Ed. Note: The following is a KHTS Feature story based on a recent radio interview with Alex Urbina

If you find yourself continually avoiding conflict in your personal or professional life, have you ever asked yourself what it is that you’re afraid of? Simply being conscious of this question can be the first step toward overcoming your fear of confrontation, according to Santa Clarita life coach Alex Urbina.

“If you have a fear of confrontation and you’re labeling it confrontation, you’ve already decided that it’s a negative thing,” Urbina said on the latest “My Conscious Dad” show on KHTS AM-1220. “If you switch out the word from ‘confrontation’ to ‘I’m going to address an issue,’ by relabeling it or renaming it, you’ve given it a new meaning.”

Santa Clarita Life Coach Alex Urbina

For example, if you’re planning to “confront” your colleague about a work-related problem, instead of preparing yourself for a confrontation, choose to look at it as an opportunity to discuss and resolve the issue.

“When you’re using the word ‘confrontation,’ you’re already acting as though you’re going to get the push-back; you’re already almost pre-determining the outcome,” Urbina explained. “The way that you describe it already sets the tone.”  

Related: Discovering Your Purpose With Santa Clarita Life Coach Alex Urbina

The next step is to make the conscious decision to separate yourself from the issue so you can look at it from a neutral perspective instead of taking what’s said personally.

“It’s not a part of me, it’s separate than me,” Urbina said. “The issue is the issue– I’m me.”

Perhaps the most important thing to consider when addressing an issue is the way you offer it to the other person.

Instead of accusing them of making you feel a certain way– which often triggers a defensive reaction –Urbina recommends you take responsibility for your own feelings by presenting it as your interpretation of whatever it is they’re putting out there.

“By me now taking that responsibility, I’ve taken it off of pointing the finger at you and blaming you for ‘making’ me feel like that,” he said, noting that people often don’t realize the unintentional effects their words or actions have on others.

The bottom line in overcoming your fear of confrontation is taking responsibility for the way that you communicate and interpret things,  according to Urbina.

If you can recognize that you’re the “meaning maker” to everything in your life, than you can work on changing the way that you perceive the words and actions of other people– and not allow things to stress you out, make you angry or hurt your feelings.

“That’s what mastery is about,” Urbina said. “Personal mastery is about you learning that you have the ability to perceive it a different way rather than the one or two ways that you’ve been used to doing it.”

KHTS Feature Story

Santa Clarita life coach Alex Urbina is one of the leading experts on teen, parent and family relationships. Specializing in personal transformation, Urbina has 20 years of experience as a life coach in Santa Clarita. His Life Leadership Training programs are being implemented in schools, youth organizations and transformational centers across the country, helping empower people to realize their full potential. “My Conscious Dad”, hosted by Urbina and his daughter, Jazmine Urbina, helps listeners consider new possibilities they couldn’t see before. The show airs on Fridays at 1 p.m. on KHTS AM-1220.