Here are some reasons you may avoid confrontation:
- Your family of origin did not do confrontation
- Fear of disapproval and rejection
- You are a martyr; you sacrifice yourself for others.
- You’re a pleaser you look for love out there by doing and pleasing others.
- You are a masked person; you adjust yourself depending on who you are talking to.
Learn to say ‘no’, step by step.
You will love yourself more when you set boundaries and allow yourself to say ‘no’. Start with small things and practice how to do it. Say ‘no’ to anything that hurts you physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. Part of self-love is listening to yourself all the time. It involves listening to yourself and noticing within yourself when something does not feel right, trusting your intuition, and being able to say ‘no’. This constantly refuels your love tank.
So how do you stop avoiding confrontation?
The first place to begin is to start listening to and respecting your inner world knowing you do matter and you are important.
Make time and space to develop your inner peace and calmness. You can begin by sitting and taking a few deep breaths and noticing how your body feels. Do not attach to any of your thoughts; just let them go. Imagine a stream into which you put your thoughts. Watch them drift away. Or put them on a cloud and watch them float into the distance. Learn to just be.
Deciding to change it
This simple self-empowering exercise if you practice enough will be your go-to any time, you are feeling some unease within yourself. Identifying within yourself, conflict, tension, blame, nerves from not speaking up, judgment, and more.
SELF
- S: Stop what you are doing, bring in stillness and breath.
- E: Enquire what your feeling inside the body
- L: Love yourself enough to give yourself what you need
- F: Fill your own cup up
Instructions: Find some space on your own where you will not be interrupted.
Stop: Recognising what is going on inside of you right now, your inner world. Feelings, reactions, tensions for example blame, judgment, and sadness.
Enquire: Notice what you’re believing about yourself and the other person if someone is involved. What are you feeling? Where do you feel the feelings and tension in your body, the anger, hurt, sadness, confusion, and resentment for example.
Love: yourself enough to give yourself what you need. What is the unmet need here? Support, love, cared about, to feel respected, understood, important, appreciated, courage, strength, or safe.
Fill up your own cup: Self-responsibility 100% for mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical wellbeing. List daily, weekly, and monthly what you are going to do to fill your cup up.
Some examples can include surfing, bushwalking, reading poetry, listening to music, or soaking in a bath.
Good Communication Is Vital in a Relationship
Assertiveness is the ability to express your feelings and ask for what you want in the relationship. It is not helpful for good communication to think that your partner should be able to read your mind or, if they know you well enough, that he or she should just know what you want, like feel and think. When you’re assertive you take responsibility for yourself and your messages using ‘I’ statements and are honestly expressing how you feel.
For example: “I want to go to England on holiday next year, but I know you want to go caravanning so I’m confused about what choice we should make.”
Overcoming confrontation takes time and step by step it will get easier as you stop putting others before yourself and get that it is important to have a voice and voice it.
Tune into to my Empowered Marriage Podcast to learn more. This fortnight’s podcast is available now and discusses this topic in more depth. How to stop avoiding confrontation – https://www.powerofchange.com.au/empowered-marriage-podcast/
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