REFLECT

Why do we need to communicate with sovereignty? We all want to create a peaceful home where conflicts are well-managed. You might even have the fantasy of living in a household that doesn't have any conflicts to begin with. Let’s explore why that’s unrealistic.

Conflicts are inevitable in relationships.

Whenever more than one person are together, you are dealing with more than one set of opinions, beliefs, temperaments, and preferences. Those are going to clash from time to time.

But while conflict may be inevitable, how we handle the conflict makes all the difference.

To start off, I would love for you to reflect on your own family of origin (we did a little of this last month too.) For some of us, we have a wonderful set of memories that we love to revisit. And for others, this can be excruciatingly painful.

If you’re open to it, I would love for you to ask yourself, how were conflicts handled when I was growing up?

Some families tend towards being conflict avoidant, sweeping disagreements under the rug and putting on a happy face for the world.

If you grew up in a family where conflict was avoided, then you might tend towards people-pleasing. It might feel like a dangerous thing to you when people get upset.

The good news is that people with a conflict-avoidant pattern tend to be very careful about the way they phrase things, which can be a sign of restraint, self-awareness, and self-discipline in how we communicate our grievances and frustrations.

But it can also go too far to the point where the conflict-avoidant person doesn't ever face the conflict or voice what’s on their mind. These people tend to divert the attention away from the conflict in order to avoid it.

We don't want to avoid conflicts. In reality, the only way to solve conflicts is by actually facing them and resolving them.

Other families have a conflict-seeking pattern. You might have grown up in a family where there was explosive conflict. These are people who are more likely to bicker, criticize, or jab at each other. When families seek conflict, there can be a lot of raised voices, slammed doors, or even violence.

When you're conflict-seeking, the great news is that you don't tend to suppress your emotions, shy away or sweep things under the rug.

If you seek conflict, you might be someone who turns into a hurricane. When you get triggered, you might be a bit explosive, use curse words or get very angry. You might not be as careful about how your communication comes across to the other person.

That's the first thing I want you to bring up to yourself: do I err on the side of conflict-avoidant? Am I what is known as a tortoise? Do I retreat back into my shell? Do I tend to freeze up or flee the situation?

Or: do I tend towards conflict seeking? Am I vying for a fight? Am I sometimes not mindful of how I say things? Do I tend to overpower the person I’m talking to?

Perhaps you had a conflict-seeking parent and a conflict-avoidant parent where one was the hurricane and the other a tortoise. You might notice both of these patterns within yourself with different people at different times.

These patterns are complex, but it's worth noticing them.

ENVISION

Let’s talk about triggers. Triggers are a physiological reaction to a danger.

In the event of a real danger such as getting mugged, normal trigger reactions would be to fight, flee, or freeze. These reactions are helpful when there is true danger, but can become a problem when our child is having a tantrum or our 7-year-old son is talking back to us, which aren’t real emergencies

The reality is that it's not helpful for us to respond with fight, flight or freeze mode when our children are in conflict with us – refusing to put on their shoes, being rude, hitting the baby, etc.

The important thing to know is that a trigger is an automatic response but we can learn how to master our triggers, and handle the situation better, bringing about a lot more peace and calm in our environment.

Because I believe a large proportion of the conflict in our home is happening under this spell of being triggered.

We can feel truly out of control when we're triggered. When you yell, grab your child too hard, shake a finger in their face, or say mean things because you've been triggered, it can feel like you were taken over by a demon.

I want to think of myself as someone who's mature, in control, and mindful about my actions, but when I'm triggered, my primitive mind takes over. This explains why you know not to yell, do timeouts, threaten, grab, spank, etc. – but when you're triggered, all of that knowledge is offline.

That's why, this month, we're going to focus on the Priestess Archetype to help us master those triggers. It’s important to keep in mind that this is a lifelong project. It takes years of deliberate practice to overcome some of these ingrained patterns. But you can make incredible strides with a bit of focus this month.

Once we've mastered our triggers, we are going to work on developing healthy communication skills so we can resolve conflicts in a way that is mindful and helpful in bringing about peace

As I said, conflicts are inevitable. The difference between a healthy functioning family and an unhealthy dysfunctional family often lies in how conflicts are handled. In a dysfunctional family, you'll see that conflicts are either sought out or avoided and addressed from a triggered place

Things like blaming, raising our voice, pointing fingers, victimizing ourselves (martyred mother), kitchen-sinking, taking sides, playing favorites, creating a victim and aggressor dynamic (re-listen to last month’s audios for a refresher on this – all of that stuff creates more and more conflict and less resolution.

The conflicts are likely to repeat themselves and grow bigger. They're likely to actually entrench themselves in our psyches. And sometimes they can even go so far as to become the way the family connects.

When a person doesn't know how to connect in a healthy way, they find ways to connect in an unhealthy way.

On the flip side, a sovereign woman knows how to connect in an authentic, meaningful and satisfying way. When conflicts inevitably arise, her goal is to resolve them – really put their heads together to figure out a solution and move forward.

She’s not addicted to the conflict, looking to re-enact it and establish it over and over again. She becomes a “Peaceful Priestess” looking to grow from it, mature from it, and graduate from that conflict so that she can move on with her life and seek real connection.

TAKE ACTION

This month, we're looking to communicate with sovereignty. That means we're looking to master our triggers, communicate in a healthy way, and resolve conflict. What do we need to do to accomplish these things?

First of all, we need to be ‘empowered mamas’. An empowered mama is someone who is very practiced and skilled at the art of peace. They consistently apply themselves in priestess-like skills that bring about peace

They know how to use the conflict in a way that brings family members closer together. They know how to energetically emanate a sense of peace: “We've got this. We can handle it.” They know how to see conflict and stay calm, cool and collected. They know how to resolve the conflict speedily and skillfully.

Being an empowered mama is all about having this calm confidence and commitment to creating peaceful energy in the home.

When you’re embodying the peaceful priestess, you're gonna do all the things you need to do to resolve conflict: masterful communication skills, active listening, mastering your triggers, setting boundaries and following through in a peaceful way, and repairing when things don't go right.

When you do all of that, you're going to have masterful communication skills that will allow you to create peace in your home.

Let’s Communicate With Sovereignty so we can Live Empowered!