What Happens When we Fight?
This Article not for ezines.
Next time you have a fight with someone you care about, remember this process, and you will save yourself a lot of unnecessary heartache.
The first thing that happens when we fight with a loved one is that we instinctively feel that we have to protect ourselves. Adrenalin rises as we feel threatened and the more serious we feel the fight is the more emotional and subjective we become. In order to protect ourselves, we automatically choose a series of “fight or flight” responses. We can withdraw or go on the attack, and sometimes different responses will be chosen over the period of the fight.
We choose the “I’m right and you’re wrong” approach in order to protect ourselves, and then justify and defend our actions and blame the other person. This is a normal, natural process, and when you think back to the last fight you had, you will recognize these steps along the way. The longer the fight lasts, and the more intense it becomes, the more subjective we become, as we move into emotional states of hurt, anger, sadness, and attack. And the more emotional we become the less objective and realistic we become in our perceptions. “Perception is reality”, remember? Everything becomes “black or white”, right or wrong. And usually, “I’m right and you’re wrong.” Be careful what you choose to accept as true when you’re in a fight. You might even start to believe lies that will hurt other people who are not even involved in the fight. A “ripple effect.”
Then, we start to allow the fight to poison our perceptions of the past and the future. It’s almost as if we had two telescopes, one to look into the past, and one to look into the future. We put a negative lens onto each telescope, so that we now see all the past and future acts and choices of our “opponent” in a negative manner. All of a sudden, we mentally and emotionally write off their character and every good deed they ever did. We question every motive they ever had and every choice they ever made. Someone, whom we objectively know to be kind and caring with a twenty-year track record of kind deeds, can be conceived as a monster that “never cared about me”.
Emotions that come from a fight are like a wildfire. They contaminate our perceptions and this contamination spreads across past, present, and future, raging to annihilate every good and decent aspect of the “Opponent.” And we suddenly agree to believe anything bad about that person. We throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.
I know this sounds familiar to you, because you’re a human being. It happens to all of us. The good news is that there is a way out, and even if you can’t stop the fight, or if the other person has died or left, or if you don’t wish to renew the relationship, you can feel a lot better. The way in which we interpret the situation is a choice. “The mind can make a heaven of hell, and a hell of heaven.” Here’s a better way in which to handle it, even if it happened a long time ago, and you can use the same insight to handle future fights a lot better.
Just like a fire, we need to understand that it needs to be contained and we need to build firewalls. Realize that this is a result of an issue of interpretation, and that each person believes they are right. If you realize the danger of contamination, it’s easier to maintain perspective. Just because Peter feels you have taken advantage of him regarding the loan of the car doesn’t mean he is a mass murderer or that he never cared about you. He actually believes what he is saying, whether you know it to be true or not. You do not have to defend, justify, or attack and you cannot “win” the fight. You can provide the correct information and maintain perspective, knowing that “This is not my problem, this is Peter’s problem.” By seeing yourself as separate from the emotional state Peter is in, watching the emotions and interaction from an objective viewpoint, and not allowing yourself to be “Hooked” into the fight, you can remain calm and clear. I know that sounds impossible, but this is the ideal.
Ideally, we should be able to say, “You’re right, I was wrong, I made a wrong choice and I’m sorry. I love you anyway and I won’t do it again”, but it’s not always that easy, as we know. If we can separate the doer from the deed, isolate the present fight from the past, and realize that if the person didn’t care about us, they wouldn’t bother to fight with us, it would be easier. If you were to remain calm and ask logical questions in order to better understand where the other person is coming from, like a psychologist would, instead of becoming enmeshed in attacks and retaliations, accusations and justifications, it would be easier. You would recover sooner. The fight would not spiral down so far. The intensity would be less, so the perspectives would be more realistic on both sides.
Have you ever said, “You NEVER loved me! You ALWAYS (do this of that)!” ? Think about the telescopes. We drag the opponent’s family, dog and job into the fight and what’s been said cannot be unsaid. You know your motives and that’s how we are judged. By our MOTIVES. People believe what they believe because of the evidence they have at their disposal and the way in which they choose to interpret that evidence. We select evidence that supports our beliefs. So we continually seek more evidence to prove that we're right. We all do that. You can choose how you wish to interpret the choices of others. You can REINTERPRET those choices and words as well. Find new, alternative evidence. You can find evidence to prove that someone loved you or that they hated you. It's your choice.
Look back on painful fights and you will see that this process is not mysterious. You can only be guilty for something you have done with a bad motive. You can walk in the shoes of the other person and try to see it from their perspective. Instead of focusing on your own pain, how about focusing on their pain? You don’t have to take emotional outbursts seriously or personally – they are seldom really meant or believed. In the heat of the moment, insanity reigns. You can choose to remove yourself emotionally and get a realistic perspective on things. You can say things like, “What you believe is not true. I am not going to fight, defend, or justify. I am going to withdraw until you’re ready to discuss this rationally. I love you and I care about you. You are not your actions or your words. The evidence you have based your beliefs on is incorrect. I love you and I am here for you.”
Easy to talk, I know. But perhaps this short article will help you, next time you’re in a fight, to maintain a better perspective, contain you perceptions and avoid the downward spiral. For fights that happened long ago and still affect you, you can reinterpret them, reclassify them, and rethink them. We choose and control the way we interpret every situation ion our lives. We are responsible.
Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com
Next time you have a fight with someone you care about, remember this process, and you will save yourself a lot of unnecessary heartache.
The first thing that happens when we fight with a loved one is that we instinctively feel that we have to protect ourselves. Adrenalin rises as we feel threatened and the more serious we feel the fight is the more emotional and subjective we become. In order to protect ourselves, we automatically choose a series of “fight or flight” responses. We can withdraw or go on the attack, and sometimes different responses will be chosen over the period of the fight.
We choose the “I’m right and you’re wrong” approach in order to protect ourselves, and then justify and defend our actions and blame the other person. This is a normal, natural process, and when you think back to the last fight you had, you will recognize these steps along the way. The longer the fight lasts, and the more intense it becomes, the more subjective we become, as we move into emotional states of hurt, anger, sadness, and attack. And the more emotional we become the less objective and realistic we become in our perceptions. “Perception is reality”, remember? Everything becomes “black or white”, right or wrong. And usually, “I’m right and you’re wrong.” Be careful what you choose to accept as true when you’re in a fight. You might even start to believe lies that will hurt other people who are not even involved in the fight. A “ripple effect.”
Then, we start to allow the fight to poison our perceptions of the past and the future. It’s almost as if we had two telescopes, one to look into the past, and one to look into the future. We put a negative lens onto each telescope, so that we now see all the past and future acts and choices of our “opponent” in a negative manner. All of a sudden, we mentally and emotionally write off their character and every good deed they ever did. We question every motive they ever had and every choice they ever made. Someone, whom we objectively know to be kind and caring with a twenty-year track record of kind deeds, can be conceived as a monster that “never cared about me”.
Emotions that come from a fight are like a wildfire. They contaminate our perceptions and this contamination spreads across past, present, and future, raging to annihilate every good and decent aspect of the “Opponent.” And we suddenly agree to believe anything bad about that person. We throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.
I know this sounds familiar to you, because you’re a human being. It happens to all of us. The good news is that there is a way out, and even if you can’t stop the fight, or if the other person has died or left, or if you don’t wish to renew the relationship, you can feel a lot better. The way in which we interpret the situation is a choice. “The mind can make a heaven of hell, and a hell of heaven.” Here’s a better way in which to handle it, even if it happened a long time ago, and you can use the same insight to handle future fights a lot better.
Just like a fire, we need to understand that it needs to be contained and we need to build firewalls. Realize that this is a result of an issue of interpretation, and that each person believes they are right. If you realize the danger of contamination, it’s easier to maintain perspective. Just because Peter feels you have taken advantage of him regarding the loan of the car doesn’t mean he is a mass murderer or that he never cared about you. He actually believes what he is saying, whether you know it to be true or not. You do not have to defend, justify, or attack and you cannot “win” the fight. You can provide the correct information and maintain perspective, knowing that “This is not my problem, this is Peter’s problem.” By seeing yourself as separate from the emotional state Peter is in, watching the emotions and interaction from an objective viewpoint, and not allowing yourself to be “Hooked” into the fight, you can remain calm and clear. I know that sounds impossible, but this is the ideal.
Ideally, we should be able to say, “You’re right, I was wrong, I made a wrong choice and I’m sorry. I love you anyway and I won’t do it again”, but it’s not always that easy, as we know. If we can separate the doer from the deed, isolate the present fight from the past, and realize that if the person didn’t care about us, they wouldn’t bother to fight with us, it would be easier. If you were to remain calm and ask logical questions in order to better understand where the other person is coming from, like a psychologist would, instead of becoming enmeshed in attacks and retaliations, accusations and justifications, it would be easier. You would recover sooner. The fight would not spiral down so far. The intensity would be less, so the perspectives would be more realistic on both sides.
Have you ever said, “You NEVER loved me! You ALWAYS (do this of that)!” ? Think about the telescopes. We drag the opponent’s family, dog and job into the fight and what’s been said cannot be unsaid. You know your motives and that’s how we are judged. By our MOTIVES. People believe what they believe because of the evidence they have at their disposal and the way in which they choose to interpret that evidence. We select evidence that supports our beliefs. So we continually seek more evidence to prove that we're right. We all do that. You can choose how you wish to interpret the choices of others. You can REINTERPRET those choices and words as well. Find new, alternative evidence. You can find evidence to prove that someone loved you or that they hated you. It's your choice.
Look back on painful fights and you will see that this process is not mysterious. You can only be guilty for something you have done with a bad motive. You can walk in the shoes of the other person and try to see it from their perspective. Instead of focusing on your own pain, how about focusing on their pain? You don’t have to take emotional outbursts seriously or personally – they are seldom really meant or believed. In the heat of the moment, insanity reigns. You can choose to remove yourself emotionally and get a realistic perspective on things. You can say things like, “What you believe is not true. I am not going to fight, defend, or justify. I am going to withdraw until you’re ready to discuss this rationally. I love you and I care about you. You are not your actions or your words. The evidence you have based your beliefs on is incorrect. I love you and I am here for you.”
Easy to talk, I know. But perhaps this short article will help you, next time you’re in a fight, to maintain a better perspective, contain you perceptions and avoid the downward spiral. For fights that happened long ago and still affect you, you can reinterpret them, reclassify them, and rethink them. We choose and control the way we interpret every situation ion our lives. We are responsible.
Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com
posted by Robin J. Elliott at
10:36 AM
