A Joyous Perspective on Resolving Conflict: It's for your health.

It's time for another Friday Night Thought Tale Hour with The Henderson's. I've written that sentence almost weekly for the past six years, but I never appreciated it as much as I do today. You see Chris, and I faced one of those life changing moments in a doctor's office. The kind when you hear that someone you adore and can't imagine life without is lucky to be alive. That you will have to sit back helplessly and watch as they go through something that you know will cause them both emotional and physical pain. And you begin to realize that you may not always be together on this earth because the body is a mortal vessel designed to fail you eventually. 

And you face a real and formidable conflict that must be addressed.

I have been looking at the subject of 'conflict' this week on my Joyous Perspective page. After our news on Wednesday, I wondered how I would be finishing off the week as I normally do with my wrap up on Friday with the Thought Tale. It threw me into quite a tailspin to consider all of the potential outcomes of our week. And then, I realized that what we were facing was the ultimate in finding conflict: How and why we need to resolve them. 

It was all centered around the "heart" of the matter...

Out walking the morning of Chris' necessary procedure, I found myself thinking about the process. As I pictured his dear and huge heart, weakened, I considered that physically, he was filled with some conflict. It might be some calcium filling up an artery, or maybe just a few veins weakened by sickness, but something was causing a conflict in the way his body functioned. The conflict was causing his heart to operate at less than (a lot less than) what it needed to be strong. And it was not just going to go away. Whatever the conflict, it needed to be identified, confronted, and resolved. Otherwise, he would not be long for this world.

This is so much like actual conflict we face in our outward lives!

I began to muse upon how conflicts in our lives blocked us and weakened us from being the best version of ourselves. Oh, we can survive with these blocks in place, but we will struggle to thrive with them surrounding us. They are often not of our design, but they can be completely under our control when it comes to resolution. Once the source of conflict is identified and understood, we now have a few choices in what to do about bringing them to a new place. A place that makes them a part of our happy ending story instead of our unhealthy demise. Using the three potential outcomes our Cardiologist provided us this week for Chris' conflicted heart, I've put together a few real life suggestions:

1) Go after them with full frontal passion.
Once you find and face the conflict, deal with it by blowing it out of the path. For the physical heart, it is "Put in a stent and make the blockage go away." This move is reserved for the very "life and death" kind of conflicts, but they are few and moveable. In life, these are the conflicts that involve a relationship that is part of your imminent happiness in life. Let nothing stop you from resolving these conflicts in some way. Do not back away from them. To ignore them will be hazardous to your health. 

2) Cancel their power by going around them.
Sometimes, there are so many conflicts in the path that you simply become overwhelmed by them. In the real heart, a Physician will find a way to perform a bypass and go around the blockage. The vein will no longer be needed because it's been replaced. In life, these conflicted relationships can become almost habitual, until they finally push you over the edge. They are like a heart attack of the psyche and soul. Maybe it's time for a bypass, which is messy and painful. It will mean you feel like you have a broken heart for awhile. But once you heal and see how much healthier you are without the conflicted relationship, you will begin to feel better. And then, you can continue to grow healthy and care for major important parts of your life.

3) Resolve with a change of actions and attitude.
The third potential reason for a weak heart has to do with neglect and a little bit of denial. There's no need for dramatic surgery or medical achievement. This one is simply about sitting down with the recognized conflict and finding a way to resolve it. In many ways, this one takes the most work and commitment. Yes, there will

be medicine and therapy, but mostly, there will be a change of perspective. The other person or people (or your heart) will need to hear and see that you are serious. They will need to understand your intention. In life, you may just agree to disagree, but with a profound respect for the love and care, you have for each other. The feeling of resolution complete is the best kind of healthy outcome. Responsibility is accepted to maintain awareness and assure that the issue will never arise again. It's a turning point. Conflict resolved makes everything stronger.

Throughout our lives, we will face all three.

Fortunately, Chris found himself in the third category. I say fortunate, because in his case, the other two would have been joined by option three. So now, he just has to deal with that. But each of us will find ourselves in conflict with those we have in our lives. And I guess the point of this Thought Tale is to encourage you to choose your method of resolution before it steals from your health and happiness. I've learned the hard way, so I'm hopeful you will not have to.

So tonight, we are celebrating the beginning of a strong resolution to a conflicted heart matter. In the name of health, we are drinking a glass of Zinfandel called, "Bone Shaker." The events of the week were most definitely of that nature and shook us both to our core. It's good to be on the other side of choosing to be resolved. Cheers, Friends!