Keys to Conflict Resolution: “Peace, Be Still”

In the movie, “Wild Mountain Thyme,” Jamie Dornan’s gentle-hearted Irish farmer, Anthony Reilly, cries out to his long-suffering love interest, Rosemary Muldoon (played by Emily Blunt), “I don’t like to fight!” “Well, who does?” she answers. “Half of Ireland,” he replies, “just not me!”

The truth is a lot of us do like to fight. A brief sojourn through the cesspools of X, Facebook and many other social media platforms reveals it, where even arguments over as mundane topics as “tissue versus Kleenex” can take on epic proportions, devolving into obvious proofs of Godwin’s Law or some similar kinds of personal or other irrelevant attacks that merely mire the discussion in negative associations, insurmountable barriers, and hurt feelings.

Your mediation and negotiation pro-tip for the day: Don’t go there.

Sometimes, the emotional context of a disagreement makes that harder than we think it might be.  On those days when our minds are at peace and we are thinking rationally, we might never expect to experience, let alone be the cause of, the devastating destruction that can come when our tempers veer out of control. But the misfortune of being merely human, is that everyone is susceptible to this failing.

And it helps us to be aware that angry emotions are not always loud, not always ranting, don’t always include swearing or violent threats, and are not always obviously rude; but acting upon them in an argumentative situation is almost always intended to hurt rather than help, to put down rather than to be productive.

These foibles of human nature have been known for centuries – and so have their antidotes. Hence, the ancient and inevitable wisdom of such statements as “be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry,” (New Testament, James 1:19) “a gentle answer turns away wrath,” (Hebrew Bible, Proverbs 15:1) and “Conquer anger by non-anger. Conquer evil by good,” (Dhammapada, v. 223).

If your intention is to resolve a situation, you should do all you can to avoid hateful and harmful rhetoric. Focus strictly on the issues, with a fixation on speaking only what is necessary, and only what is true. Even if this feels, at times, like you are giving someone else the upper hand, the fact is that you are not giving it to them, but to the potential and possibility of resolution and peace.

And in those moments when emotion wants to overtake you, it could be wise to remember another Buddhist maxim, that “You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.” [Image created by AI; not from the movie.]