While none of us have any say regarding the families we’re born into, friends we get to choose and make. As appealing as this freedom may seem to most of us, they are the one relationship that we always have a choice to either make or break.
Here we look at a step-by-step guide to navigating conflicts with your friends in order to ensure a healthy and lasting bond for years to come.
Self-assessment
Before lashing out on a friend, take a deep breath and indulge in some self-reflection to truly understand your feelings about the situation you find yourself in. Avoid generalising one misstep for a larger problem and try to look at things from your friend’s perspective as well. Think about whether you contributed to the decay of the situation and acknowledge it. As 19-year-old Sia Arora shares from her personal experience, “In life there are a lot of moments where the comfort you seek cannot come from the family you’re born in, not that it’s always the case but sometimes rather than stern advice and solutions you need someone who can relate to you, who’s going through similar things and can lend you a non-judgement shoulder to bawl on. That’s what friends are for.”
Rather than avoiding the situation and bottling up your emotions for a later date, try not to take your friend’s differing opinions personally and ask yourself how much this friendship truly means to you.
Confrontation
Dr Anjali Chhabria, consultant psychiatrist and director of MindTemple shares, “Conflict resolution becomes more structured with age as our maturity level improves parallelly. It is important to remember that conflict resolution does not have to end in a fight; it can be a discussion too. Understanding the reasons why conflicts happen in the first place could be a good start point to avoid getting derailed in the process of resolution.”
While discussing your feelings make sure you use the pronoun ‘I’ to avoid shifting accountability for your own emotions. Keep your tone calm, avoid accusatory language and rationally explain what feels broken about your bond and why the subject is so important to you. Focus on a singular issue rather than a cluster and show how you’re invested in finding a resolution.
Communication
“I think talking with friends and discussing the matter is the most appropriate approach to solve any issue. But one should keep in mind to be positive and not let ego come in the way while talking. I truly believe that if your friend is important to you, you will choose to listen before speaking. This process takes time but all’s well that ends well,” shares 44-year-old Parul Gupta.
Rather than interrupting or constantly thinking of your own response when the person in front of you is speaking, build a habit to be an active listener. Make sure your conversations are open, honest and vulnerable and keep sharing words of affirmation with each other to stir the dialogue in a positive direction. At any point during the discussion if you feel stuck or tempers get out of control, take a break to cool off and revisit the situation later.
Analysing solutions
Evaluate possible solutions and consider whether they are plausible enough for you to actually implement and follow along. “Like any other relationship, few basic tenets such as trust, nurture, respect need to be present on both the sides for it to flourish. Having realistic expectations from each other and addressing when needs are not met consistently can help reduce mind-reading or assumptions,” reveals Dr Chhabria.
Rediscover the common ground your friendship was built on and learn to compromise in a way for both parties to achieve as much of what they wanted out of the solution.
Re-assessment
To avoid the same situations from cropping back up again in the future, make sure you and friend reassess things over a certain period of time to evaluate whether your proposed solution is in fact effective. It’s alright to set and reset your personal and group boundaries over time in a manner that works best for all parties involved and hold each other accountable to make sure you follow through on what’s agreed.
Rather than viewing conflicts in a negative light, they can in fact help a friendship grow and flourish over time if carried out in a healthy manner.
