Healthy Relationships > Communication > Persuading Vs. Conflict

Persuading Vs. Conflict

Proverbs 13:2 - The good person wins their case by careful argument, not by fighting.

Proverbs 13:3 - Self-control means controlling your tongue.
A quick retort can ruin everything.

Proverbs 15:4 - Gentle words cause life and health! Griping brings discouragement.

Presumably most arguments or fights start off with one party attempting to persuade the other of the correctness of their view point and vice versa.

If we fail to present our case with carefully thought-out logical "arguments" and choose to simply vent the intensity of our feelings/emotions; if we fire back with a quick (and hurtful) zinger rather than a measured (gentle) response; if we fail to listen, in our haste to invalidate another perspective, emotions become heated, then enraged.

What could have been a calm discussion based on mutual understanding (empathizing with a different perspective) and persuasion based on the merits of your case - creating a win/win situation where everyone feels they've been respectfully "heard;" instead turns into a lose/lose situation where both parties feel doubly aggrieved.

A few tips

• Exercise Self-Control: Don't trigger a confrontation when you're upset. Think it through for a day or two until you've put yourself "in their shoes" to see their point of view (that's called empathy). Then wait until you can approach the subject calmly and logically. Never, ever pick up the phone or zap an e-mail in a fit of anger.
  
• Resist the Quick Retort: If you get "ambushed" try to hold off "firing back" until you get a few minutes to think it through.
  
• Watch Those Zingers: They can hurt for a lifetime, and come back to haunt you.
  

Of course, this advice is hardest to follow with husbands and wives or with your kids. Counseling on "communication skills" may be needed.

by CV Doner