(Stillness in the Storm Editor) Solving the problems of interpersonal conflict is a worthy cause. Almost everything we enjoy about life came about as a result of cooperation. But most of us never learn the science or mechanics of cooperation to avoid unnecessary conflicts or enhance already functioning associations. If as individuals and a human race we learned to embrace the rules of cooperation, life would improve almost overnight. What are these rules?
All the reasons that cause conflict in relationships can be summed up as miscommunication and dishonorable conduct.
All relationships, whether professional or personal, fraternal or formal, always involve two or more beings endowed with mind, free will, and the ability to communicate.
The “science” that we draw from to understand the best way to manage these realities is the knowledge of contracts. Generally, the mechanics of contracts are founded on three other key bodies of knowledge: philosophy, psychology, and law.
Three Facts That Make Contracts Possible
The fact that we’re all endowed with free will means we can make value choices, we can formulate desires to suit our person as well as social needs and wants.
The fact we’re endowed with mind means that we have the ability to communicate our desires to others.
The fact that we’re limited in what we can do with our mind, body, and will mean we need to cooperate with others to realize some of our desires.
Honest, clear, and transparent communication is the soil from which all cooperation springs, opening doors for personal and social need fulfillment.
Wise use of mind to properly assess the factors that are required to manifest one’s desires is the gentle pruning hand.
Honor is good faith and trust that is demonstrated as honest communication and full disclosure, acting as the waters that give life to the seed of any desire.
The Key to Social Harmony: Four Elements of a Contract
There is a master recipe for making the most out of any group association. This recipe is abstract, which means you can’t follow it blindly. You have to consciously think about how to apply these principles to each unique situation.
There are four key principles to an honorable contract:
- Intention to Create: The formation of a desire or a goal that requires the participation of at least one other person. For example, if you want to dance with your husband that goal requires as the participation of your husband. If they don’t share that desire they won’t act to help you realize your desire to dance.
- Negotiation: The communication through honest, transparent, and complete disclosure of your intention to all potential participants and affected parties. For example, if you wanted to dance with your husband in your neighbor’s house at 3:00 am then this would require not only your husband’s consent but also the consent of your neighbors. Good faith is required, which is the honest and complete presentation of your heart and mind, that all details pertinent to the fulfillment of the objective or goal are revealed. Good faith requires full disclosure as well as complete and honest communication of all the factors at play. During this phase, all parties involved discuss their unique terms and conditions or their needs and concerns, and all work to ensure everyone’s satisfied as much as reasonably possible. If someone withholds their concern or need, this is an instance of bad faith or a false representation of what is in their mind and heart, a dishonorable act. The meeting of the minds is the core foundation of this principle—all must always be on the same page. Anytime something happens that causes a divergence between minds, where one person knows something another doesn’t, another meeting of the minds is required to get everyone back on the same page.
- Offer and Acceptance: Once all parties have disclosed their personal needs and concerns, and these have been discussed and addressed through the creation of a plan of action that all are happy with, an offer to participate in the now carefully planned enterprise takes place. Each party makes a knowing and explicit consecration of their will—a pledge—to accept the rights and responsibilities required to manifest the group desire. This often involves a ceremony wherein each person stands before all others, recites their duties, reassures all that they have the skill to perform these duties, and makes a commitment that they will maintain clear lines of communication. Acceptance occurs when each party accepts the offer of their fellows, often with some explicit statement of acceptance.
- Consideration: All parties involved in the enterprise perform their duties, resulting in the manifestation of what was collectively desired.
These four elements are principally present in all phases of human interaction. Reality is contractual by nature because at any phase of manifestation two or more beings have some association or relationship between them.
The key is to refine and make perfect all relationship interactions.
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How Things Can Go Wrong
Problems arise when we forget or refuse to communicate and share the whole truth in our hearts.
Sometimes we decide to do something on a whim, on impulse. Later, after some reflection, we might decide to change our mind. For instance, you might decide to go to dinner at a BBQ place with your friend. But after reading about the health benefits of raw vegetables, you have a change of heart. From a contractual perspective, what’s wrong?
If you told your friend you would meet them at the BBQ place at 8:00 PM, but you changed your mind, the first issue is that there’s no longer a meeting of the minds. You no longer have the desire to eat BBQ, which means there’s a divergence or a discrepancy at the intention-to-create level.
How do we solve this problem?
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The solution to ALL relationship problems, is always—without fail—communication. Contractually, negotiation is the master key.
The principle is simple: Anytime your mind changes and no longer matches the others, renegotiation has to take place. You have to tell them what’s in your heart and mind so they can have in their mind what you have in yours. In lawful terms, we call this notice. This is where most people get messed up. A lot of people incorrectly assume that once they have a change of heart they don’t need to give notice to other people. But failing to do so causes harm and is a point of bad faith and breach of trust that makes association later difficult.
We usually don’t trust people more after they break their word.
Think of a dating situation. Someone asks another person out on a date. They both enjoy each other’s company and it seems like a good idea. But a few days later, one person suddenly realizes they don’t want to date anyone right anymore. They decide they want to devote their life to the Church. What’s the honorable thing to do in this situation? One person is acting as if the date is going to happen, they’re spending time and energy preparing, and they’re making plans to go to the pre-arranged location. What happens if the person who changed their mind never tells the other? What damage would have been done?
The other person would have spent time and energy fulfilling their obligations only to discover the other person stood them up. This costs time, energy, and morale, not to mention a breach of trust that could cause lasting damage in the other.
What could have solved this problem? Communication.
The person that changed their mind could have notified the other as to this change, and in doing so, save them time and energy. This is the honorable thing to do because honorable people always communicate what’s in their heart and mind. This is also the right thing to do from a lawful perspective.
“But wait! It isn’t possible, to be honest with everyone!”
This is true to a certain extent. There are times when being honest is strategically inadvisable. If, for example, you suspect that someone could react violently to your change of heart, it might not be a good idea to tell them. But in most cases, you can carefully reveal the substance of what’s changed so you at least save the other person time and energy. We don’t need to be insensitive or untactful. We shouldn’t use the truth as a black pill in an effort to wield hate and vent our frustration.
For instance, if you decided to become a vegan and that’s why you don’t want to go to the BBQ place with your friend anymore, you don’t need to tell them they’re a horrible person because they want BBQ. Just tell them you had a change of heart and that you hope it didn’t cause them any inconvenience. Most people, if you take a reasonable and calm stance, will see reason and accept your notice without much drama. And even if they do overreact, that’s their business; it isn’t your fault unless you were unkind and venomous.
There’s another benefit to bravely revealing the substance of our hearts: it builds strength of character and set’s a precedent of transparency in your social interactions.
As a general rule of thumb, honest communication should be the gold standard we all work to maintain. It’s important to address dishonesty in your relationships, taking care to be tactful and honest with your approach. You shouldn’t make accusations you aren’t completely sure of or else that creates more tension in an already tense situation.
Related Admitting Your Grievances Against Your Partner: Your Best Hope For Healing Your Relationship
Being Honest is Hard
What trips most people up is that it can be socially awkward and challenging to tell people things they might not want to hear. It takes bravery to be honorable and retain that honor because you have to share hard truths sometimes. It also takes self-awareness because you have to be willing to reflect on your choices and really make sure you’re wholeheartedly dedicated to something you’ve agreed to do.
Most of you reading these words have likely been in many relationships where problems arose and difficulties were common.
Ask yourself honestly, how many of those problems were due to miscommunication, misunderstanding, undisclosed expectations, and projected obligations? And now think of how communication could have solved all of that with a bit of bravery and humility.
The most common gripe or excuse people invoke when confronted with the fact they have the power to make their relationships harmonious is obligation avoidance. This is especially true for inexperienced people that haven’t had to humble themselves before.
“Why should I have to be the one to tell my friend, lover, husband, or boss that I don’t want to do this or that? They should know already or never have forced me to do something I didn’t want to do!”
This is a statement of someone who, on the one hand, doesn’t know themselves enough to make choices that last, or on the other hand, is too much of a coward to accept their responsibility.
This is understandable. We’re living in a world where most people are dishonorable with their relationships.
They project desires onto their partner, they assume people know what they want and get upset when their irrational expectations aren’t met. They refuse to be honest and tactful so that the people in their lives can truly work with them honorably.
There are a million and one excuses people make to abandon their responsibilities when it comes to relationships.
But the cold hard truth is that no one but you is responsible for sharing the contents of your mind and heart. No one but you is obligated to know your true desires and communicate them honestly.
Key to a Golden Age
This master key of social harmony not only works for interpersonal relationships, but it also works for social groups and the entire human race.
Spiritually, the laws of social interaction or contracts are founded on the recognition of consciousness as the fundamental reality of existence.
The same force that holds the stars in their place, the same force that swings the galaxies around in their careful dance, and the same force that holds the atom together also extends this knowledge of social harmony to humanity. But this force doesn’t override human will—it works with it.
Humanity is in its infancy. But one day, when the love of harmony, truth, beauty, and justice supplants the love of egoism, self-righteousness, and wealth for wealth sake, an age of peace and prosperity will blossom like a cosmic flower over the entire earth.
You have been notified of the truth. You are no longer nescient. You no longer can claim ignorance of the master keys of social harmony.
We are each charged with the call to follow the forces of life and use this knowledge in our lives to respect the will of our fellows through honorable conduct.
If you dedicate yourself to this high calling, you’ll leave the greatest gift anyone can give to future generations—the budding flower of a truly free and wise civilization.
Read more articles by Justin Deschamps.
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– Justin
Related Passive Aggressive Behavior in Relationships (and How to Change It)
by Lynn Margolies, Ph.D., January 8th, 2019
A common but often undetected source of conflict in relationships is harboring an inaccurate belief about your partner’s (or teenager’s) intentions. Our perception of why the other person did or didn’t do something, and what we believe that means — is often the true culprit behind persistent hurt, anger, and/or frustration — not just the behavior itself.
These misinterpretations tend to have a negative bias, assume the worst, and personalize — an unfounded presumption of purposeful or negative intent. Our assumptions about others, though seamlessly taken as the truth, are often derived from our own past experiences, psychological makeup, and common perceptual biases — not from an accurate assessment of the other person.
The ensuing cycle of misunderstanding and disconnection can be difficult to resolve because our belief about the other person’s intent is often implicit, not addressed, or not matched up against their actual intent. This chain of events leads to frustrating stalemates and resentment, with both people feeling misunderstood. The good news is that we can stop this cycle by opening up the opportunity for mistaken assumptions to come to light and be corrected by becoming aware of our invisible biases and more curious about the other person. Doing so makes it easier be on the same team, de-escalate, and settle the issue.
Though Dave’s wife Sarah originally said she didn’t want to drive during the road trip, she then expressed wanting to do some driving. Dave was glad to let her take over but kept asking her repeatedly whether she was sure. Sarah found this annoying, but the conflict escalated because she interpreted Dave’s repetitive questioning to mean that he was trying to control her because he really wanted to drive.
As the story unfolded in therapy, it turned out that Dave was actually worried about whether Sarah really wanted to drive. Then, in his typical anxious, doubting, obsessional way, he repeatedly asked her the same question, rather than tell her what he was worried about and check in with her whether there was any basis for his concern. Sarah, who grew up with a controlling dad, was hypervigilant to feeling controlled. Stuck in her own feeling, she missed the actual issue which wasn’t that Dave was controlling but that he tended to be overly accommodating and worried about her feelings.
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Dave’s anxious personality style sometimes manifested in repetitiveness, obsessive doubting, and rigidity. Once Sarah understood this about him, she no longer took it personally or became triggered to anger, though some of these behaviors were still annoying. She came to recognize the signs of Dave being caught in an anxiety loop and discovered that making eye contact, saying his name, and touching his hand made him come to more quickly — improving the situation for both.
As seen in this example, obsessional behavior and inflexibility associated with anxiety can be mistaken for being controlling, narcissistic or oppositional. The same behavior, when understood as anxiety rather than a manipulative character trait becomes simply annoying, rather than oppressive, and has more hopeful implications for the relationship. Correctly identifying what is happening in situations like these helps people get unstuck and opens the door to hope and solutions. Here, Sarah and Dave learned to anticipate predictably difficult situations and be prepared with a plan to better manage them.
What makes us come to the wrong conclusions?
Faulty conclusions result from hidden beliefs, mindsets, and omissions in our thinking that mislead us, such as:
Assuming everyone thinks exactly like you. The problem here involves equating yourself with the other person and extrapolating what would be true if you were in that situation, as if there were no differences in people’s capacities and subjective experience.
Jim was angry when he came home and found dishes in the sink again. Keeping the house in order came easily and naturally to him when he was in charge of the household. He interpreted Sonya’s inaction as not caring about him and even hostile. Either that, or she was lazy. Neither were true. Sonya, a competent mom, struggled with ADHD and often felt overwhelmed by household chores, sometimes avoiding them.
Lack of productivity and disorganization, characteristic of ADHD/executive function issues, is often not recognized as a capacity limitation and is instead confused with laziness, as in this example, fueling a sense of injustice and resentment. Once Jim understood that Sonya was not lazy and had different strengths and weaknesses than he did, he let go of his grudge, enabling him to have more realistic expectations. This did not change his obsessional need for the house to be neat so he could de-stress and calm himself, but allowed him to be more flexible in solving the problem. Jim decided to make himself feel better when he came home by washing the few dishes left in the sink — pulling back from getting frustrated with Sonya or stewing in anger.
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Unfortunately, Sonya in turn fell into a similar trap as Jim had before. She took Jim washing the dishes as a dig and message to her that she was slacking, failing to recognize that the same outward behavior can be motivated by different intentions. Feeling criticized and having experienced Jim as critical in the past, Sonya was needlessly offended and became accusatory. This caused Jim to feel unappreciated and demoralized, perpetuating the cycle of disconnection between them.
Recognizing the familiar impasse, Sonya was ultimately able to create the space to understand Jim’s feelings and believe him, which helped them both recover and allowed room for change.
Personalizing and confusing your own feeling with the other person’s intent. Just because someone evoked a feeling in you doesn’t mean that was their intention or that they don’t care about your feelings. This is a common leap, especially when it comes to feeling rejected, which makes sense since it is hardwired in us to fear rejection even more than maltreatment.
Robert was preoccupied with a work project and acted distracted and emotionally distant. This felt rejecting and threatening to Laura because she took it to mean that he was losing interest in her or might be having an affair. In response to feeling rejected, Laura gave Robert a conspicuous cold shoulder, causing him to feel unloved and be defensive, creating a cycle of disconnect between them.
There are many psychological states and needs that create emotional or actual distance — drawing people inward or consuming their resources. In this example, when Robert was preoccupied, Laura took it personally, presuming without question that this meant that Robert was rejecting her. When perceived rejection provokes the person who feels rejected to withdraw or react in kind, as happened here, a self-fulfilling chain reaction ensues, creating the rejection that is feared.
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As Robert took responsibility for improving the atmosphere at home, he worked on being more aware of how his absorption made Laura feel, rather than focused on defending himself. He tried to let her know when he was distracted by work, reassure her that he loved her, and find ways to let her help him at these times.
“Pathological certainty.” The problem here is a conspicuous absence of healthy curiosity and assuming you’re right about the other person. Paradoxically, such rigid certainty is a sign that you are likely wrong because it shows a lack of interest in and/or lack of awareness of the other person’s mindset, along with a fixed view of them.
Though no one likes to be wrong, it is heartening to recognize when the intensity of our reactions is caused by a misperception, rather than think that our dreaded belief about the other person is true. Identifying our perceptual biases and faulty beliefs, as well as aiming to default to more tolerant, non-blaming assumptions, will prevent us boxing people into fixed traits, motives, or stereotypes as well as help people grow.
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Healthy doubt about our assumptions, asking more questions, and being open to revising our perspective with new information makes it more likely that we will understand our loved ones clearly and be more effective. Accurately diagnosing what’s really happening in difficult situations is essential in order to use good judgment, be experienced as an ally, and potentially have a positive impact.
Disclaimer: The characters in these examples are fictitious. They were derived from a composite of people and events representing real-life situations and psychological dilemmas.
About the Author
Lynn Margolies, Ph.D.
Stillness in the Storm Editor: Why did we post this?
There are few problems that give rise to arguably all others, one of those is the unintelligent and immature use of your mind, body, and will in relationships with others—dishonorable and immoral behavior. The Deep State know that the way to keep people enslaved is to ensure they’re constantly arguing with each other without hope of finding any meaningful resolution. The preceding article clearly identifies this problem and offers solutions that individuals can use to begin the slow process of gaining wisdom in the skill and art of social harmony. This is arguably some of the most important information that exists. From a purpose of life perspective, the mission of each individual person and social group is carried out through social interaction. When humanity finally learns how to embrace these laws of free will beings, ages of suffering will finally come to a close and an undreamed-of future of prosperity and splendor will descend from the heavens, approaching the dreams of paradise spoken of by prophets of old.
– Justin
Not sure how to make sense of this? Want to learn how to discern like a pro? Read this essential guide to discernment, analysis of claims, and understanding the truth in a world of deception: 4 Key Steps of Discernment – Advanced Truth-Seeking Tools.
Stillness in the Storm Editor’s note: Did you find a spelling error or grammar mistake? Send an email to [email protected], with the error and suggested correction, along with the headline and url. Do you think this article needs an update? Or do you just have some feedback? Send us an email at [email protected]. Thank you for reading.
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