How to Deal with Inner Conflicts to Achieve the Outcome You Most Desire

“A certain harmony should be kept between actions and ideas if we want to fully develop the effects they can produce.” ~ François de La Rochefoucauld

Do you struggle with making decisions? Part of you wants to do it, but part of you doesn’t? Emotional experiences throughout life, especially during the early imprint years, results in the creation of “Parts” in your unconscious mind. (I blogged earlier about this in a post about your Shadow Self.) These Parts have their own values and beliefs, and they’re responsible for certain behaviors.

I believe that overwhelming feelings and reactions, as well as, out of control behaviors are the result of these “Parts” feeling conflicted. Internal conflicts occur when two or more “Parts” of a person are at odds about a particular situation and exhibit behaviors that are seemingly incongruous (out of harmony).

The most problematic conflicts occur when the opposing Parts have negative judgments about each other. To resolve this inner conflict, you must identify a common positive intention. It’s important to know what YOUR purpose or desired outcome is.

Sadly, many of your outcomes for career, family, romance, and health may be based on the requests, desires or expectations of others. You may try to please your parents, spouse, teachers, religious leaders, boss and society. Yet these are not your personal outcomes. It’s not really the life you’ve always wanted to live.

As a result, you probably won’t have the energy that propels you forward to make good decisions that help you achieve your highest potential. When you struggle with your outcomes, almost always there’s some hidden inner conflict that needs resolution. You won’t feel fully alive until these inner conflicts are resolved.

Sometimes you may have an internal conflict or incongruence about some aspect of yourself – you feel as if you’re of “two minds” on the issue. These Parts can each appear to have different intentions and can be functioning independently of the other.

Here are some of the conflicts you may be experiencing:

• your job vs. spending time with your family;
• your career vs. your health;
• being entrepreneurial vs. playing it safe;
• freedom vs. settling down with someone special.

An internal conflict is often revealed through the words you use. Phrases such as “on the one hand,” “I feel torn about this,” or “a part of me agrees with you.”

Your behaviors may suggest different attitudes, and these attitudes may vary in different contexts. You may have one set of behaviors at work and a different set at home. Do you ever find yourself saying the following?

• “I really want to stop procrastinating, but Part of me just keeps doing it.”
• “Part of me really likes him, but Part of me is scared.”
• “Part of me wants to go to law school, but another Part wants to travel.”

We often use this language without knowing that it represents a deeper conflict inside.

However, when you take a closer glance, you’ll discover a dozen of sub-personalities inside. Some may disagree quite passionately with each other about who you really are or what you’re capable of being or doing.

Some of your Parts may be brassy and dominant. Others are fully formed, but quiet and waiting to be engaged. Some Parts are distressing. Some are good at hiding.

My personal view is that it’s okay to have Parts, if the Parts are working in a holistic sense. For example, it’s nice to know that I have a creative Part, a compassionate Part, a safety-minded Part, and a wants-to-be-challenged Part. These Parts express different aspects of my nature that I’m able to access when I need specific assistance. When my Parts learn to cooperate with each other, I experience internal peace, harmony and equanimity. So can you.

Parts Integration is a NLP (neuro linguistic programming) technique for internal conflict resolution. NLP is one of the best, if not the best, models for understanding human communication. It has proven techniques to help you address what’s holding you back.  

I’ve been using NLP for years to help my clients excel. Now I’m thinking about developing a NLP training online. Are you interested?  Send me an email and I’ll keep you posted on my progress toward completing the course. I’d love to hear from you.