Beauty in Conflict
Dr Ashish Bhatia arrived halfway through our monthly virtual Flourishing in Medicine gathering. We’d been talking about singing, about holding space, edges, the construction of dead hedges and about how we find the courage to join in. Ashish brought with him a story about recording a conversation for Radio Bath about “Revolutionary Relationships“ and the importance of channelling conflict. I don’t know about anyone else but to me that sounded immediately provocative. We were being all ‘peace and love,’ comfortably agreeing and in harmony with one another. Ashish went on to explain how conflict can be a catalyst that revolutionises relationships. That the real work is learning how to navigate conflict and that he had been on a forty-year journey with this inquiry. We were now totally curious.
Ashish shared a profound realisation from when he was ten. The bike he had longed for, and that his parents had worked so hard to pay for, was stolen. Ashish had asked for the bike so he could cycle the long way round to the park to avoid the racial abuse he anticipated if he walked past particular neighbours. Once aware of his detour, he was ambushed at the park gate by the older kids, beaten up and his bike was taken. He was distraught at the thought of telling his parents but on his return home, his father’s response was transformative.
His father took some time to comfort him, then walked with him to the local pub where his assailants were likely to be. Through the fence they could see the bike. Standing quietly and confidently beside his son, his father offered the encouragement Ashish needed to confront the boys. In that moment Ashish realised he had a father who loved him deeply, who made him feel rooted with a sense of belonging. And he also realised that this was not the same for the boys who had stolen his bike. With this insight came courage. He walked through the pub, reclaimed his bike and offered forgiveness for their hurtful act and his part in the conflict too. He also learned that relationships can change, and within two years they were playing cricket in the park on the same team!
What a story… and what lessons we can learn. Ashish told us he later took up martial arts and learned to find beauty in conflict.
His words immediately brought to mind my time with The Collective Cycling Club, whose aim is to improve diversity in cycling. I’d written a piece for them about how we would start to synchronise as we rode, moving like a shoal or a flock. Taking turns and providing wind resistance for one another - until the very end of the ride when the finish line appeared and coffee beckoned. Suddenly our collaboration dissolved into competition. Everyone sprinting for first place.
I’m sitting on a bus as I write this, in the middle of a busy city. I notice how the seats on the top deck fill one by one, people spacing themselves out as much as possible, only sitting beside someone else when there is no other option. Unspoken rules that keep us together and apart. My news feed is full of stories of division and conflict. A time of increasing schism and paranoia, tearing our social fabric apart. It seems we have become unpractised at agreeable disagreement, at adventurous civility, at managing our differences and finding ways through. Instead we are polarising towards positions of total engagement with anger and vitriol or total avoidance and turning away.
Ashish laughed on the call as he made the argument for martial arts and how they help us practise channelling conflict. He quoted Mike Tyson, the prize fighter, who apparently said, “It’s easy to have a plan till you’re punched in the face.” How do we learn to master our challenging emotions, develop discipline and gain the capacity to respond rather than react? Only with practice. The beauty of martial arts, he said, is in the dance with the other: tuning into where they are, where we are, anticipating, noticing, staying agile. This is how we might negotiate our way through. Not by avoiding collision only through withdrawal or fear, but by learning to make more beautiful patterns.
When Ashish spoke about the beauty of conflict, I found myself thinking of healthcare and how often we meet people at their most distressed, frightened or enraged. Jens Foell in our group, recently told a story about a long relationship with a patient who had lived through profound trauma and struggled with substances. Their encounters could feel like a form of capoeira - a dance of alertness, confrontation, advancing and retreating. Others suggested removing him from the practice list, yet Jens knew the deeper story and understood that endurance, not exclusion, was what was needed. Over the years he learned to love his challenging patient and, when he died, Jens felt the ache of losing someone he had come to see so clearly. His story reminded us that continuity matters. That sometimes our task is not to build higher walls or fortify our edges, but to navigate with more porous boundaries. To stay in relationship long enough for something new to emerge. In healthcare, we often need to martial the art of communication and understanding, especially when someone arrives angry or demanding. Turning away might feel easier, but it rarely brings healing.
In the forward of Finding Meaning in Healthcare, Victor Montori writes about asymptotic lines and how they might be a metaphor for how we can aim to approach one another. Lines that move closer and closer without ever colliding. Perhaps that is how we might aspire to be in our interactions. To come nearer with curiosity and steadiness, to see one another in more dimensions, with better understanding. And perhaps, as Ashish showed us, there might be beauty in conflict after all.
Perhaps conflict then, when held with steadiness and curiosity, is less a rupture and more a meeting point. A chance to understand where another person has come from, or what they are carrying, or how our own reactions shape the encounter. As Victor Montori suggests, we might learn to move like asymptotic lines - drawing ever closer without crashing into one another, learning to see more and fear less. If we can practise this art, in healthcare and beyond, we might begin to find the quiet beauty that sits just on the other side of difficulty. And in doing so, we may discover that conflict, approached with care, can be one of the ways we learn how to regenerate and flourish together.
#sagepractice
#relationshipcentredcare
#narrativemedicine
Dr. Ashish Bhatia is a GP (which means Gentle Presence to Ashish). He works in the Bristol and Bath area, is a medical educator and the founder of Humble, specialising in CBT for insomnia, holistic lifestyle optimisation and personalised approaches to improving health and wellbeing. To hear more of Ashish’s story you can listen to his recent podcast on Radio Bath here
Dr. Jens Foell works as an NHS GP in Wales and as academic GP in London. His research interests are management of pain, mental health problems and social issues in community settings with focus on pain communication. His book “Fighting for the Soul of General Practice – the Algorithm will see you now” (co-authored with Rupal Shah) was published in January 2024. You can listen to the podcast featuring a fuller version of Jens’ story here