The Central Conflict That Spills Over Into Everything Else

The Central Conflict That Spills Over Into Everything Else

ByBill Cottringer

After decades of studying and experiencing personal conflicts in a variety of work and domestic relationships, there is one that is more bothersome and difficult to talk about than any other. The strong emotions of this very fundamental conflict hide it from our understanding, which makes it near impossible to talk about openly. I have had a growing sense of what the central issue of this nebulous conflict is, which has to do with the general point of view each person has about trust.

The development of trust is a vicious circle of interaction. You form expectations as to how much you are going to trust life, people and situations to get the outcomes and results you want, based on the positive and negative experiences you have, which in turn affect your future expectations and future results. Of course early influences in life start this process off in one direction or the other—being mostly optimistic that you will succeed and win or pessimistic that you might fail and lose—that usually over-flavors our adult life until we see what is going on.

At the core of this trust issue is the degree to which you believe there is a positive force in the universe, or Supreme Being who has your best interest at heart and that the good things in life such as health, wealth, wisdom, power, success and peace of mind are abundant and accessible to all with a little effort.

Of course we somehow get off track with this belief when it comes to people. We are confronted with three possible beliefs to choose from: (1) people are basically born good and will be good if left alone (2) people are born bad and you have to do everything possible to bring out the good in them, or (3) people are born neutral and will react to other people the way they are treated and how they explain these experiences to themselves. Your viewpoint about this choice has a lot to do with the quality of your life.

If you trust life and people then that is what you believe to be true and how you live your life. And if you don’t, that is what you believe to be true and how you view life, make decisions and act. The worst sort of conflict occurs when you are in a relationship with another person with a different perspective of trust. And the battle begins when each assert they are right and the other person is wrong, usually about some important issue at hand that absorbs the trust differences and defends them with strong emotions and aggressive behavior.

But make no mistake about this all. No matter what such a conflict seems to be about, it involves difference along the trust-distrust/optimism-pessimism continuum. Unfortunately very few people are at the same place at the same place, and so this ultimate trust conflict shows up in many different forms hiding its true nature and becoming difficult to understand and communicate about. Most of us don’t have the courage or experience to try and communicate past the emotions protecting our selfhood which is at stake in these situations.

We are heading in a dismal direction with this and that is contrary to what I believe, so let’s examine some possible solutions. So far, I think there may only one viable answer to this predicament. And that is to accept someone else’s point of view as being correct for them according to where they may be on the trust continuum. Expressing that unconditional love and acceptance is what good interpersonal relations are all about.

We always seem to get in trouble when we compare our selves to other people, when the only possible win-win outcome in these conflicts is to compare our current self with our potential self and learn something that can help us move forward in our own journey. It is very difficult to speed up your own movement, let alone getting someone else to move faster. When we focus on our own growth and control our reactions to others who may be at a different place on the trust continuum (not really :”good” or “bad”), then we have an open door ahead for both people through and past the conflict and all the discomfort it is causing.