I live in a joint family with my grandmother, father, mother, and sister.

With my mother and grandmother living

under the same roof, there are often disputes which lead to a hostile environment. The responsibility of being a
mediator had fallen on me early on since my father was away at work and my sister was relatively young. Since then,
I have grown and learned from each instance I encountered. 

It goes without saying how important it is to maintain peace at home where every member is happy and contented.
However, it is also a fact that misunderstandings and conflicts are bound to happen when people with different
opinions interact. At home, it happens due to a variety of reasons. There is a generation gap where my grandmother
is highly opinionated and stubborn. She wants to believe that what she says is correct and is hard to convince to
think otherwise. She comes in with sixty years of life experience and has faced a lot of hardships in the journey that
has shaped the way she thinks. There is a superiority issue that becomes hard to tackle. On the other hand, my
mother is extremely humble and soft-spoken and runs away from getting into disputes. When stuck in a conflict, she
tries to analyze the situation and puts her side of viewpoint to resolve the conflict in an uncomplicated manner.
However, as she has aged, she has started losing her patience, due to which it became harder to resolve the
disputes. 

As stated by Sigmund Freud, in every individual, there are three ego states residing within him, i.e., parent ego, adult
ego, and child ego. They stimulate, monitor, and control individual behavior. Coming across this concept of ego
states, it becomes easy to understand the different sides, their views, and how I managed to handle the situations.
Based on the same analogy, I would assign the child ego state to my grandmother (it is said that old age is a period of
a second childhood), the adult ego state to my mother, and I play the role of both a nurturing parent as well as an
adult. Whenever I am in a transaction (transactions are about how people interact with each other) where on one
side, my grandmother has formed an opinion and is adamant, and on the other side, my mother who has tried her
best to defend herself but failed is furious, I mold my ego state to suite both the sides. With my grandmother, I am a
nurturing parent who makes her feel understood and loved. With experience, I have recognized that at her age and
ego state, it is important for me not to go against her or question her. She wants to be heard and told that her
opinions and suggestions matter and that she is respected. My mother is judicious and informed and wishes to stay
away from disputes. As she loses her patience, she gives up on her attitude. That is where I step in as another adult
who tries to remind her that she was right all along in handling the situation and respectfully giving in valid
viewpoints. Getting both sides on the same page is always a task. As I switched into different ego states
unconsciously, I have adapted and learned to deal with people.

I have made every effort to make them both feel heard and make them fight the problem, not each other, also
offering alternatives when there were none in sight. From a distrustful position of “I am okay, you are not okay,” I try
to bring my grandmother and my mother to the ideal and rational life position of “I am okay, you are okay.” It has
been a rigorous journey where I have learned how to handle a conflict wisely without being biased. I have also
become skilled in maintaining calm and not losing patience while resolving a dispute. 

I like to think that the fact that I don't have to worry anymore, even being away from home, is a victory for us all.
Having learned a great deal from these experiences, I have come out wise and understanding.  I have learned the skill
of conflict resolution that will help me for a lifetime. In the management journey, there would be instances where
these experiences and skills would sail me through challenging situations. It would help me to understand people
and form good bonds. And, I have my family to thank for everything, the rough and good times!