S1 - E5: Overcoming Internal Conflicts

Overcoming internal conflict

An internal conflict is something that happens when you have two coexisting, but conflicting, wants, desires, thoughts or views on something.

An internal conflict develops a feeling of being “stuck,” or as though there is no way to achieve “victory” in that situation. However, internal conflict is typically a misunderstanding of your needs, and can usually easily be resolved.

When you’re struggling with something outside of you, you are in an external conflict. When you’re struggling with something within you, you are in an internal conflict.

So many things will bring about internal conflict that many people don’t even realize.

Procrastination is an internal conflict. As is not being able and willing to commit to something. A lot of subconscious self-sabotage occurs because of different coexisting, but contradictory, needs or desires.

Being in an internal conflict can be one of the most stressful and devastating feelings in life, even worse than being in an external conflict. This is because in an external conflict, you either “win” or you “lose,” and have no choice but to accept the outcome. However, when you’re struggling with an internal conflict, it feels as though there’s no right way to resolve it, because regardless of what you do, you’re going to lose somehow. Additionally, internal conflicts tend to be continuous and ongoing, whereas external conflicts are much more quickly resolved.

Here are 8 different types of internal conflicts, each addressing a different parts of our most profound emotional experiences.

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1. Moral Conflict

Moral conflict is when we have contradictory beliefs about ethical behaviors. This happens when you feel as if you have to choose between two different behaviors that are equal but opposing goods.

Here’s an example that I came across online on The Republic: say you had a friend from whom you borrowed a knife. You knew that this person was not in a healthy state of mind, and are trying to decide whether or not to give it back. On one hand, you are stealing, but on the other, you could be potentially preventing someone getting hurt.

2. Sexual Conflict

Sexual conflict typically occurs when people hold an opposing desire and belief about sexuality. For example, someone could want to have sex with their significant other before they are married, but due to religious reasons believe it is a sin.

Another example could be someone who has been taught to believe that monogamous relationships are the only ones that are morally correct, and yet find themselves better suited for polygamy.

3. Religious Conflict

Religious conflict happens when you aren’t able to reconcile certain teachings about your faith. For example, a common religious conflict is wanting to believe in an all-loving God, but not understanding why terrible and unfair things happen in the world if such a god is indeed guiding and influencing our lives.

Another example could be that once someone is presented with research or facts and evidence that negates a religious teaching (such as, the case of evolution) and yet they feel torn about whether or not to adhere their beliefs to what they understand is factual, as they were taught that there is a mystical explanation.

4. Political Conflict

Political conflict happens when someone feels as if they cannot completely agree with everything that their political party stands for, or when they struggle to decide what the best and most moral course of action would be on any given policy.

A political conflict occurs when your values don’t align with the political party you identify as or within the society you live in. It is especially prevalent if your beliefs aren’t the same as those you are closest with, like your family or friends. When this happens, it can lead to a lot of internal turmoil, as well as self isolation.

5. Love Conflict

Love is a common emotion that cause people experience internal conflicts. They can find themselves in love with someone, yet not wanting to commit to being in a relationship with that person. Or, they can be in a happy relationship, but take out their anger on their partner, whom they are supposed to love and care for.

Romantic relationships have a way of making people more vulnerable and sensitive than they ever have been before. This can lead to emotions of fear and resistance, which creates these tense emotions between loved ones.

6. Self-Image Conflict

Self-image conflict occurs when we behave in a way that is not in alignment with who we believe ourselves to be. We can pride ourselves in being a nice person, but as soon as someone threatens or upsets us, we don’t hesitate to speak bad about them behind their backs, or say mean and unkind things to them. That reaction is clearly cruel, but we revert back to our nice self-image and disregard the contradictory behavior.

On the other hand, self-image conflict can be physical, someone may want to feel that they are good enough and comfortable with the way they look, but has trouble truly accepting themselves, and desperately wishing to be more beautiful, attractive, more athletic or just something other than how they currently look.

7. Interpersonal Conflict

Interpersonal conflict can be influenced by external conflict, but it’s a little more to it than that. Interpersonal conflict is what happens when we feel forced to behave in a way that is not in alignment with how we really think or feel inside, in order to portray a positive image and relationship with a certain person.

Perhaps we really dislike our boss, yet we have to be kind to that person because our job depends on it. Or, we may dislike drinking, but go to bars and clubs regularly because thats what others do as the norm.

8. Existential Conflict

Existential conflict relates to an existential crisis, where someone may find themselves feeling completely torn and confused about the “important questions” in life. Someone with an existential conflict can at one moment believe that life is about enjoying each day and living it as it is their last, yet at the same time, one must prepare for things to come in order to ensure that life in the future is positive.

Now that we have an understanding of the different types of conflicts that exist, let’s talk about why they happen so we can take actions to prevent them from happening in the future. Let’s talk about some of the reasons these internal conflicts develop.

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Resistance

Resistance is the mindset of knowing you want or need, and then subconsciously holding yourself back from completely enjoying or beginning that thing. Resistance is actually an emotional self-defense mechanism. When you identify something that you really love or want, you realize that the pursuit of it will make you vulnerable. Resistance is your body’s response of slowing down, and making sure that it’s safe to get attached to whatever that thing is.

internal conflicts are essentially a misalignment between your wants and needs. Resistance is almost always the main reason in why that occurs: you want to do something, and yet you’re also holding yourself back at the same time, without realizing or understanding why.

The reason why could be a lot of things: prior beliefs you have, fears you’re unconscious of,  even feeling intimidated and assuming what your family or friends may think. Either way, resistance is a big part of internal conflict, and occurs when our thoughts, actions and beliefs are not completely aligned.

Attachment

Many of our troubles stem from becoming attached to things that we see as permanent, but actually aren’t.

In every scenario in life, there’s something that we want or need to choose or do, as well as a deep, prior attachment that is preventing us from easily making the choice.

attachment could be old belief, or fear of rejection from family and friends. In other cases, the attachment is to staying “safe” within the confines of what we know, or anything else that makes us feel secure about what’s going to happen.

To overcome internal conflict, we have to make that difficult choice. We must become aligned with who we are, what our wants and needs happen to be, and what we’re going to make as our personal priorities. Overcoming our internal struggles is a matter of understanding ourselves better, and living with a deeper alignment of who we really are. This requires three things that are usually missing whenever someone is in a state of internal conflict:

Let’s start with:

Lack of vision

What is your vision of how your life should be? What morals do you want to live by?

If you don’t have any long-term goals outlined, even in the most vague idea, you are going to be stuck feeling lost in your life, easily torn as well as influenced by people around you. You must evaluate what it is you truly want to do, what you truly want to feel and experience, and who you want to feel and experience everything with.

For some people, understanding the vision for their life is a different source of internal conflict, it brings up a blend of ideas and thoughts that you may want to have in life. What’s important to always remember: you are allowed to want different things. You are allowed to want a lot of things. What matters however is that you have the understanding and actuality of it all well-defined.

Sometimes this is called reverse engineering.

It is said that the way to achieve the life you want is not to start with behaving in the according manner and then attempting to turn them into what you want to achieve; but start at the mindset that you’ve achieved it already, and then break down what you would need to do each day, week, month, year, etc to maintain it and progress.

So, Internal Conflict, regardless of what type,

Starts with a vision!

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Lack of clarity

If you have a lack of clarity, not knowing your personal values, priorities and what you truly want for themselves in the present time. This indecisiveness is simply a lack of clarity.

Clarity is understanding where your values and priorities align. It is knowing how you want to live your life each day. It is having a deep and intuitive understanding of who you really are and what you believe you are here to accomplish throughout your life.

Coming through to these conclusions is not a simple task, which is why very few people can. It requires a lot of self-reflection, as well as the willingness to be honest with yourself.

Journal, think, make lists, reflect, ask friends for their advice. Start to figure out the things you do and don’t respond and react to, what makes you passionate versus what bores you, what you care about and what you don’t.

You only have one life to live, so your clarity should tell you what is worth spending time on.

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Lack of self-knowing

Lastly, a lack of knowing yourself  contributes to internal conflict. When you are unsure who you are, you don’t know what you believe, or how to behave.

This is what happens in the case of sexual conflict, for example. If you are unclear about your orientation, you are going to live your life in a grey area between wanting to explore and thinking you can’t.

Another example, if you are unclear about if you’re in control of your life or not, you might have an intense religious conflict because you both recognize that reality itself can’t always be explained in an earthly way, but if you are afraid that you can’t handle your personal existence, you will be deeply attached to believing in a personal god.

The point is that you have to truly know yourself first before you are able to understand what you want, what you believe, and what you feel you are here to do. You have to question things about what you like vs. what you don’t, or what you care about vs. what you don’t, things you want to experience vs. that you don’t.

Everyone is always evolving and progressing so, having an understanding of who you are within is essential to defeating internal conflict. When you realize and accept your personal truth, you can act on that truth, and create a life based on who you truly are deep within.

Remember to subscribe and follow to Be truly you on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast, and check out my website and blog at www.timleviton.com

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