Week 6 · Lesson 1
Understanding Conflict and Developing Self Awareness
Week 6 of 23 · Conflict Resolution
What is the last thing somebody said to you that you are still thinking about?
Something small, probably. A comment. A look. Something that would sound like nothing if you said it out loud right now.
And it is still in you.
That gap, between how small it was and how much room it is taking up, is the whole subject of this lesson.
Key ConceptConflict Never Starts Where It Looks Like It Started
Two people can hear the exact same sentence and one shrugs and one is ready to go. Same words, different weight.
The difference is not the sentence. It is what the sentence landed on.
If somebody has been telling you your whole life that you are not going to be anything, then a comment about you being slow at something is not a comment about being slow. It lands on a stack. And you are not responding to the person in front of you, you are responding to everybody who ever said it.
The size of your reaction tells you the size of what it landed on, not the size of what they said.
Which means the strongest thing you can learn is what you are carrying, because whatever you are carrying is what people will keep stepping on without even knowing it is there.
Journal Question
Think about the last time you went from zero to all the way up fast. What was actually said? Then be honest about what it landed on.
Teaching PointThe Four Seconds
Between something happening and you responding, there is a gap. It is short. For a lot of people it is about four seconds, and everything in your life lives in there.
Before you have a thought, your chest is already moving. Heat in your face, hands doing something. That happens whether you want it or not, and you cannot stop it.
Your mind puts a meaning on it, fast. He is trying me. She thinks I am stupid. They are laughing at me. That story feels like fact but it is a guess, and it is a guess made by somebody with your exact history.
You see it playing out. What you say, what he does, what happens after. Most people skip this one entirely and that is where the years go.
By the time you are here, you are not deciding. You are executing something that got decided in second two.
So the work is not in second four. Everybody tries to get better in second four. The work is second two, catching the story while it is still a guess.
Activity
Next time it happens, catch second two. Write down what story your mind put on it. Then write one other story that would also fit the same facts. You do not have to believe the second one. Just prove to yourself it exists.
ScenarioThe Same Words, Two Rooms
A man at a job says to somebody, you need to fix this, this is not how we do it.
One person hears a correction and fixes it. Another one hears somebody trying him in front of people, and now there is a whole situation, and by the end of the week one of them does not have a job.
Neither one was wrong about what they heard. They heard through what they had.
The one who kept the job is not stronger. He just was not carrying the same thing in that spot. And the one who lost it will tell the story for years as him being disrespected, and every part of that story will be true to him, and he will still be the only one who paid.
Spiritual Takeaway
He knew what was in people, so nothing anybody said moved Him off course
John says something about Jesus that is easy to read past. It says He did not entrust Himself to people, because He knew what was in them. He did not need anybody to tell Him who He was, so nobody could take it from Him either.
Watch what that let Him do. Men came at Him constantly, in public, trying to trap Him with questions in front of crowds. Sometimes He answered them straight and shut it down. Sometimes He asked them a question back and let them answer themselves. Sometimes He said nothing at all.
Three different responses, and He picked. That is the difference between a man responding and a man reacting. A man who reacts only has one move.
And when it was real, He was not soft about it. He called men who were putting weight on poor people what they were, to their face, in front of everybody. He turned tables over. Being unmoved is not the same as being passive.
Proverbs 15:1 says a soft answer turns away wrath, and harsh words stir up anger. That is not about being nice. That is about who is running the temperature in the room. Whoever is calmer is the one steering it.
One time this week, when something lands on you, do nothing for four seconds. Do not answer, do not walk off, just stand there and count. Then respond. Once is enough to prove to yourself that the gap exists.
Take it one week at a time.
Defining Narratives · Week 6 Lesson