145. Conflict = Pooping
Do you hate conflict?
Try to avoid it entirely?
Think it’s something you can opt out of if you choose the right job, marry the right person, parent your kids just the right way?
Maybe you think that having conflict in your relationships points to a misalignment or disconnection.
But what if the opposite is true?
What if conflict is a necessary part of a happy, satisfying life?
I recently came up with an extended metaphor that offers a unique framework for navigating conflicts in your life, and it’s this:
What if conflict is like pooping?
What if it’s something that’s meant to happen?
What if conflict can create more connection, love, and understanding in your relationships?
Certain elements of pooping may not delight you, but you know it’s an essential part of life.
What if conflict is the same?
What if learning how to have conflicts successfully, like potty training, leads to a much more fun and fulfilling life?
Join me this week to hear why conflict can actually be a great thing, and how to go through conflicts in a way that sets you and your relationships up for success.
Want to create a wildly delicious life and career? Let’s work together.
I have the Satisfaction Audit bonus coaching call coming up on August 17th, 2023 at 2pm Pacific. You can sign up for it by clicking here!
I have one-on-one coaching slots opening up soon. Click here to schedule a consult call with me so we can talk about how one-on-one coaching could support you in creating a magical life and career.
My small group coaching program, Satisfied AF, is officially open for enrollment! Click here to schedule a consult call for Satisfied AF and we can figure out what’s not working in your life and career as well as how to transform it into something that delights you.
Want something a little more extra?
I have just the thing.
My year-long coaching and mentorship program, Unhinged AF, is the most extra, extravagant offering I currently have. One-on-one coaching, in-person or virtual deep dive days, and special surprises. If this sounds like just the thing for you, book a consult call and let’s discuss a customized program that’s all about helping you break free from your current life and career to build something that truly blows your mind.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
Why conflict can actually be a good thing.
How to go through conflict in a way that centers and serves your relationships.
What conflict constipation and conflict diarrhea are and how to handle them.
Questions to ask yourself about how you handle conflict.
How to set yourself up for success when you’re in a heightened emotional state.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
FEATURED ON THE SHOW:
If you’re enjoying the show, please leave me a rating and review on Apple Podcasts!
Feel free to ask me any questions over on Instagram!
If there are topics y’all want me to talk about on the podcast, feel free to write in and let me know by clicking here!
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about conflict.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hello, hello, hello, happy Wednesday. I hope this finds you very well. I have a fun and important and kind of silly topic to talk to y’all about today. But I’m also going to just give you a little warning, we’re going to talk about some things we don’t usually talk about in polite society.
So this week we’re talking about conflict, but I’m specifically talking about conflict through the lens of a very extended metaphor, and the metaphor might not be your favorite. The metaphor is going to the bathroom, and we’re not talking number one.
Okay, so I was coaching a client recently and we were coaching on something, and I came up with this extended metaphor as a way of explaining conflict and it was really funny. It kept the mood really light while we were also able to talk about something that was kind of deep and kind of tender for that client.
Okay, so here’s the metaphor. A lot of people think that they can just not have conflict, like that conflict is just something you can opt out of entirely. But what I was offering in the metaphor was what if having conflict is like pooping?
And it’s not something you can opt out of, and in fact it’s something that is supposed to happen. And that if it happens at the right time and in the right spaces and you care for that activity in the right way, like washing your hands really well afterwards, that it’s not harmful and in fact it’s part of a healthy, happy life.
So, I think it’s obvious with pooping that you can’t just skip out of that. If you don’t have waste products coming out of your body, that’s going to be a big problem. And usually they’re going to come out later at a less good time, right? So that was part of the metaphor too, kind of the idea that if we become what I’m going to call conflict constipated, if we hold the conflict in and don’t let it come out, then it can kind of back up, it can become impacted, it can become very uncomfortable, and it still has to come out at some point.
And also on the other hand you can have what I’m going to call conflict diarrhea, where the conflict just comes out and it’s not fully formed and it’s maybe messy, maybe it’s at an inopportune time. Or you can have a regular bowel movement kind of conflict. And this kind of conflict is more like it happens on a regular basis, it’s not an emergency, it’s not a problem. We know it’s going to happen, we know there’s appropriate actions to take around it.
Like we go to a specific room in the house, and we use the bathroom in the toilet, not just like where ever. And then we use the toilet paper and then we flush, and we wash our hands. I cannot believe I’m on the podcast walking you through going to bathroom number two. But I think that this metaphor is important enough that I was willing to put aside my own discomfort at talking to y’all about this and using this metaphor and the silliness I feel walking you through it, because that’s there.
But I also think it’s really valuable and a really unique frame for helping you understand and navigate conflict at work, conflict in your relationships, conflict with your children, conflict with your parents, with your significant other, with your siblings.
Even with people you don’t know very well, right? Because sometimes we have conflict with people we don’t know very well also, just like sometimes we have to poop when we’re in public even though it’s the worst and some of us aren’t able to. So I think the metaphor, like I said, it’s an extended metaphor. I’m taking it really far, but I think it’s really valuable.
So let’s get into it. So one of the ideas that’s been really influential to me in my work, I learned from Dr. John and Julie Gottman. They are relationship researchers, and they are the ones from which I learned the idea that conflict can create intimacy. So a lot of people have this idea that conflict destroys intimacy or conflict harms relationships.
And it was Dr. John and Julie Gottman, they’re married to each other, who really taught me that not only is conflict not necessarily a bad thing, conflict can actually be a good thing. Conflict can be a way we create more connection in our relationships. Conflict can be a way that we feel more loved, more seen, more understood, but like with all things it really depends on how you do it.
And so because conflict is kind of inherently, like we’re not getting along. I don’t want to use the word combative, but conflict means there’s some kind of disconnection or misalignment between two people or ideas or whatever. I think it is something where it really pays to be much more kind and thoughtful and caring about how you language what you’re saying, if that’s a person you want to have more connection with, right?
I’m not here to tell you how to live your life and what to do. I’m here to offer you ideas, frameworks, things that I think can help you have a better experience. So I’m not saying you have to be kind and thoughtful all the time, you’re an adult and you get to make up your own mind.
But what I know to be true is that a lot of my clients avoid conflict because they think it’s going to be uncomfortable because they think it might make the other person upset. The other person might have a negative reaction, they think it might create a problem in the relationship.
So for people in particular where they’re avoiding conflict because they think it’s going to be painful for them or the other person, I do think that framing can be really useful. The framing of like this could create more connection. This can allow me to love the person deeply. It can allow me to be willing to be loved more deeply, and maybe we’re going to know each other better and kind of come up with a better agreement, or some kind of situation that really serves us both more deeply than whatever the current thing is.
And I can say in my own relationship with my significant other, Alex, being able to have conflict has created so much closeness and so much intimacy between us. And again, how we choose to have that conflict really matters. And I have a whole podcast on connection orientation. When I can bring myself to the conflict from that frame of being connection-oriented, then I can walk through the conflict in a way that still centers and serves the relationship and the values of our relationship and caring for each other.
And so I think the same thing is true in this metaphor, right? If you understand that pooping is just part of having a body and that it is important to do and that there’s a purpose for it. And that while there are some unpleasant things that happen with it, it also is not a sign that anything’s gone wrong, then you can approach it in a way that makes sense for the activity and is going to move you through the activity safely physically and emotionally, right?
Can you imagine if you thought you weren’t supposed to poop? That would be such an upsetting experience. But that’s how we treat conflict all the time. And we have so much suffering about having conflict because we think it’s not ever supposed to happen or like if we were a good person it wouldn’t happen. Or if our relationship was better, it wouldn’t happen. Or if we were a better employee, it wouldn’t happen.
What I really want to offer you with this podcast is that conflict is not a bad thing. I’m just going to say it’s a neutral thing. And it’s a neutral thing that can create lots of positive benefits when it’s approached with care and acceptance and love.
Okay, so something I see happen a lot is what I would call conflict constipation. And I would say conflict constipation is where we know something’s not working for us, but we don’t want to talk about it. So we don’t say anything, and we sort of pretend everything is fine.
And I think this can be like physical constipation, right? Like let’s just say you’re in public and you get the urge to poop, but you don’t like pooping in public. So you don’t want to do it, so you hold it. But then when you get home, maybe you can’t poop. I have this idea, I call it the poop train. And it’s like, when the poop wants to come, it wants to come. And if I miss the poop train, then I have to wait till the next one comes.
And so I think that can be like that too. It’s a little different with conflict, obviously. The metaphor is not perfect, it’s pretty close, but it’s not perfect. But basically, it’s the idea that there’s choosing to frame it in a way or be kind of thoughtful about it. And then there’s just like putting it off entirely and pretending like it shouldn’t be happening and that it’s going to go away.
And I think that putting it off entirely is what’s going to lead to the conflict constipation. Whereas when you get the urge to poop in your own house, you’re still going to go into the bathroom and do it there and do it in the appropriate, mindful way with the toilet paper and the hand washing. You’re not just going to poop on the floor or whatever, right? Obviously, this metaphor doesn’t apply to little baby children who aren’t potty trained yet.
Actually, we can even take the metaphor there because this is something we learn to do. It’s part of growing up and becoming an adult. But whereas a lot of us, I’m pretty sure most of us, all of us were potty trained and taught to use the toilet and to use the toilet paper and to wash our hands, a lot of people actually were not taught how to operate conflict in a similar fashion.
But don’t worry, even if you’re an adult and you really struggle with this, it can be learned and it’s not as hard as you think. And you can develop this skill set and it’s going to benefit you for the rest of your life. It’s going to give you so much freedom in the same way that being potty trained gives you so much freedom and so much autonomy. It’s wonderful.
Okay, so let’s also talk about the other hand, I think sometimes people get conflict diarrhea where it’s like they have a little feeling and, you know, when you have literal diarrhea, obviously, you can’t control it. And literal constipation, sometimes too it’s like these are out of our hands. So the metaphor is not, like I said, perfect.
But conflict diarrhea, I think, would be more like not kind of framing what you want to say, not thinking it through, not being mindful about how you’re explaining it to the other person but sort of just being explosive, right? So this is a gross metaphor, and you’re welcome. And it can make a big mess out of something that is a normal, natural thing that doesn’t have to be messy, or doesn’t have to be as messy, right?
So kind of what I want you to think through is where have I been avoiding conflict in my life because I think it shouldn’t be happening? And how do I set myself up to have successful or regular conflict in that area? And where have I been having explosive conflict where maybe I could pull back a little bit and be more thoughtful about what do I need to set up to have more successful conflict?
So one is about creating more flow, and one is about actually slowing the flow down and creating more systems and processes around it so that it can be happening and so that the things that need to be expelled or aired can be expelled or aired without it creating problems in your life and in your relationships.
Okay, and just like with literal poop, sometimes there’s other things that we can do that impact it too, right? So I’m a person who has had a lot of digestive issues. I have IBS and so I’ve had both of these ends of the spectrum in the literal way, as well as the metaphorical way. And there are things I can do. Like if I eat a certain way, that can be really supportive to my digestive tract. And if I eat other ways, it can be really disruptive to that.
And so I think the metaphor there is that there are different things you can do in your life and your relationships that are going to set you up for more success or for less success as a container that will one day hold conflict, right?
So I think a lot of us, especially watching movies and reading books, we imagine that if we have a good relationship there’s just not going to be any conflict. And I just think that’s a really not useful and actively harmful mindset because it sets us up to be so hyper critical of ourselves and others and our relationships when the conflict happens.
Speaking of, I can hear Alex Luchini in the next room doing dishes because as much as I try to set myself up for a perfectly quiet background to my podcast, it doesn’t always happen. And I’m not going to have conflict with her about it because I understand that this is part of life and it’s not her fault.
So what I want you to think about is, where do you want to have conflict and why? And what do you need to set yourself up to have the most wonderful, useful, aligned, best case scenario, connection-creating conflict? In the metaphor, do you need to metaphorically eat different foods, which may be like having conversations ahead of time with a significant other before you’re irritated at something? Or bringing things up before they are kind of at a fever pitch, right?
And then there’s also the side of once the conflict needs to happen, once you feel that urge of like, this is not working for me, how do you set yourself up for success in that moment? How do you set yourself up for success when you’re going to be in a heightened emotional state, right?
So for a lot of us, we feel the urge to have conflict and it comes with a heightened emotional state. Whether the heightened emotional state is anger, like a fight reaction, like we want to fight them. Or whether it’s like we want to run away and we want to shove the conflict down because we don’t want to have it because we’re having more of a fear response.
So really, what I hope this podcast can offer for you is just a kind of silly and more humorous way to think about conflict, and also to normalize that this is supposed to be part of your life. It’s not a symbol that something’s gone wrong.
Honestly, if the only thing you take away from this podcast is that conflict is normal and you can have a great relationship, a great career and great friendships or other things and still have conflict in them, then that would be a huge win, I think. And I think it would add, not that it would add delight to your life, but I think it would reduce suffering such that you would have a more delightful experience.
But I also think this is the metaphor that keeps on giving. So as far as you want to take it and as deeply as you want to play with it, I think you could go from having terrible experiences of conflict to medium experiences of conflict, to truly incredible experiences of conflict.
And I think that’s such an interesting thing because I don’t think many people are sitting around thinking like, what I want is I want to have a delicious experience. of conflict. But once you have had a delicious experience of conflict, it’s really cool, y’all. It kind of changes your brain about what you even want to hope for or what you even think is possible.
And once you’ve experienced the intimacy that can happen through conflict, it kind of changes what you think of as intimacy, I think. So that’s what I wanted to offer you. I’m really excited for what will become available to you when you are able to approach conflict like this. Like what kind of new agreements you can make with your significant other, or what kind of deeper conversations you can have with your kids or your parents.
Like I said, it’s silly and it’s fun, it’s also a useful thing you can teach your kids as they navigate their own emotions and their own conflicts. And if you thought this podcast was silly and amazing, I would love it if you would tell your friends about the podcast. Or if you really love it, I would love it if you would leave a positive review, that would be so helpful to me and to the podcast.
And if you want to have conversations like this every week, I think you should sign up for a consult call and we can talk about what it could look like to work together. And you could experience the benefits and delights of a coach who has super silly metaphors that create a huge impact in your actual real day-to-day life.
And I would love to talk about that with you on a consult and talk about what your life could be like in a few months or a year of working together. Okay, remember when I told you about the satisfaction audit and that we were going to have a special call about it? Well, I have those dates now, the satisfaction audit bonus coaching call which is open to the public is going to be on Thursday August 17th, at 2pm Pacific. And I would love to have you join us. You can sign up for the call at the link in the show notes, and there’s also a link on Instagram in my bio.
During this call, what we’re going to do is go over what the satisfaction audit is and how to use it in your own life, career, and other areas of your life so that you can be having a more satisfying, delicious, wonderful time. So that you can get more of what you want. It’s going to help you figure out what’s working, and what’s not working, it’s going to help you figure out where you want to go, it’s going to help you remove obstacles, and we’re also just going to have a super fun time.
So be sure to sign up for that call, and join us. All right, that’s what I have for you today. Have a great day and I will talk to you next time. All right, bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We’ll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you’re feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hello, hello, hello, happy Wednesday. I hope this finds you very well. I have a fun and important and kind of silly topic to talk to y’all about today. But I’m also going to just give you a little warning, we’re going to talk about some things we don’t usually talk about in polite society.
So this week we’re talking about conflict, but I’m specifically talking about conflict through the lens of a very extended metaphor, and the metaphor might not be your favorite. The metaphor is going to the bathroom, and we’re not talking number one.
Okay, so I was coaching a client recently and we were coaching on something, and I came up with this extended metaphor as a way of explaining conflict and it was really funny. It kept the mood really light while we were also able to talk about something that was kind of deep and kind of tender for that client.
Okay, so here’s the metaphor. A lot of people think that they can just not have conflict, like that conflict is just something you can opt out of entirely. But what I was offering in the metaphor was what if having conflict is like pooping?
And it’s not something you can opt out of, and in fact it’s something that is supposed to happen. And that if it happens at the right time and in the right spaces and you care for that activity in the right way, like washing your hands really well afterwards, that it’s not harmful and in fact it’s part of a healthy, happy life.
So, I think it’s obvious with pooping that you can’t just skip out of that. If you don’t have waste products coming out of your body, that’s going to be a big problem. And usually they’re going to come out later at a less good time, right? So that was part of the metaphor too, kind of the idea that if we become what I’m going to call conflict constipated, if we hold the conflict in and don’t let it come out, then it can kind of back up, it can become impacted, it can become very uncomfortable, and it still has to come out at some point.
And also on the other hand you can have what I’m going to call conflict diarrhea, where the conflict just comes out and it’s not fully formed and it’s maybe messy, maybe it’s at an inopportune time. Or you can have a regular bowel movement kind of conflict. And this kind of conflict is more like it happens on a regular basis, it’s not an emergency, it’s not a problem. We know it’s going to happen, we know there’s appropriate actions to take around it.
Like we go to a specific room in the house, and we use the bathroom in the toilet, not just like where ever. And then we use the toilet paper and then we flush, and we wash our hands. I cannot believe I’m on the podcast walking you through going to bathroom number two. But I think that this metaphor is important enough that I was willing to put aside my own discomfort at talking to y’all about this and using this metaphor and the silliness I feel walking you through it, because that’s there.
But I also think it’s really valuable and a really unique frame for helping you understand and navigate conflict at work, conflict in your relationships, conflict with your children, conflict with your parents, with your significant other, with your siblings.
Even with people you don’t know very well, right? Because sometimes we have conflict with people we don’t know very well also, just like sometimes we have to poop when we’re in public even though it’s the worst and some of us aren’t able to. So I think the metaphor, like I said, it’s an extended metaphor. I’m taking it really far, but I think it’s really valuable.
So let’s get into it. So one of the ideas that’s been really influential to me in my work, I learned from Dr. John and Julie Gottman. They are relationship researchers, and they are the ones from which I learned the idea that conflict can create intimacy. So a lot of people have this idea that conflict destroys intimacy or conflict harms relationships.
And it was Dr. John and Julie Gottman, they’re married to each other, who really taught me that not only is conflict not necessarily a bad thing, conflict can actually be a good thing. Conflict can be a way we create more connection in our relationships. Conflict can be a way that we feel more loved, more seen, more understood, but like with all things it really depends on how you do it.
And so because conflict is kind of inherently, like we’re not getting along. I don’t want to use the word combative, but conflict means there’s some kind of disconnection or misalignment between two people or ideas or whatever. I think it is something where it really pays to be much more kind and thoughtful and caring about how you language what you’re saying, if that’s a person you want to have more connection with, right?
I’m not here to tell you how to live your life and what to do. I’m here to offer you ideas, frameworks, things that I think can help you have a better experience. So I’m not saying you have to be kind and thoughtful all the time, you’re an adult and you get to make up your own mind.
But what I know to be true is that a lot of my clients avoid conflict because they think it’s going to be uncomfortable because they think it might make the other person upset. The other person might have a negative reaction, they think it might create a problem in the relationship.
So for people in particular where they’re avoiding conflict because they think it’s going to be painful for them or the other person, I do think that framing can be really useful. The framing of like this could create more connection. This can allow me to love the person deeply. It can allow me to be willing to be loved more deeply, and maybe we’re going to know each other better and kind of come up with a better agreement, or some kind of situation that really serves us both more deeply than whatever the current thing is.
And I can say in my own relationship with my significant other, Alex, being able to have conflict has created so much closeness and so much intimacy between us. And again, how we choose to have that conflict really matters. And I have a whole podcast on connection orientation. When I can bring myself to the conflict from that frame of being connection-oriented, then I can walk through the conflict in a way that still centers and serves the relationship and the values of our relationship and caring for each other.
And so I think the same thing is true in this metaphor, right? If you understand that pooping is just part of having a body and that it is important to do and that there’s a purpose for it. And that while there are some unpleasant things that happen with it, it also is not a sign that anything’s gone wrong, then you can approach it in a way that makes sense for the activity and is going to move you through the activity safely physically and emotionally, right?
Can you imagine if you thought you weren’t supposed to poop? That would be such an upsetting experience. But that’s how we treat conflict all the time. And we have so much suffering about having conflict because we think it’s not ever supposed to happen or like if we were a good person it wouldn’t happen. Or if our relationship was better, it wouldn’t happen. Or if we were a better employee, it wouldn’t happen.
What I really want to offer you with this podcast is that conflict is not a bad thing. I’m just going to say it’s a neutral thing. And it’s a neutral thing that can create lots of positive benefits when it’s approached with care and acceptance and love.
Okay, so something I see happen a lot is what I would call conflict constipation. And I would say conflict constipation is where we know something’s not working for us, but we don’t want to talk about it. So we don’t say anything, and we sort of pretend everything is fine.
And I think this can be like physical constipation, right? Like let’s just say you’re in public and you get the urge to poop, but you don’t like pooping in public. So you don’t want to do it, so you hold it. But then when you get home, maybe you can’t poop. I have this idea, I call it the poop train. And it’s like, when the poop wants to come, it wants to come. And if I miss the poop train, then I have to wait till the next one comes.
And so I think that can be like that too. It’s a little different with conflict, obviously. The metaphor is not perfect, it’s pretty close, but it’s not perfect. But basically, it’s the idea that there’s choosing to frame it in a way or be kind of thoughtful about it. And then there’s just like putting it off entirely and pretending like it shouldn’t be happening and that it’s going to go away.
And I think that putting it off entirely is what’s going to lead to the conflict constipation. Whereas when you get the urge to poop in your own house, you’re still going to go into the bathroom and do it there and do it in the appropriate, mindful way with the toilet paper and the hand washing. You’re not just going to poop on the floor or whatever, right? Obviously, this metaphor doesn’t apply to little baby children who aren’t potty trained yet.
Actually, we can even take the metaphor there because this is something we learn to do. It’s part of growing up and becoming an adult. But whereas a lot of us, I’m pretty sure most of us, all of us were potty trained and taught to use the toilet and to use the toilet paper and to wash our hands, a lot of people actually were not taught how to operate conflict in a similar fashion.
But don’t worry, even if you’re an adult and you really struggle with this, it can be learned and it’s not as hard as you think. And you can develop this skill set and it’s going to benefit you for the rest of your life. It’s going to give you so much freedom in the same way that being potty trained gives you so much freedom and so much autonomy. It’s wonderful.
Okay, so let’s also talk about the other hand, I think sometimes people get conflict diarrhea where it’s like they have a little feeling and, you know, when you have literal diarrhea, obviously, you can’t control it. And literal constipation, sometimes too it’s like these are out of our hands. So the metaphor is not, like I said, perfect.
But conflict diarrhea, I think, would be more like not kind of framing what you want to say, not thinking it through, not being mindful about how you’re explaining it to the other person but sort of just being explosive, right? So this is a gross metaphor, and you’re welcome. And it can make a big mess out of something that is a normal, natural thing that doesn’t have to be messy, or doesn’t have to be as messy, right?
So kind of what I want you to think through is where have I been avoiding conflict in my life because I think it shouldn’t be happening? And how do I set myself up to have successful or regular conflict in that area? And where have I been having explosive conflict where maybe I could pull back a little bit and be more thoughtful about what do I need to set up to have more successful conflict?
So one is about creating more flow, and one is about actually slowing the flow down and creating more systems and processes around it so that it can be happening and so that the things that need to be expelled or aired can be expelled or aired without it creating problems in your life and in your relationships.
Okay, and just like with literal poop, sometimes there’s other things that we can do that impact it too, right? So I’m a person who has had a lot of digestive issues. I have IBS and so I’ve had both of these ends of the spectrum in the literal way, as well as the metaphorical way. And there are things I can do. Like if I eat a certain way, that can be really supportive to my digestive tract. And if I eat other ways, it can be really disruptive to that.
And so I think the metaphor there is that there are different things you can do in your life and your relationships that are going to set you up for more success or for less success as a container that will one day hold conflict, right?
So I think a lot of us, especially watching movies and reading books, we imagine that if we have a good relationship there’s just not going to be any conflict. And I just think that’s a really not useful and actively harmful mindset because it sets us up to be so hyper critical of ourselves and others and our relationships when the conflict happens.
Speaking of, I can hear Alex Luchini in the next room doing dishes because as much as I try to set myself up for a perfectly quiet background to my podcast, it doesn’t always happen. And I’m not going to have conflict with her about it because I understand that this is part of life and it’s not her fault.
So what I want you to think about is, where do you want to have conflict and why? And what do you need to set yourself up to have the most wonderful, useful, aligned, best case scenario, connection-creating conflict? In the metaphor, do you need to metaphorically eat different foods, which may be like having conversations ahead of time with a significant other before you’re irritated at something? Or bringing things up before they are kind of at a fever pitch, right?
And then there’s also the side of once the conflict needs to happen, once you feel that urge of like, this is not working for me, how do you set yourself up for success in that moment? How do you set yourself up for success when you’re going to be in a heightened emotional state, right?
So for a lot of us, we feel the urge to have conflict and it comes with a heightened emotional state. Whether the heightened emotional state is anger, like a fight reaction, like we want to fight them. Or whether it’s like we want to run away and we want to shove the conflict down because we don’t want to have it because we’re having more of a fear response.
So really, what I hope this podcast can offer for you is just a kind of silly and more humorous way to think about conflict, and also to normalize that this is supposed to be part of your life. It’s not a symbol that something’s gone wrong.
Honestly, if the only thing you take away from this podcast is that conflict is normal and you can have a great relationship, a great career and great friendships or other things and still have conflict in them, then that would be a huge win, I think. And I think it would add, not that it would add delight to your life, but I think it would reduce suffering such that you would have a more delightful experience.
But I also think this is the metaphor that keeps on giving. So as far as you want to take it and as deeply as you want to play with it, I think you could go from having terrible experiences of conflict to medium experiences of conflict, to truly incredible experiences of conflict.
And I think that’s such an interesting thing because I don’t think many people are sitting around thinking like, what I want is I want to have a delicious experience. of conflict. But once you have had a delicious experience of conflict, it’s really cool, y’all. It kind of changes your brain about what you even want to hope for or what you even think is possible.
And once you’ve experienced the intimacy that can happen through conflict, it kind of changes what you think of as intimacy, I think. So that’s what I wanted to offer you. I’m really excited for what will become available to you when you are able to approach conflict like this. Like what kind of new agreements you can make with your significant other, or what kind of deeper conversations you can have with your kids or your parents.
Like I said, it’s silly and it’s fun, it’s also a useful thing you can teach your kids as they navigate their own emotions and their own conflicts. And if you thought this podcast was silly and amazing, I would love it if you would tell your friends about the podcast. Or if you really love it, I would love it if you would leave a positive review, that would be so helpful to me and to the podcast.
And if you want to have conversations like this every week, I think you should sign up for a consult call and we can talk about what it could look like to work together. And you could experience the benefits and delights of a coach who has super silly metaphors that create a huge impact in your actual real day-to-day life.
And I would love to talk about that with you on a consult and talk about what your life could be like in a few months or a year of working together. Okay, remember when I told you about the satisfaction audit and that we were going to have a special call about it? Well, I have those dates now, the satisfaction audit bonus coaching call which is open to the public is going to be on Thursday August 17th, at 2pm Pacific. And I would love to have you join us. You can sign up for the call at the link in the show notes, and there’s also a link on Instagram in my bio.
During this call, what we’re going to do is go over what the satisfaction audit is and how to use it in your own life, career, and other areas of your life so that you can be having a more satisfying, delicious, wonderful time. So that you can get more of what you want. It’s going to help you figure out what’s working, and what’s not working, it’s going to help you figure out where you want to go, it’s going to help you remove obstacles, and we’re also just going to have a super fun time.
So be sure to sign up for that call, and join us. All right, that’s what I have for you today. Have a great day and I will talk to you next time. All right, bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We’ll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you’re feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
Enjoy the Show?
Don’t miss an episode, follow the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Google Podcasts.