Why Dealing with Confrontation is Hard

When I think of dealing with confrontation, I think of the old adage, "let sleeping dogs lie." I used to ask myself: Why start up a problem when there's not one to begin with? I used to be really bad at confronting people and situations, but have slowly, over the years, learned to assert myself and stand up for myself for what's right for me. This, unfortunately, doesn't always make friends with people, or leave people feeling good about me. Why would I want to get people mad at me for no reason? What good would that do for me or for the relationship?As I started to get more assertive and stand up for myself, I found that I could language my needs and wants and feelings into a way that would open up aconversation, and benefit the relationship.

When I actually started asserting myself, my fears didn't really come true. All of those neurotic fears and false fantasies that were spinning around in my head didn't play out those ways when I actually started to stand up and speak out for myself. People took an interest, and would often times give me what I wanted or stop doing behaviors that were frustrating to me. Yes, sure, people would be upset, but there would generally be some path to resolution or understanding, and I didn't have to stuff my needs and desires any longer.Dealing with confrontation is hard. Actually standing up for yourself and speaking out loud your frustrations or discontent is a tough thing to do. We think that people are going to get upset with us, and that they're going to reject us or our needs when we actually put a name to them. We have all sorts of fears about standing up for ourselves in confrontation. Confrontation is messy.

It's not fun, and it's usually uncomfortable. People don't like to be uncomfortable, so they avoid confrontation at all costs. Unfortunately, if we fail to, we disease ourselves by constantly stuffing our needs, desires, frustrations and the like. It's harmful to our health to do so, mentally, emotionally, and, ultimately, physically.The fear of rejection is a very powerful driver that inhibits standing up for one's self and confronting others. We fantasize that if we stand up for ourselves and confront someone about their behavior, about things they're saying or about a difficult situation, that they will push us away and reject us fundamentally. This maybe so, but the reality is that it's their own difficulty in not dealing with whatever the problem is. They avoid, but we take that to be the rejection. It's really their inability to deal with confrontation that pushes us away and leaves us feeling rejected. People who don't have enough fortitude to work through problem typically don't want to deal with confrontation either, and it has the effect of leaving us rejection.

Don't take on their stuff - go forward and confront and be assured you're speaking up for what's right for you.One symptom of not confronting other people is the constant ruminating. We think about things to death, and we spend a lot of time and regret because we didn't stand up for ourselves in the first place when something happened to us. The regret and looking back process takes up a lot of our mental energy, so in learning to confront people and situations as they happen, we would thaw up all of this mental energy to use for other, more productive things in our life.Not trusting ourselves is another factor in not dealing with confrontation. If we don't trust ourselves, and we don't trust ourselves to stand up for what we want, it makes it really difficult to be able to communicate that to other people.

When we don't trust ourselves, we don't have the legs to stand up on to support ourselves in getting what we want and need, so we end up buckling to the fear of confrontation of others.I think another big factor in not dealing with confrontation is not knowing what we want in the first place, and what's good for us. If someone has done something to us, or said something to us, we have to know that we have been wronged in the first place. A lot of times, when I talk with people, they don't even know that what has happened to them is not a good thing for them. They dismiss it, and they rationalize it, or just brush it off without considering the impact it had on them. They don't take it seriously.

They don't trust their inner knowing, or their intuition, to know that they have been wronged. You have to know what's good and bad for yourself, and when people disrupt that "inner knowing," it sets off a red flag inside of us. Can we stand tall and fight back for ourselves? Can we trust ourselves and know what's good, and what's not good, for ourselves, and fight for what's right for us?People who don't confront other people or situations often times avoid conflict because they're afraid of the fighting or of yelling. A lot of times, we grow up in homes where families fight and it becomes out-of-control. We carry over those leftover impressions into our adult lives, when we try to avoid confrontation at all costs. Just because we were raised in a chaotic environment, where fighting and yelling were the norms, it doesn't mean that others are necessarily going to act that way with us if we stand up for ourselves. Of course, they might, but we have to challenge that child voice within us that bows out of conflict because we think it's going to spin out of control, and that people are going to terrify us. It probably won't happen, but if it does, it says more about the person terrorizing us that it does about us being assertive for ourselves.

For men, another reason that conflict is hard is because men are often afraid of their own anger. As men, we use anger to empower us through our emotions, but a lot of guys I talk with are scared that if they start confronting a situation, they're going to overheat and spin out-of-control in anger or rage. Understanding that you are afraid of your anger, and that fear is a factor in inhibiting you in standing up for yourself to deal with conflict, is an important idea. Don't dismiss its importance.Try challenging some of these things, if they apply to you. Challenge yourself to stand up for yourself, and to have a conversation with someone that has troubled you. Challenge your need to not confront. Make a list of all of the things that might happen, in your mind, if you confront someone or some situation.Try practicing dealing with confrontation in the small way, for example, if you received poor service at restaurant.

Pick something with a "low rejection factor" like that. Assess your results. Keep challenging yourself over and over to up the ante and continue to confront more challenging people or more difficult situations. This requires practice, and over time, you'll develop muscle strength in asserting yourself and standing up to deal with confrontation.Start to change the way you communicate with people to focus on what your needs are, what your feelings are, and what they could be doing to better help or assist you. Be clear with people, and don't leave room for assumptions. Speak from your own experience, and don't blame them for your problem. Seek out a resolution for what you need. Rinse and repeat. If the problem persists, keep going back at it in the same way you've approached them before. Things will change for the better, you'll see. If you’re interested in learning more about the Men’s counseling , or if counseling might be right for you, please feel free to contact me directly or visit our Men’s counseling .