For over a year, I have participated in group therapy at my university's Counseling and Psychological Services center. It's free therapy, and I am a huge fan of free therapy.
If there's one common theme in most therapy groups, it's this: People HATE conflict. They will do almost anything to avoid it. I certainly count myself as a participant in the conflict avoidance group.
However, during today's meeting, I found myself in a heated discussion with one of my fellow group participants. The subject was actually about group therapy. Long story short, I was telling her the realities of group therapy (such as people not participating, dropping out, not being consistent, etc.). She thought I was attacking her.
I VERY easily could have stopped and said, "You're right, I'm sorry," or something similar that would afford me the opportunity of ending this conflict-fest. Instead, I pushed through it. I stood my ground. When she started blaming me for the fact that she would now leave group in a bad mood, I said, "I'm not responsible for your mood. You can't blame that on me."
And you know what happened? Eventually she realized that I WASN'T attacking her. And a good group discussion emerged as a result.
For one who tends to avoid conflict, I would say that I handled the situation very well :-)
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