Conflict Filters

Here's a picture of a water filter:

Pretty fancy, huh?

You're probably wondering what that has to do with being in a group. 

The answer is: A LOT

Imagine you're a water pitcher. 

I would probably look a lot like this. 

The water that goes in is my every day events, and what comes out is how I interact with other people. This could be in little things, like how I talk to the person who makes my smoothie in the morning and how I react when I meet people for the first time, or larger things like how I work with others in groups. 

But, you'll notice that there is something that changes the water that goes in (the events) and makes it different when it comes out (the interactions). 

It's a filter, and like a water pitcher, every person has one. 

But our filters aren't made of out plastic - they're made up of all the experiences we've had growing up. Because of this, every person has a different filter and a different type of reaction to external events like conflict. 

Here's an example of what my filters look like.

These filters affect everything about how I interact with people, and knowing that they exist helps me to know why I react to conflict in certain ways. For example, I know that being a middle child made feel the need to prove my opinions were better than everyone and that being an athlete made me always want to win. The combination of these two filters have made me very competitive when it comes to conflict.

Basically anything that makes a large impact on our lives can be a filter, and affect how we deal with conflict.

So now the question is, 

What are your filters? 

Comment below!