how do you fight?

[Luce NDs]

As Washingtonians like say, "Never try to beat a skunk in a pissing contest!"

Can such comments "turn on" one self ... thus some of eM are turned on ... while ye gads God remains where? In the silence ...

 

[jimkenney12]

It all depends on the situation and what I know about the others involved. My wife sometimes calls me Mr. Prozac because I generally do not get emotional. I try to focus on my goals and escalating a conflict rarely helps achieve goals. I am usually concerned about the well being of the other person. When I was in Grade 2, two boys, a bit bigger than me, approached me as I was leaving the school yard preparing to beat me up. I hit one in the face and he immediately started crying. I ran all the way home feeling bad about hurting him. It was my last physical fight with anyone other than my brother. My first choice in conflicts is collaboration. It does not work in conflicts with people whose first choice is win or lose. I try to avoid the passive aggressive approach. My second choice is to be assertive. This does not work well with win/lose people either but it leaves me feeling I have maintained my integrity.

 

[BetteTheRed]

To start with, I have only a couple of times in my life had a physical altercation, and I avoid any suggestion of such like the plague. One was a teenage bully who attacked me (in her defense, I do have a tongue with a mean streak), in another, it was my daughter and I (a hormonal teen egging on a menopausal mother).

My primary fighting style is assertive (which is taken by some people as aggressive), with an unfortunate undertow of passive-aggression should my preferred direct approach be unsuccessful. The argument style in my current relationship seems to be working for us. I get mad, we both shut up, we talk about it a little later if we need to, we jointly apologize if apologies are required. It's a lot harder to observe when he's 'mad', because he really gets more 'disappointed', but generally, if he says something quickly, sharply critical, I'm often in the wrong. He's a terrible tease, though, so differentiating keeps me on my toes.

 

[Luce NDs]

T' ease into essence of assertation can cause a mental spin ... with the win-lose character type sometime a left crossover will leave the empty medium ringing; with a brute cousin that was always bullying (a Napoleonic physical type) continued the assortation and several endings of this sort may have caused his incarceration in prison because the ringing onward ... called by debell into physical attack on women and rape charges. There was a lesson to be learned that was dis*mist and eventually killed him at an early age ... everything (God) happens like a gambler on a train to know where? Folk never see what comes as anon ... incarnate as not the way it appeared ... this goes on ... Mani ponders ...

 

[JayneWonders]

That is interesting, Bette. I can relate to "disappointed".

I'm not used to being around anger / yelling.
For me, it is so unusual, it takes me a while to process, to understand and to let go of the words said by the yeller.
I think for those who do yell, or are part of a family that yells, they seem to get over it.

 

[BetteTheRed]

I think for those who do yell, or are part of a family that yells, they seem to get over it.

My mother was a yeller. I have been known to raise my voice, although anyone who knows me knows that quieter is not good, and that very polite is worse.

 

[Luce NDs]

My mother was a yeller. I have been known to raise my voice, although anyone who knows me knows that quieter is not good, and that very polite is worse.

My mother yelled all the time there was no peace ... thus I scratch out what is to be expressed ... thus w-rot she claimed as she didn't read well into it ...

I still hear her in the sounds of silence ... turbulence, chaos and tremendous din in my head mon ...

Folk she went to her church with often often were charon the same a' gape ... screaming continuously ... like Selkies ... slick critters !

 

[revjohn]

Do you store stuff up, and then it all come out?

This is not a healthy way to fight. As we store the stuff up we can never store it neutrally. Over time the injury is multiplied and the one who has injured us becomes increasingly evil. At some point we shift from "storing" an injury into "creating" a larger one.

I try very hard not to do this and if I have been sitting on something for a while I try not to use it as ammunition in conflict. I will try to address it as calmly as I am able and ask for understanding. I will admit to feeling pain when I have felt pain but I will never subscribe evil intent to the one who has caused the pain. Unless they make that surpassingly obvious that they intended to wound me in some manner.

Do you discuss items at once

If the fight has been enjoined then yes, within the bounds of the fight I will bring up items. I do not use fights to unpack shopping lists of minor grievances.

Do you never fight, just breathe.

I may enter a fight slowly. I am not afraid to fight. I trust most of my closest friends and family to abide by rules. Over the years those family members who wouldn't abide by the rules found that I was less and less willing to enter into fights with them or interact enough to provide a potential breeding ground for fights.

What is your normal approach to challenges with close family or friends?

Dial back the heat as much as possible. Be honest and upfront. Understand that disagreement can still happen respectfully and try to nudge things in that direction. Own what I have said/done and disown what others fabricate about what I have said or done. This reflects on the storing of grievances. I can admit to a mistake. I am not going to embrace becoming the embodiment of evil that others imagine me to be.

At some point in time there had to be a goal in calling for and initiating the fight. If that goal is real and I can legitimately help resolve the issue then I will struggle to find reconciliation. If that goal is real and I cannot legitimately help to resolve the issue then I will acknowledge that and step away from the conflict (others are not always willing to let me step away). If the goal is real and I have to wade through imaginary grievances and unrealistic expectations then I am not likely going to be able to offer much help.

If I am going to fight my preference would be to have that fight face to face simply because without visual cues I might misread what is being communicated. Tone of voice is difficult to convey in text as are all of the other visual and auditory cues that would tell a friend that we are trying to understand no matter how accusatory we are coming across.

If I am the one initiating the fight I always ensure I do it well rested and on a full stomach. It helps me to stay focused on the actual issue and not get distracted by my fatigue or hunger. I state my issue as clearly and concisely as I can and then I wait for the response. I make a concerted effort not to rehash past conflicts unless I feel that the current issue is more of the same old, same old.

Typically I will not engage with individuals I don't have a decent relationship with. I don't generally find disagreement automatically off-putting. Geo-Fee and Panentheism who have been carried from the field of debate are two individuals that I had tremendous respect for even though we often found ourselves in disagreement. I know Panentheism really enjoyed seeing how animated I could get though he never (in my experience) pushed buttons with any malevolence. Geo-Fee and I often agreed on many issues through we just as often disagreed on how those issue could best be resolved. He employed a language that was too much scattergun for my liking. He didn't seem much concerned about collateral damage. He was more concerned with making the point. Which is not me saying that he was cruel or careless. I simply thought he could have taken more care to be more precise. Because we had a face-to-face history it wasn't hard to read the same line of debate/fight several times trying on several nuances in their presentation to find different points of communication.

Where that experience is limited to text only fighting is as much in the dark as anything else.

Still, I remind myself always to fight fair. To stay with the issue. Focus on what is known, ask for clarification and refuse to imagine that my opponent in a fight/debate/conversation is even more evil than they are presenting.

Am I always successful in that? I'm getting better at it. By no means perfect yet.

 

[Mendalla]

@revjohn! Hello! Nice to see you!

 

[paradox3]

@revjohn! Hello! Nice to see you!

Yes. It's been a while!

 

[revjohn]

@revjohn! Hello! Nice to see you!

Thanks. Nice to be seen.

Sorry I have been away. Maybe someday I could enumerate the number of distractions from WC2 I have had to deal with over the last four years. I don't even know if I can step back into where I was. There is a lot of stuff to catch up on if I want to get back in stride and not everything that dragged me away from here has been resolved.

Still, had a moment to myself and thought I would at least browse some thread titles.

 

[revjohn]

Yes. It's been a while!

I'm sorry about that.

I think I may have announced I was heading off on vacation once and then just had stuff happen (life) stuff that got in the way of coming back. Friends on FB have seen some of the shenanigans but I haven't been completely candid with how some of those life event hit me and reopened some very deep wounds.

I am going to hint at an adverse medicine reaction which confused the hell out of me and scared the bejeebers out of my wife.

Other highlights include Kimberly in a serious skiing accident resulting in a absolutely surgeon stymieing tibia plateau fracture and the unpleasant ordeal with NL medical experts who would fail to earn a scouters first aid badge at the bronze level.

There was also the hosting of a Ukrainian family for a year which brought an additional 5 human bodies and another dog into the house.

Pastoral Care for the closing of the pastoral charge I was serving and some difficulty navigating that with the Region.

All of that left me pretty tapped out for a long, long time.

And then there was other stuff which made an unpleasant time feel that it somehow needed to be worse. I might talk about some of it later on. Some of it I let go just to turn around to find it back in my face again. It is tiring.

Anyway. As I shared with Mendalla, I got an idea to snoop around a bit. I'm feeling way behind and I am reminded again of Qwerty's passing which is still a sadness to me. I'm just not up to speed yet.

 

[Waterfall]

So nice to see you back again...hope you hang around more.

 

[jimkenney12]

Take as much time as you need. Much of it you can probably ignore. I find most presbyteries do a poor job with church closures and amalgamations, partly because that work is mostly done by volunteers with limited time and abilities

 

[paradox3]

Church closures and amalgamations are incredibly difficult. Amalgamations can be the more complicated of the two from what I have seen.

We have had our share of both in eastern Toronto. It's not easy.

 

[Luce NDs]

Church closures and amalgamations are incredibly difficult. Amalgamations can be the more complicated of the two from what I have seen.

We have had our share of both in eastern Toronto. It's not easy.

It is because of the rivers of rival Rae ... White Coat .... Black Art Thou ... core veil ...

 

[jimkenney12]

When two pastoral charges near where I was living about 23 years ago amalgamated, I was surprised by what their representatives said. From what I had observed, their likely motives and intentions were different from what they said. The amalgamation lasted about two years.

It is hard to get church people to be honest with themselves and each other in difficult situations. A few years before that in another presbytery, I had helped arrange interim ministry for a congregation whose minister had died. As Pastoral Relations convenor, I had pushed them to accept a two year interim ministry but they insisted on one year. I attended the meeting for a congregational vote on a call. When the terms of call were read out, I wad deeply surprised in both the choice of candidate and the terms. It did not seem like a good fit. It lasted just over two years.

Honesty is a missing ingredient too often.

 

[Luce NDs]

When two pastoral charges near where I was living about 23 years ago amalgamated, I was surprised by what their representatives said. From what I had observed, their likely motives and intentions were different from what they said. The amalgamation lasted about two years.

It is hard to get church people to be honest with themselves and each other in difficult situations. A few years before that in another presbytery, I had helped arrange interim ministry for a congregation whose minister had died. As Pastoral Relations convenor, I had pushed them to accept a two year interim ministry but they insisted on one year. I attended the meeting for a congregational vote on a call. When the terms of call were read out, I wad deeply surprised in both the choice of candidate and the terms. It did not seem like a good fit. It lasted just over two years.

Honesty is a missing ingredient too often.

Can they imagine how this comes across to those made into outsiders ... outlandish right? What's left ... ashes ..