People Who Fear Conflict: When Fear Prevents Us From Defending Ourselves

People who fear conflict often choose to remain silent and let the conflict slip by in order to avoid confrontation and, as they themselves say, to be able to live in peace. However, these resistance and no response dynamics anchor them in a state of discomfort, frustration, and most importantly, loss of dignity.

Fears fulfill an evolutionary function in themselves: they help us to survive, to react to danger. The real problem with our modernity is that there are no longer any predators who endanger our survival; the threats are no longer physical and our fears have largely turned into pathological fears. Like it or not, these limit our growth and our social and emotional solvency.

People who are afraid of conflict fill the practices of psychologists. This fact may surprise many, but it describes the reality. Affected people are characterized by mental discourses that almost exclusively focus on statements such as “I better not say anything so that nobody gets upset”, “I don’t dare say something because it could hurt someone”  or “I don’t know how I am can tell that person that what they did doesn’t seem right to me ”  .

Life on the verge of permanent insecurity is not life. Living in this refuge of immobility from injustice is not healthy either. Being able to act on what we don’t like and defend our rights is one of the principles of our wellbeing and health. Facing conflict and managing it effectively helps us grow.

A person who is afraid of conflict is one who gradually fills the balloon of their anger and frustration in silence. She does it by swallowing everything that hurts her; she does it by giving in and letting the problem go by, just like the next and the next. Until it’s too late in the end: this balloon will burst in your own hands.

People who are afraid of conflict: what is behind this fear?

You could say that withdrawing at the right time can avoid a lot of conflict. We all know this and we have all put it into practice because we have seen this strategy generally produce good results. Well, employing this withdrawal strategy all the time is not an appropriate answer to all circumstances. It is just not when injustices arise and we should defend ourselves, set limits and react in other ways. The constant use of this avoidance strategy will take us step by step to install ourselves in a circle of suffering, behind a high barrier, which is not healthy. 

Almost without realizing it, we will end up accepting situations that we are not allowed to accept. We give power over us to others and allow our personal boundaries to dissolve like sugar in a coffee cup. People who fear conflict also fill family doctor offices because of one more than obvious fact: their frustration turns into physical problems like muscle aches, digestive problems, and cold sores.

If we now ask ourselves what is behind this fear of conflict, one can say that it is not always easy to create a profile in this regard that would be of use to each individual. However, let’s now see some features that are quite common.

• They are people who lack authentic emotional intelligence. They do not recognize their own emotions, they choose to hide them, they have no assertiveness, poorly developed social skills.

• They fear endangering connection or relationship with other people if they express their thoughts and emotions in an authentic way. They also associate honesty with danger, with the possibility of losing someone.
• They worry extremely about the social image they show of themselves: they don’t want to make mistakes, they don’t want to create disagreements.
• When there is a conflict, don’t always avoid it. On many occasions , they choose the most innocuous outcome : give up or take the blame in order to restore harmony.
• They act on a role model that focuses on getting along well with everyone.

It is necessary to change our attitude towards conflict

It is enough to say the word “conflict” out loud that in the shortest possible time we can imagine a battlefield, a scenario in which words serve as weapons, where differences of opinion become insults, where differences create an insurmountable distance over which we can move lose everything in the end. It is necessary to initiate a turnaround, to change the chip, to gain a new perspective on this idea. 

People who are afraid of conflict need to understand different things. First, that these situations can bring us very positive dimensions. Eliminating discrepancies affects our identity and self-esteem, and it also purifies our relationships and the social contexts in which we move on a daily basis. Let’s keep in mind that conflicts can arise almost anywhere: in line at the supermarket, with our partner, with the children, with a work colleague …

Retreating into passivity or flight removes us even further from our social role. Therefore , we need to know how to talk to one another and how to come to an agreement, how to solve problems, how to negotiate and also how to satisfy our own needs and strengthen our identity. There is nothing bad in doing this; however, it requires work, perseverance, and adequate training in our social skills, emotional management, and self-awareness.

Let’s stop running from ourselves and let’s face life so that we can achieve well-being.