Tag Archives: Resolving Conflict

Are you doing this:

because you want this:

Six months ago a caravan parked on our local street.  It was a young family; mom, dad, two kids, two cats and a dog,  arriving to set up a home planning to rent a  house temporarily until finding their own dream home in the Greater Victoria Region.  Dad had grown up here and wanted to raise his young kids on the West Coast.

The reason the husband shared his story is they wanted to block access to my home with their vehicles for a few days.  In speaking with him I had deja-vu. Some friends had traveled with him and his family and you could tell they had partied and enjoyed their travel time.  I wondered how it would be for them to move into a home where the earlier occupant also loved to have a good time with a revolving door of visitors that enjoyed a good drink or two!  The previous occupant was a friend and  hung around for a few weeks in party mode as they unpacked and settled.

With the previous tenant’s lifestyle influence and one partners love of partying   it wasn’t a happily ever after experience for them.  By December, 3 months later, a house had been bought, however not in the Greater Victoria Region.  One was purchased in the town they had recently traveled from.   When he told me he wanted to block my access to load up again, he shared a bit of his story.    He said it was important to move for the kids and to stop partying.  I could tell he was hung over.  Wow!

I felt empathy for him and his little family.  Being on this side of some life similarities, and with my training, I recognized his move to Victoria was a strategy to full fill something that wasn’t working for him in his lifestyle. He is travelling back into that same environment and states this choice is more important than his needs.   As he speaks his mannerisms tell that he isn’t convinced and not in agreement with this decision.  It’s been made for him. He says that it’s been a six month party and it was time to get serious.

I wondered if her intention is to be close to family and set up a home for the kids to meet her needs for safety and support in the event that they can’t resolve their differences.  I know as a mom that would have been my priority if my needs for shared values were not met in my marriage.  Hell, that happened to me!  We didn’t have shared values and I raised my kids alone!   My hope, for this young couple, is that they find a way to work through the reasons for travelling across the country in the first place.   Was it to try to find the aliveness that may have gone out of the relationship?

Three things I would have suggested once they arrived in Victoria:

1.  Be aware of how an earlier occupant of a house can influence your experience.
2. Choose to clear a house by setting your intention for the home you want to create.  Don’t fall into an earlier pattern.
3. Take ownership of the space and set boundaries!

Three things I  would recommend for them now setting up a new home as they arrive to their new house:

1.  Each of them check in and write out what is meaningful for the in  three areas:  1.  Relationships, 2.  Family & Home, 3.  Community
2. Each of them take turns and honesty express what these are with a  willingness to hear and create new ones together.
3. Follow the above three steps.

I hope they will take the time to do the above however they will not be arriving together.  One has gone ahead to set up the new house while the other is closing the other.  It may be one’s already claimed the space and the other will be a visitor!  I hope not!!!!!

This  story stimulated reflection of my earlier post:  How a previous murder influenced my marriage!  As I write this one a raven is calling and the snow is falling!

Transitioning from Language of Conflict into Language of Connection (based on Nonviolent Communication)

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Recent Comment:  I love your cogent analysis of emotions = energy + story. So, emotions – story = energy freed. Yeh! thx, pat zzz

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On Feb 24th I wrote about conflict in neighbors relationships and boundaries.  I mentioned how sometime previous to buying one of  the houses I wrote about, the neighbor next door murdered the owner of the house.  The house had been let go from rental occupancy and that is what thought we were getting.  A rental fixer upper!

On the day we were moving in, the neighbor,  now living in the murderers house, walked over and told us about the history of our two properties.  I come from a family of tall people and this person didn’t have quiet their height, however the body posturing was massive.    My partner and I felt uncomfortable.  We found out this person was R.C.M.P. and I remember thinking I should feel pleased as it would be safe, yet my instincts didn’t match up.  Thinking back,  this was an experience where someone is trying to have power over me.

Hearing this news was unwelcome and it changed my expectations, hopes and dreams for this house.  I thought it could be our forever home.  It had that much potential.  First of all not knowing where the owner was shot in the house began a personal obsession.  I never knew if I would find anything each time we pulled up an old floor, baseboard, carpet or wall panel.  Finally it got the best of me and I did some research.  I found out it was on the front steps coming into the house.  This was the worst news possible!  I know this news had my  full focus of attention.  It was disturbing and I did not have the skills to understand what needs were not met or how to process it!  The front door is the entrance to the house and where life enters.  Here a life had been taken!

Even for a short time living in that house I can say it was never  a home.  Living in this space actually brought out unethical behaviors in both myself and my partner.  Not obvious at first.  It started off with small issues and experiences and was the catalyst for our break up!  In that house we stopped trying to process our differences and began meeting our needs in other ways.  We experienced conflict, violence, unethical drunken behavior and  sexual betrayal, depression mental, emotional and physical pain.  All in a short space of time!

When the house sold my partner and I had already found separate living arrangements and had split up our assets.  Had I known then how a space can define your experience. who knows, perhaps there could have been something that could have been done to support resolving our differences more ethically.  We resolved them, however with  struggle, pain and deception.

How are you resolving your differences?  In the above experience, I would now focus on a process of speaking honestly and listening with more empathy.  I would also process my pain at hearing someones life had been taken in the space I was living in with my partner. I would extensively cleanse the house energetically and spiritually.  I may even bring in the local aboriginal elders to bless the home and support a shift in the space.  An unconscious intention had been created by the violent action and the cleansing would create a new intention for the space.

Transitioning from Language of Conflict into Language of Connection (based on Nonviolent Communication)

• Book Powerful Personal or Relationship Coaching Sessions 

Recent Comment:  I love your cogent analysis of emotions = energy + story. So, emotions – story = energy freed. Yeh! thx, pat zzz

• Upcoming Classes and Workshops