The Psychology of Our Quarrels
Written by Russell Ridgeway
Russell Ridgeway is an American writer based in Budapest, Hungary. He writes in business, tech, and fashion as well as creative fiction. You can reach him by email (russell@lensawork.com), or on LinkedIn and other social media platforms.
Quarrels do happen in our everyday relationships, with our family members, significant others, co-workers, and friends. Is it normal to have them regularly? What can we do about them? Do they have to be ongoing, or are there specific ways to reduce their frequency and intensity? Let’s take a closer look at this actual and significant topic, and find solutions that could work.
There are those types of people who avoid conflicts in contact, sometimes both parties. In other relationships, one person tends to fight more than the other, or the people keep changing roles. And it is becoming a pattern, which they cannot handle well, as the people involved are not sure what to do. No wonder why; we lack this kind of education!
How Quarrels Work
By observing, analyzing, and coming up with solutions to your quarrels, you can make your life better. Doesn’t matter who you usually fight with. This is what you, or more ideally, both of you should be doing. Realize that each of these scenarios has a starting point, a major phase with intense emotions, and a closing point. Why is this crucial to observe?
By doing so you can see some interesting patterns. Be it a relationship between married couples, parents and children, siblings, or co-workers, it always happens similarly! If you observe them, you can realize that there are only a few typical scenarios that keep repeating themselves. When the two (or more) of you start with the same words, actions, or things!!
Think of the analogy of a cup. Your cup is your relationship. When you fill into it a bit of a quarrel at times, it becomes fuller and fuller until it reaches its full capacity. That’s also the point when your relationship can’t take more at any one time, so it blows up!
How Do We Fight
You should take a piece of paper, and write down the following:
- How do you usually start fighting?
- What do you say to each other?
- How do you both feel?
List two of the most common types of your quarrels. Try looking at yourselves like someone neutral, an outsider. Remember, you don’t have to be one with your fight! Key points to consider: In what kinds of situations do they come up? How do we usually behave? What is the other saying that triggers us? How do we both react to each other?
Look for those situations in which these fights appear. Observe both of your moods consciously. Were you already under pressure because of other things? Were you tired? Did you sleep enough? Were you adding fuel to the fire just because the other person also hurt you? Did you try to consciously stop fighting, hurting the other’s feelings, or come to a solution?
You Are in Control
Did you allow the fight to take the best of you, feeling you are powerless? We often give away our power to the fight, when we should aim to do the opposite: disallow it to become ugly in the very beginning. Before expressing your pain, and thus hurting the other person, ask yourself to take it easy. Say to yourself, I am in control, not my pain. You should aim not to hurt the other.
Start to take control the earliest possible, before the quarrel gets big! This is the best way to alter its outcome to what you want it to be. Many times, what we say to the other person isn’t as hurtful as how we say it. When this happens, remember, that this won’t make your contact better and surely doesn’t lead to your desired outcome! When you start observing it, you are in control!
Fighting is like being in trance, we tend to lose our conscious behavior. Our survival mechanisms are turning on, switching off our intellect. So, what you need to do is, get yourself out of this state! Start moving if you were sitting earlier, go out into the fresh air, take some deep breaths, wash your face… Do the same with your feelings, switch them to positive ones! Remember who is the boss!!
Quarrels and fights are inevitable. Like it or not, they are a natural part of each human connection. Therefore, your aim should be to avoid them as much as possible. How? By reducing their frequency, strength, and length. If you strive to make them more and more temporary, and less significant each time, you create a win-win situation for everyone.
Think of things that the other person likes and be willing to give them that instead of what you like. Have a conversation to clarify each other’s needs before it is too late. If you want to make any of your relationships work.
A New School Year. A More Inclusive School Year?
Written by Johan Jensen
Director of All-in Education. His consultancy work includes organisational development, leadership development, strategic communications, product development and diversity & inclusion strategy development.
In July 2020, I urged school leaders to be cautious. In the wake of George Floyd’s brutal murder and the global reactions to racism, I was approached by numerous education institutions who felt bewildered about what to do next. There was certainly a sense of anxiety. It was understandable that organisations wanted to do something and demonstrate activity. I told them, “If you panic into this work, you’ll soon see that you’ll panic out of it”. In my experience this still stands true.
Over the past year, the most powerful discussions that we have had with school leaders have been about self-reflection, especially how we relate and respond to difference in all its forms. The conclusion of most of those conversations is that when we take an honest look at ourselves and the people around us, we don’t like diversity. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that we are naturally geared towards repelling it. It’s called ‘homophily’, the love of same.
Achieving greater diversity and more inclusive schools requires purposeful self-reflection, critique and behaviour and systems change if we are even going to have a fighting chance to create the change that education still so desperately needs.
The majority of the schools, and groups of schools, we’ve worked with have really taken this to heart. It’s been challenging for them. They’ve had to confront uncomfortable truths about themselves and the institutions they’re responsible for. But, they’ve seen how this won’t serve the purpose of creating the next generation of leaders, followers and members of society. This is ground-breaking stuff.
The schools that our team has worked with have taken the first step in this journey, which is to listen. Listening to staff, students and alumni about their experience of belonging, psychological safety, diversity and inclusion. By supporting the senior leaders through coaching, they’ve been able to really listen to what their peers, staff, pupils and former pupils are experiencing and giving them the grounding for creating an even better experience and future.
The strategy that follows these first steps is long term and focuses on values, the business case for changing the way the school operates, the vision for what an inclusive school looks and feels like and how the institution will hold itself accountable in achieving this change.
Some schools have achieved incredible results, with one grammar school recruiting 80% non-white British staff in this year’s September intake. But, achieving greater diversity is only part of the puzzle, achieving inclusion is a totally different game.
How will you create an inclusive school?
We are delighted to be running with RSAcademics a free case study webinar on 13th October to share our experiences and those of some of our clients over the last year, and we look forward to seeing you there to help you continue your thinking on inclusivity.
Please sign up to the webinar here.