The three conditions for a conflict revolution

By Julie Hrdlicka

Conflict Revolution

If we want conflict to become something more than a loop of defensiveness, reactivity, and harm, we have to change the conditions in which it unfolds.

Conflict doesn’t transform because we try harder to be patient. It doesn’t transform because we memorize communication skills. It doesn’t transform because we convince other people to behave differently.

Conflict transforms when the environment around it shifts — within us, between us, and through a deeper awareness of the systems shaping us and the roles we play inside them.

After years of working in conflict transformation, mediation, and facilitation, I’ve come to see that what I call conflict revolution grows out of three core conditions:

Building Place. Holding Space. Seeing Systems.

These conditions help us move from unconscious, inherited patterns into intentional, grounded, power-aware engagement. They give us footing. They let us stay human with one another, especially when things get hard.

1. Building Place

Building place is about cultivating our own rootedness, the ground we stand on when conflict starts to shake us. It’s strengthening our inner capacity so tension doesn’t instantly throw us into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

When we talk about “safety,” this is what we actually mean: not a space where nothing hard is allowed, but a space with sturdiness - clarity, predictability, trust, and the felt sense that I can stay myself even when things get uncomfortable.

When we build place within ourselves, we are more able to:

stay present rather than disappear
be honest without attacking or collapsing
take accountability without shame
regulate instead of react
meet difference with openness instead of fear

Building place is the ground floor of transformation. Without it, conflict shakes us loose from ourselves. With it, we stay rooted enough to choose how we show up.

2. Holding Space

If building place gives us ground, holding space gives us room.

Holding space is the practice of allowing truth - emotions, stories, mistakes, harm - to emerge without rushing to fix, manage, or tidy it all up. It is choosing openness over urgency. It is giving breathing room so people can return to themselves.

This is not about avoiding harm. It’s about creating a container solid enough that truth, accountability, and repair can actually happen.

Holding space asks us to:

listen with curiosity
reflect and mirror what we’re hearing
suspend urgency
tolerate discomfort
let meaning arrive at its own pace
stay present and name mistakes and harm, including when we caused them

When we hold space well, people reconnect with their strength. They shift from reacting to understanding. Accountability becomes possible.

Holding space is at the heart of conflict revolution because it interrupts our instinct to control, collapse, or correct. It creates the openness where transformation can land.

3. Seeing Systems

Conflict never stands alone. It is shaped by culture, norms, trauma, inequity, policy, power, and the stories we’ve inherited about being “right,” “good,” or “in control.”

Seeing systems means widening the lens. It allows us to notice the structures around us, not just the people in front of us.

When we see systems clearly, we can:

depersonalize what is actually structural
recognize power dynamics shaping the interaction
notice recurring patterns across relationships or organizations
interrupt narratives of blame, scarcity, and winning
create more equitable conditions for dialogue

Seeing systems doesn’t excuse harm. If anything, it deepens accountability. It makes it possible to see why people react — not just how they react.

This is where compassion and justice meet.

Conflict Revolution Is Not a Technique, It’s a Shift

Building place, holding space, and seeing systems are not steps. They’re not a sequence. They’re an ecology.

Together, they create the internal stability, relational capacity, and systemic awareness that allow conflict to become something other than reenactments of fear, dominance, or avoidance.

When these conditions are present, conflict becomes less about protection and more about possibility.