Are You A Chronic Solver?

This week, 'Therapy Begins with T(ea)' steeps on the difference between solving and resolving and offers a body-based exercise to help you practice the perspective of resolution.

Steep In Thought (3-5 min)

We Like to Solve Things

We like to solve things. We like definitive answers. We like certainty and predictability. Being solution oriented is helpful in many day-to-day scenarios, like with a challenging problem at work, home maintenance, and life admin, but with the ‘big stuff’ in life – the future, relational dynamics, loss & grief, emotional regulation – we often run into trouble when we try to solve. This is especially the case when it comes to conflict. Despite our best efforts to prove our point, there isn’t often a definitive answer to conflict. Rarely is there an objective truth or right. And this makes ‘solving’ conflict almost impossible. 

Unsolvable

Maybe you’ve heard this statistic before: almost 70% of relational conflict is unsolvable. Before we dive in, take a moment and notice your reaction to that statistic. What comes up?

If it’s confusion, frustration, fear, or defeat, you’re not alone. Most of us aren’t actually taught ‘how to fight’ (how to navigate conflict). So here’s something to take with you today: we can’t often solve conflict, but we can work to resolve it. These words are sometimes used interchangeably, but they are categorically different in that resolution doesn’t require there to be a definitive answer – resolution is about the process of making decisions or agreements about how to manage a conflict. That’s also why ‘repair’ is used instead of ‘fix’ in conflict management – repair is about restoring functionality through time, intention, and work. Just so, we can work to restore functionality in relationships post conflict through accountability, communication, regulation, and connection.

Solution v resolution. Fix v repair. Keep these concepts in mind as you go through your week and if you’d like to spend more time with them, try out this week’s full body check-in.

Full Body Check-in (2-4 min)

Connect to your breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth as a sigh. Let it be all you focus on for a moment. Use your breath to connect your mind with the rest of your body. And if focusing on your breath is uncomfortable or inaccessible to you right now, use a different anchor to help ground you. You could choose a sound in your environment or focus on the sensation of support (soft or firm) from whatever is holding your body right now (a chair, a bed, the ground, etc.). Take a moment to anchor and ground.

Can you think of a recent conflict you had? Let it play in your mind as if you’re watching it on a movie screen. Notice what emotions come up in your body. As you watch the scene play out, what do you notice about the other person and what they were feeling? What do you notice about you and what you were feeling? How did the conflict end?

Now that you see the conflict as a whole, ask yourself: were you more in solve or resolve mode? Was this a conflict that could be solved (i.e. was this an objective problem with a clear answer or a relational dynamic with both people feeling hurt)? Were you trying to fix or repair? 

What could it look like to view this conflict less as a problem with one solution and more of a dynamic to be restored, so that both of you feel safe and heard? How could you have acted differently? How could the other person have acted differently? What takeaway from processing this conflict do you want to remember for the next time you’re in conflict?