (08:41)
yes. And you know...

Rosie (08:41)
Yeah, if I stand

with my arms crossed and I'm sort leaning forward with a stern look on my face, it just is as if I'm scolding you and the power dynamic is different.

Roula (08:52)
Yeah. And even if we're shaking from inside and we're sweating, we have to keep maintaining calm in focusing on our breath. Because also when we focus on our breath, we avoid saying words we regret because we're taking the time to process. And I can I can not really give now enough of practical tips,

So what I want to say is that we can learn to confront, we can learn to speak up.

Rosie (09:15)
Hmm

Roula (09:25)
And this is an exercise that is very nice to do when we feel the trust and the safety. Not confronting is a choice we make, but then we have to be take responsibility for not feeling negative feelings about the other person. Cause when we choose not to speak.

Rosie (09:43)
Right, you can't resent someone if you're

not actually sharing why you're like, it has to go both ways. And whatever we decide, there will be consequences. If you choose to confront someone, there's natural consequences. If you choose not to confront them, there are natural consequences. So you just need to weigh it up and be prepared. There is an aftermath, whatever that looks like.

Roula (09:52)
Yeah.

Yeah. And you know, the aftermath, the first time it's going to be for the first time, second time, third, they're going to be aftermath after each other. And one day. The storm will come down. Because both have practiced and there is something about the repair when we confront someone. And of course, I'm talking about confronting someone that are in our life. They mean something to us. We want to continue the relationship with.

Rosie (10:35)
Mm-mm.

Roula (10:37)
We have to learn how to repair without feeling guilty and trying to make things better, which we make them worse actually, because we spoke up. Sometimes we speak up, the other person feel bad and then want them to feel good again. So we ruin our entire speak up situation. Yeah.

Rosie (10:56)
Yeah, it's a fine balance.

And it actually makes me think, this is going to sound very strange, but it makes me think of dog training. If you, if you scold your dog, you don't want them to then fear you. So there needs to be something positive as well, like reassurance. Hey, I still love you. It's still safe, but don't do that. It's not okay.

Roula (11:19)
100%. 100%. It's the same when the other person is not feeling safe in the confrontation, it's a two-way street no matter what we do. It is a two-way street. And I hope we answered something in Barb's thought, this inspiration. And I advise everyone to practice speaking up for themselves because

Rosie (11:36)
I don't know. I don't know.

Roula (11:46)
There isn't a way in life to avoid conflict all the time. This is not a... Yes.

Rosie (11:51)
Yeah. Here's a good bit of advice.

Sorry, I'll let you finish your sentence.

Roula (11:58)
We cannot be who we are and who we aspire to be if we're trying continuously to keep the peace so the other doesn't feel confronted. Everyone has to deal with their shit.

Rosie (12:09)
Run.

Oh, everyone has to deal with their shit. I want that on a t-shirt. I love it. And here's a bit of advice. I can't take credit. Barb has just shared this. Some advice she was given was to use I language. So for example, really, you're really pissing me off right now. You're making me really angry. You keep saying this. No, no, no, no. I'm putting it all on you, but.

Roula I need to be honest. I'm actually feeling really, ⁓

pressured in this conversation and it would really help me if we could just take a step back and have some processing time or something. I might be feeling those angry feelings and think, fuck you, but is, you know, to place the blame all on the other person, it's not really fair. And it's also not productive. There's two people.

Roula (13:10)
correct. Whatever we want to talk about to add to the correctness of what you shared, it has to do with us, not with the other person. Whatever we're feeling, whatever we want to talk about, whatever going on, it has to do first and most with us.

Rosie (13:12)
Yeah.

Yeah, we need some self-reflection. I want to confront you, I should probably do some thinking and going, hang on, is this a me problem or am I actually concerned about my friend and want to bring their attention to something?

Roula (13:52)
And it's okay if it's a you problem, if it's a me problem, it's also okay. There is a reason why it's a me problem. Cool. So we wrap this up for the podcast episode and we continue the live.

Rosie (13:55)
What, yeah. Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah, I think so. Yes.

Continuing the live. Don't go anywhere. Confrontation Let us know how do you deal with it? What is your advice? I think we need to get better at giving actionable tips in these episodes. We're great at having conversations and going, well, there's no right or wrong. But let's try and get some actionable advice. I would love to hear from our listeners. Catch you in the next one.

Roula (14:32)
See you next time, bye.

Rosie (14:35)
That was good Barb, thank you!