You will have more harmonious relationships and increase the likelihood of resolving the conflicts in your life if you will simply eliminate from your vocabulary the words "or" and "but" and replace them with "and."

I was first alerted to the importance of eliminating "or" by my friend and colleague Michael Nees who pointed out that we live in an "and" world but pretend it's an "or" one. Consider:

Republicans or Democrats.

Liberals or conservatives.

Pro life or pro choice.

For or against health care reform

Behavior is right or wrong, good or bad.

Those who believe that the world really is one way or the other see everything as black or white and live in a take it or leave it world. These are people for whom every conflict is life or death and, in the extreme, may start a war, fly planes into buildings or bomb churches (I recommend you see Spike Lee's riveting documentary "Four Little Girls" about the bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama church in 1963 in which four black children were killed).

In less extreme situations, any conflict that is not resolved persists because one or both parties to the conflict insist that there is a right way or a wrong way to resolve it and they cling to this belief.

There isn't a right way or a wrong way; there are just ways to resolve conflict and they are numerous if one will simply give up the fiction that one way or the other is right. All ways contain both right and wrong. Conflicts will be resolved when people accept that the best solutions blend black and white into gray (insert

"Ebony and Ivory" by Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney).

The word but can be equally detrimental. As with the word or, conflicts persist because one person states a position and the other one "buts" him or her with some variation of the phrase, "I hear you, but you're wrong and here's why," causing the first person to think he/she hasn't been heard at all and must explain himself/herself again which causes the second person to "rebut" which causes%u2026well, you get the point.

So if this resonates with you, begin with a relationship you'd like to improve. When you're speaking with that person, just notice how many times you use "or" and "but." You might even make a game of it by saying (to yourself) "That's one. That's two."

Then, once your awareness has heightened, commit to eliminating these words from your conversation.

And see what happens in that relationship.

QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? LJBARKAN@THEPIVOTALFACTOR.COM

Permission to reproduce is granted as long as the following citation is included:

Reprinted by permission of the author, Larry Barkan: http://www.conflictresolutiontraining.net