Hey, Reader

I’ve been writing this piece for a long time. I thought I was going to send it out before the summer. But it’s since completely transformed.

Conflict is close to my heart because I was raised in a high-conflict system, some quite dysfunctional. I’ve also been bullied (mentally and physically) in school. I’ve not learned how to solve conflicts constructively. The two predominant patterns in the culture around me that I’ve internalised have been sweeping under the carpet, or manipulation, aggression and power-over.

So, it’s been so damn difficult for me to be in conflict - for many years. Internalising the strategies of my immediate surroundings led to two parts that get activated in conflict: my inner pleaser, who is desperately trying to stay out of heated situations, and for many years, my nervous system couldn’t cope, especially with open aggression. 🫣

Paradoxically, the other part of me is fiery and uses disproportionate aggression to protect me from danger. 🐲 And so, I danced with these two parts activated whenever conflict happened and couldn’t find a third way. It’s held me back in my relationships, especially as a leader. Through a lot of trauma healing, nervous system work, and coaching training, I developed my capacity to “sit in the fire” and not absorb the energy but catalyse it instead.

Between my last newsletter and now, I’ve witnessed tension, conflict, and rupture in the world and some of my immediate relationship systems. I’ve been listening and processing that with humility and patience, caring for my tender parts. I have wanted to write about this for so long because I believe that learning to sit in the fire (of conflict) is one of the most essential relational skills, especially for leaders. Learning how to do it has helped me recalibrate my existing relationships and start new ones with greater awareness and intention. I hope it supports you, too. And, it's a long one, so you can also just take it one section at a time.

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The theories woven into this

This piece started as a homage to one of the teachers I’ve had around conflict: Arnold Mindell, who sadly passed away on June 10th. He was a physicist and founded Process-oriented Psychology, also known as Process Work, based on Jungian psychology and influenced by Taoism, shamanism, and physics. Much of his work is an integral part of the ORSC (Organization and Relationship Systems Coaching) that I’m certified through - and it’s been hugely important to my understanding of myself, my relationships and the world. I can highly recommend his book Sitting in the fire: Large Group Transformation Using Conflict and Diversity if you want to know more.

Also, over the last few years, I’ve been integrating the regenerative way of seeing the world and living into all aspects of my life, including work, based on, among other things, Regenerators Academy and the surrounding community of practitioners as a living example of a new way of being in the world. All this has consequently been transformative for many of the leaders I coach, their teams and their lives. That’s the beauty of seeing our human system as a network of interconnected nodes, all holding together a web of life in an interdependent whole. So, a ripple in one part of the system inevitably spreads through the web, good or bad.

When I work with teams, I like to illustrate this interconnectedness and interdependence by doing a string exercise. The team gets to weave the web of relationships in this spatial constellation. We then place a burden on the web to explore how the team reacts when there is pressure. We investigate which roles they take and which stories are present. When I invite a few people to let go of the web, the pressure is immediately redistributed to the rest of the team, increasing the burden on the remaining members. Sometimes, if the pressure is high, things break, or the web doesn’t hold.

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If we extrapolate this to the webs of connections outside of the team, out into the organisations and partnerships outside, our families, communities, society, and the ecosystem as a whole, we can start seeing how pressure in any part of our system (let’s stay with human for now) is felt like ripples through the entire web. So, the global conflicts we are experiencing right now are not “over there” - the ripples are also here. And two of those ripples found their way into my life. One in my personal relationships and one in a community I am part of.

Tension and conflict are inevitable as we come together across cultures and gather with different world views, life experiences, and values. They are a natural part of the process. But how we handle it might be different. Conflict is still unwanted in many cultures and organisations, especially when heated, and leaders often fear handling it. Much of it stems from viewing conflict as something to be minimised and avoided at all costs because we never learned how to do it.

Learning how to do it and developing the capacity to be with the here is at the core of Arnold Mindell’s work, ORSC and regenerative leadership. I hope the intersection of these approaches can help you understand that conflict is a catalyst for growth and an invitation to deepen your relationships - also through conflict.

To start with, we need to view conflict from a different perspective.

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Looking at conflict from a living systems perspective

In the intersection of Process Work, ORSC and Regenerative Leadership, conflict is understood as an inherent part of any relationship. Conflict dynamics and patterns don’t belong to any one person involved but to the relationship itself. And since our relationships are alive, so are the patterns and dynamics, constantly moving and shifting. They are present in both the individuals and the space between them, the relational space. When conflict appears, and we approach it with curiosity, it can offer us a path to exploring new relational landscapes - like travelling to a new place, even if it’s uncomfortable and unfamiliar.

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Shifting from fixing to facilitating emergence

In this way, we can see conflict as a signal of change, as something new trying to emerge in this relationship, something that the relationship unknowingly needs but is not yet aware of. Conflict is an invitation to tap into the "wisdom of the system"—the collective intelligence - to explore what is alive in the system and what is trying to emerge. This process can help us surface unspoken truths and deeper needs within the team or organisation.

So, the emergence of a conflict invites us to rethink our assumptions, challenge existing stories, beliefs and patterns, and explore alternative approaches that may not have been visible before. And when we see something we haven’t seen before, we can consciously decide to be and act differently. In this way, conflict is not only a part of the process but is THE WAY to creativity and innovation. When we shy away from conflict, we are saying no to creative and innovation potential. And isn’t this something we constantly strive for in our teams, organisations, and society?

So, it’s time to abandon the traditional leadership paradigm, in which conflict is still seen as a problem to be solved, something that needs fixing or resolving.

Instead, we can see it as a catalyst for deepening our relationships, as a helper trying to help us collectively evolve into something better.

Here is a definition of conflict which is always with me:

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Leaning into the diversity of perspectives

This shift in perspective consequently requires leaders to step out of their “expert with all answers” role and step into a facilitator or space-holder role. It means giving up the single truth story and leaning into the diversity of voices. In ORSC, this is a fundamental tenet of our coaching stance: all voices belong to the system and need to be heard in order for the system to see itself and be able to transform.

To really live this, we must collectively cultivate respect, safety, connection, curiosity, diversity, humility, and many other qualities. We must give up the polarity of right and wrong. Insisting that we are right and the other person (or people) wrong is a special kind of violence. I like what a fellow coach, Fernando Lopez, said about this: “Violence consists of any verbal strategy that attempts to convince, control or compel others to accept your point of view.” This is so prevalent in our current culture and, for example, in political debates, where the whole situation becomes an insane circus-like spectacle of throwing accusations towards the other person, dismantling their arguments, power-over moves, making them look bad, belittling, name calling and all the rest. No wonder the whole world is on fire if our top political leaders are role-modelling this on national TV, and it spreads on social media.

To dismantle this, rather than focusing on who is “right” or “wrong,” we put the topic in the middle and understand that each person only holds one part of a larger truth. Only when we bring all the perspectives together can we gain a 360-degree view of the thing in the middle, and even then, it is not always completely clear. When the thing is in the middle, we are collectively responsible for it, stewarding and caring for it together. In ORSC, we have an excellent principle for working with diverse perspectives called The 2% truth.

When listening to different perspectives, especially the ones we might find challenging, we ask, “What is the 2% truth in this perspective?”

This 2% creates a small opening through which we allow ourselves to be influenced. Keeping this principle in mind, we can share and listen to different perspectives before we can see the whole picture and decide how to proceed as a collective. I’ve written an article for holding Wisdom Seat Sessions on how to do this.

According to The Gottman Institute, which researches relationships, and marriages in particular, the willingness to be influenced is a core tenet of happy marriages. In my experience as a coach, this also applies to all other relationships.

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Increasing awareness by deep listening

If our role as leaders is not to have solutions and “know everything” but to facilitate, the prerequisite is our ability to listen deeply, uncover the underlying patterns, reveal them, and honestly examine the underlying power dynamics and unspoken truths. It requires us to listen into the space between and notice not just the obvious, what is said and done, but also what is not said: the body language, the emotions, and the things not yet named.

The not-yet-named things in conflict are often unmet needs, disappointments, lost dreams, or something that has been forbidden to be talked about. Whatever it may be, it needs attention and compassionate witnessing. If there is enough courage, it might come out, and we need to meet it without judgment. I find it helpful not to be attached or judgemental when calling out the elephants in the room. I literally become the mirror, which is a privilege I have as a coach. It is more complicated if you’re a leader because you also have an organisational agenda.

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Emotions are the door through which to enter

Emotions are often viewed as problematic in conflict, especially in conflict-averse cultures. For example, it’s much more socially acceptable in southern Europe and countries around the Mediterranean to raise your voice and wave with your hands. That does not fly well in Denmark, I can tell you. Losing control of your emotions is seen as uncivilised. Our low tolerance for heat in this environment has created a culture of silence, where it’s not cool to “ødelægge den gode stemning” - ruin the good vibes. I’m sure many other cultures struggle with ruinous team dynamics due to this.

We must get past this because emotions are vital life signals. Anger, frustration, sadness, and all other emotions can indicate deeper systemic needs—such as more connection, fairness, or clarity. By honouring all the emotions, we recognise them as energies that, when worked with consciously, can propel the system toward more awareness, putting it at choice. So, we dive in to understand their intelligence, what they want, and how they can shed light on the situation.

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Mind the connection of inner and outer

As a leader, the inner parts and emotions you can’t be with are those you will not be able to meet in the group. For example, my anger was not welcome in my family of origin, so whenever it flared up, I was made wrong, violent, and cruel and shamed for it. I didn’t know how to deal with it, so eventually, it found illegitimate outlets (a story about my inner rebel for another day). It was not appropriate for me to be angry.

And consequently, I couldn’t deal with other people’s aggression for years. It triggered the hell out of me. It made me a less effective leader. Things only started shifting once I took ownership of it, once my anger was allowed to be expressed in healthy ways. Interestingly, in many of my one-on-one coaching relationships, leaders are learning to accept their anger, which they also previously were not allowed to. Witnessing it when it comes out is so powerful, and it’s usually closely followed by a significant shift in their energetic field and a new way to be in their body.

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Listening to the relationship

There is one additional voice to be included when doing group work - one that actually does have a complete view of what is going on in a relationship. And that it is the voice of the relationship itself, a so-called Third Entity. Or, as David Weinberger, an American author and technologist, says: “The smartest person in the room is the room.”

We can access the Third Entity by giving it a voice, metaphor, or mascot. Or a seat at the table, where you can use an empty chair. Then, we can use it to consider the needs of the relationship. In a group, we can take turns sitting in that chair or holding the mascot and ask ourselves:

• What needs to be voiced, understood and shifted in this relationship?
• What does the relationship know about this conflict?
• What does the relationship need from everyone involved?

In this way, we can move away from polarising discussions and choose to treat the relationship as a living system that must be nurtured.

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Back to my stories

So, to come back to the tension in my relationships.

In one, the community got together to hold space for the hurt. We shared the way the situation impacted us personally, we shared our emotions, we suspended our judgment and righteousness, and we brought in intellectual humility. We acknowledged our privilege for those of us who are far removed from the hotspot and also acknowledged our responsibility to hold people more impacted by the hotspot rather than adding to the emotional burden by intellectualising and being overwhelmed. We acknowledged the need to revisit our relational agreement. It felt like a healing space just to hold each other and choose to stay in the relationship.

And, the one with a person really close to me, as we were talking about something where we see things in opposite ways, despite my desire not to go into the discussion (based on previous experience), they got more and more aggressive, trying to tell me how wrong I was in my perspective, shouting and increasing tension. I could feel my palms get sweaty, my heartbeat rise, and I could feel myself tapping out; I couldn’t hear the words anymore. Because this had always been the pattern in this relationship, I warned three times that if they didn’t stop shouting, I would exit the conversation. When nothing changed, I did. I sent a follow-up message saying I didn’t have the energy for this level of aggression.

I wish I could continue to hold space for the anger and frustration, but over time, I’ve learned that things can only change when both people are willing to be influenced. And, here, I wasn’t the coach, I was one of the people impacted by the hotspot. As the old adage goes, “You can be right, or you can be in a relationship.” I chose the relationship. I will continue choosing this relationship, and to do that, a firm boundary on my side is needed—and in place. And, maybe someday, we will be ready to emerge something new from this. It’s just not right now.

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What's next?

I would like to wrap up this piece by telling you that in August, a Zoom memorial was organised for Arnold Mindell by his wife, Amy. More than 800 people were present, from all different places of the world, with one thing in common: we all worked as coaches, therapists and facilitators - each in our own way contributing to weaving a network of strong relationships - and the courage to imagine new possibilities for us humans. Arnold’s spirit was with us as we held Amy in her grief, and he was urging us along with his curiosity and playfulness.

May he live on Beyond, knowing that so many of us are continuing his work and sharing it with more and more people. And I’ll leave you with his words:

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Over to Us.

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In fiery love,

Martina ❤️‍🔥

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Curious poke What is your relationship to conflict? What are your conflict patterns, and which part of you is activated in conflict? Which part of the conflict feels most challenging for you to engage with, and what might that reveal about your own inner landscape? What is the nature of Third Entity of this relationship - your team, family or community?

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I am a fellow creative leader, a certified Co-Active coach and a strategic designer. I bring 20 years of experience and expertise in digital innovation, experience design, leadership and education.

I help stressed creative team leaders reclaim their creative confidence and self-belief to shape cultures and work that matters (and have fun with it again). Together, we create new possible futures. ☀️

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