This is a working document of questions myself and a friend put together to evaluate our own feelings regarding situations of conflict. We created this in a conversation as we discussed boundaries and healthy relationships. As people who live out in the world, in a world vastly more connected than ever before, there is no surprise we see more conflict than ever before. Our practice asks us to be more sensitive to how we feel so we can bring that sensitivity out into the world, but not at the expense of ourselves.
I invite you to write your own list of questions to yourself as you take time to evaluate how you feel so you can move through life with a deeper understanding of where you life with your feelings. Loving kindness begins with ourselves, so we can then share it to those we encounter.
- Is the conflict still happening?
- Has enough time passed to consider forgiveness?
- Does the person recognize their behavior and has changed it?
- Is this an attack?
- Are you still being attacked?
- What is the function of this relationship?
- Have they changed?
- Is this a single occurrence or reoccurring (to anyone)?
- Do you know that they are doing this to someone else, even if they have stopped doing it to you?
- Are they dealing in bad faith?
- How does my body feel when their name or the situation comes up?
- Am I interested in repairing this?
- Is this apart of assigned roles of family?
- Are you willing to break those roles?
- After establishing boundaries, do you feel better?
- After establishing boundaries, did the bad feeling come back?
- Is this relationship of no significance to your daily life?
- Would your daily life change by fixing/not fixing this?
- Is the conflict being twisted as a joke?