At Safe Conversations, our primary goal is to teach people how to have conversations in a way that moves them from conflict to connection. We know that deeper, healthier connections are the goal, but what happens when there is conflict or disconnection?
Conflict is inevitable; how you handle it makes all the difference.
As children, when we encountered situations in which we felt disconnected because of some conflict we were experiencing, we often coped with that scary or uncomfortable situation by acting out in some way. Even as adults, there are times when we still do this.
But why DO we act out?
To understand our behavior, it helps to understand the primary driver of behavior – our brains. Drs. Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt, co-creators of Safe Conversations, have created a simple way to understand how the brain processes the emotional weight of disconnection resulting from unresolved conflict; it’s called The Path to Disconnection.
The Path to Disconnection represents the five stages we go through in our early development that lead to our unskillful dealing with conflict, or differences between us and others. They are:
Over the next few weeks, we will be exploring each of the five specific elements in the Path to Disconnection more deeply. From there, you will have a better understanding of the reasoning behind why we act out in moments of conflict and why connection is so important.
While conflict is natural, our hope is that we can learn to work through conflict effectively which will, in turn, allow for deeper connections in the long run!
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