I’d like to wish all of you the very best of health and happiness for the coming year in this final ConflictMastery™ Quest(ions) blog for 2014.

If you make New Year’s resolutions, won’t you also consider the “conflict resolutions” below?

Warmest regards to you and yours, and may your 2015 be peaceful and wonderful in every way.

Thank you very much to those who gave me new resolution ideas last year. You will find most of them here:

1. This year, I will…

It may be hard to imagine the word conflict being qualified by the adjective “sweet”. Yet, think of the times that goodness comes from reconciling differences that had been having a negative impact on a relationship. Think, too, of the relief experienced after expressing unspoken truths and the outcome of doing so is positive. Think of the importance of finding how we inadvertently contributed to someone's upset and have the chance to make it 'right' . Think of mending the breakdown in our…

I like this story about the expression chancing your arm and thought I would pass it on to you. My colleague Mary Rafferty used it recently when referring to someone taking a risk and I had never heard of it. The phrase’s roots did have risk attached to it and also a peaceful gesture.

The story goes that “In 1492 two Irish families, the Butlers of Ormonde and the FitzGeralds of Kildare,…

According to wiseGEEK “There are two meanings to the phrase ‘an axe to grind’. The first meaning is the traditional American one, which means having an ulterior motive or personal reasons, other than the obvious, for doing something. The British meaning is to hold a grudge or a grievance against someone or something.”

The same source says:

“The term comes from the grinding…