4 Surprising Reasons You Are Still Stuck in Conflict and What to Do About It

Most people think their conflict is about the other person. After 29 years as a Conflict Analyst, I can tell you it is usually about four very specific traps and once you can see them, the way forward becomes clear.

If you have ever regretted how you responded to a conflict, you are not alone. What you are is someone whose brain did exactly what it was designed to do and that is the surprising place where we need to start.

Conflict is not just a bad day or a difficult relationship. Left unaddressed, it becomes a drain on your Resilience Currency, the energy, focus, and emotional capacity that holds everything else in your life together. I have watched it cost people their sleep, their creativity, their health, and in some cases their careers and closest relationships.

However, here is what 29 years of working with leaders, HR professionals, and families has shown me: most people are not stuck because they lack skill or intelligence. They are stuck because they are caught in one or more of four specific conflict traps and they do not have a name for what is happening to them.

Naming it is the first step out of it.

The 4 Conflict Traps

01: Blame: When you are in the Blame trap, you stop seeing the situation clearly because you are too busy building the case against the other person. You make assumptions and construct stories to validate what you already believe and then you share those stories, which deepens the conflict every time. The Blame trap feels like clarity but it is actually a loop, where every new piece of information gets used as further evidence for the conclusion you have already reached.

02: Power: The Power trap is where conflict becomes a campaign. You start mobilizing your social network, gossiping, and gathering allies. You work to make the other person look bad and yourself look reasonable, however this power play deepens the conflict every time and often irreversibly. By the time most people recognize they are in this trap, the conflict has grown well beyond the original issue.

03: Anger: Lashing out and negative dialogue takes over in the Anger trap where every interaction becomes a potential explosion and you stop being able to think clearly around this person at all. This is where your brain’s threat response is fully activated and the parts of your mind that can reason, empathize, and choose wisely go offline. This is also where people say and do things they later regret most.

04: Fear: The Fear trap is where conflict shifts into something that feels dangerous where you start fearing the other person or they start fearing you and the whole energy of the conflict turns toward control and damage. This is where conflicts cause the most lasting harm to people, relationships, and organizations.

Most people cycle through all four, sometimes in the same afternoon, and they do so without recognizing what is happening until the conflict has already taken a significant toll.

You cannot resolve a conflict you have not correctly identified. And you cannot identify it if you are still inside the trap.Joyce Odidison, M.A., MCC, CTDP

The Surprising Thing Your Brain Is Doing

One of the most important things I share with clients is that your brain was not designed to resolve conflict. It was designed to win it and that is the problem.

When conflict arises, your brain goes into threat detection mode and it is not asking what the wisest response is. It is asking who the threat is and how to eliminate it, and every instinct you have in a conflict, every urge to fight back, defend yourself, go silent, or mobilize your allies, is your brain doing exactly what it was built to do.

However, winning and resolving are not the same thing. A brain operating in threat mode cannot access the parts of itself that can think clearly, communicate wisely, or choose a strategic response. This is why smart, capable, and emotionally intelligent people do things in conflict they later cannot explain. It is not a failure of character. It is biology.

The good news is that you can learn to outsmart it and the Conflict Clarity Course teaches you exactly how.

Your Conflict Has Also Progressed Further Than You Think

Here is something that surprises most of my clients. There is a measurable progression to conflict and it does not just get worse in a general sense. It moves through identifiable stages and each stage requires a completely different response.

The approach that works at Stage 2 will make things worse at Stage 4, however most people have no idea where their conflict sits on the progression scale and so they apply the wrong response at the wrong time and wonder why nothing is changing. When you can locate yourself on the Conflict Progression Framework, everything shifts because you finally know what you are actually dealing with.

The Physical Cost Nobody Mentions

One of the things I teach in my Conflict Resilience method is how to identify when a conflict is making you sick and most people are shocked when they first hear this.

Unresolved conflict triggers the same stress response as a physical threat with sustained cortisol, disrupted sleep, immune suppression, and inflammation, and most people never connect the symptoms back to the conflict. They treat the headache and the insomnia and the anxiety, however they never treat the conflict that is driving all three.

When you can see the physical cost clearly and name it and connect it to its source, something important shifts. You stop treating it like an interpersonal inconvenience and start treating it like what it is: a health matter.

What Communication Has to Do With It

Most people in conflict communicate reactively and say what feels right in the moment. They vent to the wrong people and bring things up at the worst possible time and use language that escalates the situation without realizing it.

Three patterns I see destroy otherwise resolvable conflicts are telling the story to allies before speaking directly to the person, using the words always and never, and timing the conversation for your own readiness rather than the right conditions. Each of these closes off resolution at exactly the moment when it could have opened.

Conflict communication is a skill and it is one that most people have never been taught.

Live Course · June 9th · 20 Seats

The Conflict Clarity Course: 4 Weeks to Your Next Wise Move

This course is for anyone who has ever regretted how they responded to a conflict. In 4 live weeks using the WIS®RQ Resilience Intelligence platform, you will leave with a written Conflict Clarity Plan and the real language for your next move.

• Identify your conflict traps and learn to extricate yourself before they drain your resilience
• Map where your conflict sits on the Conflict Progression Framework
• Learn surprising strategies to outsmart your brain’s threat response
• Master conflict communication for your specific situation
• All sessions recorded with lifetime access
• Can’t attend live? Send your scenario for Joyce’s personal analysis and strategies

Register before the June 9th cohort closes

Questions? Visit joyceodidison.com and reach Joyce directly.

Joyce Odidison

M.A., MCC, CTDP · Conflict Analyst · Resilience Catalyst

Joyce Odidison is the founder of Interpersonal Wellness Services Inc. and the creator of the WIS® Well-being Intelligence System and the Currency of Resilience™ Framework. With 29 years of experience and 7 published books, she works with leaders, HR professionals, and families to decode conflict and build lasting resilience.