This week’s guest post is by Cinnie Noble. Cinnie is the founder of CINERGY™ Coaching, a division of Noble Solutions Inc. in Toronto Canada. She is a lawyer-mediator, a certified coach and a former social worker, who has studied and practiced a range of conflict management services, for over 20 years. The CINERGY® Conflict Management Coaching Blog – is for coaches, mediators, HR professionals, ombudsmen, leaders, lawyers, psychologists, counselors and others who work with people in conflict on a one-on-one basis.
Intertwined with the notion of resilience and moving past the feelings and thoughts that emerge from our disputes is whether we can actually forget about what occurred. Can we let go?
Or do we store the emotional impact and the impressions we make about the other person and ourselves. Unless we unpack what happened for us in our interpersonal disputes we will carry that ‘baggage’ around with us for a very long time.
The starting point is that it is unlikely that we totally forget the interactions that offend us or in which we offend others. Some conflicts unfortunately leave indelible marks that make it difficult to forget about the pain of the interaction. Others of course, do not leave marks as deep. In either case, what we do hold onto in our hearts and minds is significant and the feelings and thoughts that remain commonly show up again in situations with the same person or with others when similar dynamics arise. It is also common that when we agonize about what remains unresolved, we misplace or displace our emotions on bystanders or issues that are not relevant. In any case, it helps us to focus on what we remember as an opportunity to develop our conflict mastery about how to lighten the load about the things we don’t want to let go of.
Ask yourself some questions about an interpersonal dispute which you are not forgetting:
1. What specifically are you not letting go about that specific dispute?
2. Using the answer from #1, what is particularly significant for you about that specific thing or things?
3. What is the impact on you about not letting go of a specific thing or things?
4. What impact do you think this (not letting go) has on the other person?
5. What are you gaining from not letting go?
6. What are you loosing from not letting go?
7. If you think or feel it’s not necessary to let go or you don’t want to forget or the memory remains for other reasons, what are you holding onto about this matter? And for what reason(s)?
8. What would letting go of that thing (or those things) be like for you?
9. What impact would letting go have on the other person?
10. In what ways does the memory you have of this situation reflect something you are not letting go about a previous situation (or situations) too?
What insights do these questions provide?
This week’s guest post is by Cinnie Noble.
You can contact Cinnie at:
http://www.cinergycoaching.com/about-cinergy/cinnie-noble/
Toll free (in Canada & US): 1-866-335-6466
Email: cinnie@cinergycoaching.com
Twitter: @CINERGYCoaching
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