Welcome to the happiness podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff. Conflict. If we're in relationships of any type, sooner or later there's

probably going to be conflicts. So in today's episode what we're going to do is explore

how do we deal with these conflicts in ways that will both make them go well and at the same time lead to our own

happiness and peacefulness in our hearts or perhaps more accurately not take away

from our peace and happiness because conflicts with others

can really destroy our equanimity and peace of mind that we have. But they are part of human relationships. So what do we do when we're

in conflict in order to not let them truly upset us or lead us down the path of self-hatred.

Because when we're in a conflict with someone,

it usually causes us pain.

And when that pain arises, sometimes we want to be painful back. Think of two

little kids that are playing and one accidentally or intentionally hurts the other.

In response, the child that got hurt may hurt back with both physical

altercations or words, because they're hurt, they want to hurt back. Children say it all the time. Why did I

hit them? Because they hit me. And then as adults, we try to teach them not to do that.

But yet as adults, often when we're in an altercation

or a conflict with someone else,

like the clerk that's yelling at the store or a spouse who's yelling at us because something

we did or didn't do.

There's a real tendency to yell back, to say hurtful things back, particularly when the words coming at us are very intense and painful.

And in regards to these conflicts, there really are three approaches are ways to deal with them. Two are very unhealthy and the third is healthy. The

first one is one where a person just when someone says or does something to them, they do it back to them in equal measure

or even more. We've all seen that. I mean again my example of children, that's what they do.

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