Critical Carefrontation:

By Daniel Zopoula | November 5, 2011 |

Critical Carefrontation:

Self-management Practices

  • Desiring to be at peace with people is a good thing
  • Use conflict as an opportunity to serve others
  • Encourage good practice by personal example
  • Deal only with issues that are too important to overlook
  • Overlook minor offenses
  • Guard your attitude from negative thinking

Helpful conflict management thinking

  • “It is my intention to provoke your thinking.”
  • “It is not my intention to offend you.”
  • “People decide to be offended.”
  • “Please decide not to be offended.”
  • People are responsible to be gentle
  • People are responsible to be forthright
  • People are responsible to challenge ideas
  • People are responsible to detach their self worth from their ideas.

From the “Critical Confrontation” Principles

  • Start with Heart. The clearer you are on goals, the less you’re controlled by fears.
  • Learn to Look. What you see is what you get.
  • Make it Safe. Defensiveness is not a sign of too much candor, but too little safety.
  • Master my Stories. To take control of your emotions, take control of your stories.
  • STATE my Path. How to be persuasive without being abrasive or evasive. Work to say things in the most acceptable way possible.
  • Explore others’ Path. When you learn to do this you have a responsibility to increase the pool of shared meaning…
  • Move to Action. How you end a crucial conversation is as important as how you begin it. At the beginning you need safety, at the end closure. Tricky parts are beginning and end.

Why does it help to stop and examine your motives?

  • Because the motive you can’t see controls you.
  • Because you aren’t that good an actor.
  • Because if you can see it you can change it.
  • Because questions provoke the brain.


Posted in Emotional Life, Mental Life, More Life, News Feed, Podcast, Spiritual Life

About Daniel Zopoula

Daniel is a is a provocative leader in Christian Practice. A long-distance runner in the struggle for justice, Daniel's journey is rooted in a rich African tradition of soulcraft that put a premium on Ancestor appreciation, gentle embrace of others, cultural manners and social justice. Though deeply wounded and perennially scarred by the traumatic circumstances that paved the realities of his upbringings, Daniel emerged with great dignity, decency and integrity, love, courage and humour; choosing social advocacy rather than a life of blind avarice and personal subservience. The sum realities of pervasive terror, chronic trauma and vicious stigma that was shot through the "soul-making" of young Daniel yielded his true passion to profoundly influence, lead and inspire people from all walks of life into positive change and bearing witness to love and justice. Daniel's story is a tale of a man courageous enough to be fully human, living and loving out loud: "When your life doesn't belong to you, survival is not required," he says. Daniel writes and speaks internationally on Christian Practice, Spiritual & Emotional Leadership, Inspiration, Personal & Organizational health, Family Systems, Trauma, and Emotional Wellness. Daniel is a personal growth, and spiritual health consultant; a Life Coach, Spiritual Adviser, Author, Speaker, Activist.

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