Some answers from Doug Noll
What is conscious peacemaking?
Conscious peacemaking is what conflict resolution is all about. In my view, all conflict is caused by unconsciousness. The reason for this is because our brains default to a fear response system when we encounter something that puts us in the conflict. Unless we consciously choose to make peace, we will end up fighting.
In addition, all mediation processes involve moving people from an unconscious state to a conscious state. What I mean by this is that when people are in conflict they are oftentimes unaware of other perspectives and other information. Because they are unconscious about this, they make assumptions and evaluations that are based on incomplete information. One of the things we do in mediation is to expand the amount of information that people have to work with. As we do that, their consciousness expands and the ability to look at the dispute from a broader perspective occurs. Thus, moving from conflict to peace is a process of expansion of consciousness.
Finally, conflict always involves uncomfortable emotions. Fear, anger, anxiety, frustration, and hostility are normal feelings experienced in conflict. Shifting from conflict to peace can be an exercise in gaining higher consciousness as people learn to be present in the moment with what they are feeling. When conflict feelings are ignored or repressed, the opportunity for a higher consciousness is lost. However, those feelings have not disappeared. They will reappear in another conflict and present a new opportunity for growth. Conflict feelings will continue to arise until they are confronted, acknowledged, and accepted. At that moment, they will disappear and leave space for the next, deeper layer of emotions to surface and be released. This growth process is what it means to be human. Conflict is an essential part of that growth.
How does somebody become conscious?
In the context of conflict resolution and peacemaking, consciousness occurs at two levels. The first level is inner consciousness. That is, we become aware of our internal states and make conscious choices regardless of what the states are. For example, if I am feeling anxiety, and I am unconscious about it, I will probably be unconsciously reactive in a conflict. My anxiety will cause me to either run or fight. If I unconscious however I will be aware of my anxiety and I will be able to acknowledge it. Without resisting the anxiety and by simply sitting with the anxiety, it will slowly dissipate and go away. I thus have made a choice to be conscious of my anxiety, which allows me to choose a peaceful means of resolving this the dispute rather than running from it or fighting it.
Why is conflict good?
Conflict is good because it tells us that there is something that needs to be changed. In addition, conflict pushes us to be innovative, changing things that need improvement for the better. The problem with conflict is how we approach it. If we approach conflict from an unconscious perspective, too easily conflict can become destructive. The fear response system in our brains, if left in default mode, will compel us to freeze, flee, or fight. This can be very destructive because as people fight each other, obvious great damage can occur. On the other hand, conflict can be very constructive if people are conscious about it. If people realize that there is a conflict between them, and they consciously choose a peaceful process, they can then choose a number of different tools to assist them in finding a new, improved solution to an existing problem. In those cases, the lives of everybody will be much better. However, the key is being conscious about the conflict. Unconscious conflict is destructive; conscious conflict is constructive.
How do I get myself out of fight or flight?
Your fear response system is triggered by something in physical or emotional environment. Sometimes you will be aware of what that trigger is, but most of the time you will not. When you feel conflict emotions, such as anxiety, fear, aggression, or anger, you will note that you have been triggered. The problem is that as soon as your brain starts to generate these feelings, it looks for a cause. You will unconsciously blame or attribute cause to the nearest likely object. Typically, that is another human being near to you. Again, because your fear response system is completely unconscious, you will begin reacting against this person without conscious thought by accusing, planning, running, avoiding, or engaging in some other nonproductive conflict behavior.
In the short term, the best way to get out of this cycle, is to change your environment immediately. This means taking a walk, looking at a peaceful picture, listing the peaceful music, smelling a beautiful aromas such as lavender or rose and otherwise removing triggers from your sensory environment. In the longer term, great success is found by reprogramming your brain through internal practices such as meditation. There are some good biofeedback tools such as developed at the HeartMath Institute and Wild Divine. I use these while I am working at my computer to practice heart coherence while multi-taskng. In addition physical exercise such is yoga and tai chi can help you desensitize your fear response system. You can learn to generate a compassion response instead of a conflict response. This of course takes practice and time, but over a few months yields enormous benefits.