Coaching practices for The Examined Life During Conflict

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For The Examined Life During Conflict, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• There’s a "this is just how it’s done" rule everyone in my world treats as gospel
• I’m living by a whole set of rules about how life should go, and it’s started to dawn on me that I never actually chose most of them
• The second things get tense I snap into the same move every time without choosing it
• I came in hard because the situation called for it, but partway through the urgent part got settled and the other person clearly just needed to feel heard
• Every time this conflict flares my mind races to how they’re at fault, and I keep noticing I never once turn the question around to my own expectations and reactions

Practices that may help

1. The Examined Life
   Socrates’ claim that "the unexamined life is not worth living" (Apology, 38a) means that a life lived without sustained reflection on one’s values, beliefs, and actions is a kind of sleepwalking. The Socratic method — elenchus — is a specific form of examination: honest questioning that surfaces inconsistencies and untested assumptions. As a practice, it overlaps with metacognition and reflective practice, which have genuine evidence bases, though Socrates’ philosophical claim is stronger than any psychological finding.
2. Question what everyone takes for granted
   Choose one widely shared assumption — in your field, your culture, or your circle — and examine it honestly.
   The Examined Life
3. Conduct a regular examined-life audit
   Periodically ask: which of the beliefs I am living by have I actually examined, and which am I just inheriting?
   The Socratic Method, Made Practical
4. Identify your default conflict mode
   Before you can choose a mode, you have to know which one you use automatically.
   The Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI)
5. Recognize when to shift modes mid-conflict
   The mode that’s right at the start of a conversation may not be right ten minutes in.
   The Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI)
6. Drive all blames into one
   When conflict arises, examine how self-grasping is the root, rather than blaming the other person.
   Lojong: Tibetan Mind Training
7. Transform the relationship, not just the issue
   Use each conflict as an opportunity to raise the quality of the relationship itself.
   The Third Alternative, Made Practical
8. Domain 1 — Deeper relationships
   Adversity can reveal who truly shows up and deepen the capacity for closeness and compassion.
   Post-Traumatic Growth, Made Practical
9. Construct a lifeline
   Lay out your entire life chronologically using symbolic markers — stones for traumatic events, flowers for positive ones.
   Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET): Weaving Trauma Into a Coherent Life Story
10. Let adversity reorder your priorities
    Use the clarity that hardship brings to permanently re-rank what actually matters to you.
    Benefit-Finding: Locating Meaning and Growth in Adversity

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.