Dealing With People Around Me

I experience and interact with people all day every day, from my personal family, my friends, neighbors, co-workers, or even complete strangers, be it navigating online or right here in my world's hustle and bustle of traffic. I love them. I love people. And yet, even I will admit that sometimes I run into a situation where a person seems a bit more difficult than another, okay a lot more difficult. Sometimes in a moment of interaction with someone who is being difficult, it's easy to forget our humanity, lose our self in the moment and backlash with even more difficulty. I know, you've probably thought 'they had it coming' - 'how dare they' - 'oh, no you didn't'.. In an instant we lose our own firm grip of dignity and become the sprayed roach relative of our 'apparent' adversarial counterpart. Yes, I said sprayed roach. Imagine the visual.. We've all seen one and you don't want to be one. You're going to run into people from time to time, who don't do things your way, who don't agree with you, who don't like you but most of the time the people you run into and have conflict with are just trying to live life to the best of their ability, just like you are. The truth is.. It's our own trigger to their way of being that makes their confliction our own. Now, on a side note, if you are finding yourself triggered all the time, it may be time to hire a coach to help you release yourself from reacting to the world and the people around you. So here's where your choice comes in, to choose confliction or compassion, to join in and become a sprayed roach, reacting to their poison OR to hold on to your dignity and find the commonality that sees this person's human aspects at the very least, as a place to give compassion. Compassion flows over and around conflict like water. Two rocks smashing together, creates more sparks. Be the water. Hold the compassion. Compassion quells conflict and will have you feeling good about the way you handled things in the long run, while inviting your fellow human to have compassion for themselves as well.

Some tips that make choosing a little easier:

"When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred." - Thomas Jefferson

a. Don't take it personal - Take a moment to stop and remember that this is most likely not about you in the first place. Misery does love company, but you don't have to pull up a chair and join the party.

b. No one is perfect, not even you - Keep compassion toward others as you would like others to keep for you. Compassion invites respect, where reaction invites further retaliation.

c. Speak Easy - Think before you speak, text, email, post online etc. The words that leave your lips or flow from your fingertips can never be swallowed back and the pain they cause, while they may be forgiven, are not as easily forgot.

d. Consider that YOU could be the conflict bringer or a conflict keeper - I know none of us like to look here, but take a step back and really look at the situation. Are you creating the conflict? Making it worse? If this is the case, choose compassion for yourself as well. e. Stop the cycle - Talking about and rehashing the conflict with any and everyone else keeps the conflict churning AND makes you look more like a sprayed roach than them.