When Parts of You Disagree: A Guide to Resolving Inner Conflict
What is Inner-Conflict and its impact in your life?
Inner-Conflict is often the hidden obstacle that keeps us from achieving our desires and goals. It’s the invisible force that makes progress feel like an uphill battle. Despite being a common topic in healing and self-help circles, many struggle to truly understand or recognize when they are in a state of inner conflict.
Inner-Conflict occurs when two or more parts of you are at odds, each pulling you in different directions.
Let’s illustrate this by imagining a long canoe with some rowers paddling forward, others paddling backwards, some throwing their paddles off the boat, and others either filling it with water or trying to keep it dry. How far do you think it will go? Even if it moves, do you expect it to arrive at a desired destination? I think they're lucky if they get to shore.
For example, resistant thoughts like "I will never be as pretty as this friend of mine” may be in resistance to your belief that you deserve to be loved, desired, and chosen by a loving and handsome partner. And because of feeling less deservable you might be a match to less attention and appreciation, reinforcing the belief that there’s a hierarchy of deservability in love, and that you won't have what you want or meet your needs. There’s so many different versions of this that get in the way of us living our best lives, being successful whatever that means for each of us, and of loving each other in ways that we actually feel loved and loving.
The source of this lies in the internal fragmentation of our consciousness. Just like conjoined twins with different desires, these internal fragments can pull us in different directions. The solution is then, to recognize and integrate these fragmented aspects of yourself.
Fragmentation: The Root of Inner Conflict
To understand inner conflict more deeply, we need to understand fragmentation—the splitting of the psyche into parts.
Fragmentation happens when, in order to survive overwhelming experiences, we separate from parts of ourselves. These can be feelings, needs, desires, or aspects of our identity that were not safe to express or embody at the time. Instead of integrating them, we push them away into what’s often called the unconscious, or what some call “the shadow.” But those parts don’t disappear. They remain within us, alive, watching, influencing us from the sidelines—often by generating conflict when they are not acknowledged.
This inner fragmentation is the root of inner conflict.
Imagine a child who learned that expressing anger leads to rejection. That child may disown their anger to stay safe and loved, creating an inner split: one part that wants to express truth and emotion, and another part that suppresses it to preserve connection. This split can grow more complex over time, and we may find ourselves torn in situations where both expression and suppression feel unsafe.
Each unresolved part of us holds a specific worldview—formed by the moment it split off. One part may believe love is conditional. Another may believe freedom is dangerous. Another may feel like a burden. These beliefs often contradict each other. And this is what makes healing so confusing: you don’t just have conflicting beliefs—you have entire inner worlds that don’t agree.
The World Outside Is a Mirror
You’ve probably noticed how often people fight—partners, governments, ideologies, nations. We treat each other as enemies, assuming that if someone disagrees with us, they must be wrong, threatening, or broken.
But what if these outer conflicts are not separate from us?
What if the chaos of the world is not just something happening to us—but through us?
The unresolved inner wars we carry create resonance with the world around us. The more disowned and fragmented we are internally, the more we project that fragmentation onto the external world—seeing others as enemies, threats, or problems to be fixed. Just as two internal parts can’t see eye to eye, we struggle to relate to people who trigger the parts of us we’ve exiled. What we haven’t made peace with inside, we will keep trying to fight outside.
This is not spiritual bypassing—it’s a call to responsibility.
The more inner harmony you cultivate, the more capable you become of staying grounded in the face of outer conflict. When you’ve learned to sit with your own fear, you won’t react so strongly to someone else’s. When you’ve reconciled your own shame, you won’t attack others to deflect from it. The world softens when we soften toward ourselves.
Fragmentation is Not a Flaw—It’s an Intelligent Response
It’s important to remember: fragmentation isn’t a sign that something went wrong. It’s a sign that something was once too much to hold. Your psyche split itself out of brilliance, not brokenness. Every part of you exists for a reason. Every internal conflict is a conversation between these parts. And every fight you see outside you—between people, countries, or belief systems—is a reflection of the same unmet needs and unhealed wounds.
When you begin resolving your inner conflicts, you’re not only creating a better life for yourself—you’re learning how to be with conflict in a different way. You become less reactive, more curious. Less defensive, more empathic. And from that place, you can hold others with the same presence you’ve learned to give yourself.
From Fragmentation to Wholeness
Healing doesn’t mean eliminating these parts—it means bringing them back into relationship. That’s the work of inner integration: not to force agreement, but to restore communication. Not to flatten difference, but to learn how to hold it.
As you practice this inner dialogue, something profound happens. The boat you’re paddling—the one with all the rowers moving in different directions—begins to find rhythm. The parts that were sabotaging each other begin to collaborate. You start to move with clarity, power, and ease.
And the world? It starts to feel less like a battlefield, and more like a mirror you’re no longer afraid to look into.
What’s your Inner Conflict?
Chances are you’ll see yourself in some of these real life examples from clients that have resolved inner conflict, often addressed with different names like self-sabotage, resistance, creative block, or just feeling stuck. Here are some examples from real life situations, to help you gain clarity on how Inner-Conflict affects your life:
1. Financial Responsibility vs. Intrinsic Motivation:
Scenario: You’ve been diligently working to save money so that you can buy a house. However, you want to resign from your 9-to-5 job, travel full-time and have no pressure to figure out a way to make money that feels good.
Inner Conflict: One part of you is focused on being financially responsible and saving for your long-term goals, while another part is deeply disheartened by the idea of living a life based on doing something now only to get somewhere else later, instead of doing what truly fulfills you in the present.
2. Speaking Up vs. Avoiding Conflict:
Scenario: During a team meeting at work, a colleague presents an idea that you strongly disagree with. You feel the need to voice your concerns, but you also worry about creating tension or being seen as confrontational.
Inner Conflict: One part of you believes it’s important to speak up and share your perspective to ensure the best outcome for the team, while another part fears the potential consequences of doing so, such as damaging relationships or being judged.
3. Creative Blockage:
Scenario: You’ve been working on a deeply personal art project, whether it’s a painting, a novel, or a piece of music, that reflects your inner thoughts and emotions. The project is nearly complete, but every time you think about sharing it with others, you hesitate.
Inner Conflict: One part of you is eager to create, driven by the desire to express your authentic self and share your unique vision with others. However, another part of you is paralyzed by the fear that once this deeply personal work is out there, people might not understand it—or worse, they might reject it, which feels like a rejection of your core self. Every time you sit down to start, this fear overwhelms you, leading to a creative block where ideas suddenly feel inaccessible, and the blank canvas seems insurmountable. You find yourself avoiding the project, procrastinating, or simply freezing, unable to tap into the creative flow that once felt so strong.
4. Quitting an Addiction vs. Choosing comfort, familiarity, immediate gratification, and temporary stability.
Scenario: You’ve decided to start a healthier lifestyle, including regular exercise and eating nutritious food, and the main obstacle in your way is an addiction that you feel little control over. So you find yourself relapsing, followed by skipping workouts and eating junk food, because it’s easier and more comforting and it calms your anxiety in the moment.
Inner Conflict: One part of you is committed to improving your health and well-being, but another part craves immediate comfort, relaxation, and is tired of controlling your impulses.
5. Relationship Boundaries:
Scenario: You have a partner who frequently wants to spend time together, even during your personal hobbies or downtime. While you love spending time with them and enjoy their company, you’re starting to feel like you’re losing touch with your own interests and personal space.
Inner Conflict: One part of you wants to keep your partner happy and maintain the closeness of your relationship, fearing that saying "no" might create distance or cause them to feel unloved. On the other hand, another part of you feels the need to reclaim some personal time for your own activities and self-care, recognizing that you’re beginning to feel drained and disconnected from your own needs. You’re torn between wanting to nurture the relationship and taking care of your own well-being.
The Solution to permanently resolve inner conflicts is always through understanding both parts of the conflict, helping them understand each other, and finding a 3rd option that works for both, so none of them has to compromise and both of them are satisfied with the solution. Because of that, the solutions that my clients found for their inner-conflicts are not useful to you, but how they found those solutions is.
Resolving Inner-Conflict. The key to moving forward.
Once you understand what Inner-Conflict is, you can start to notice when it occurs by the way it feels. Which is best described by a feeling of resistance - perceiving an oppositional force, a stagnation, or that your effort is being wasted.
How to Identify and Resolve Inner Conflict
Start by creating a calm and receptive space. Sit comfortably, take a few deep breaths, and prepare for honest self-inquiry.
1. Identify the Conflict
Begin by naming the specific desire, goal, or change you're struggling with. Then invite awareness of the part of you that resists it by asking:
“I want to hear and feel the part of me that doesn’t want [insert what you want].”
You're not trying to fix or push anything away. Your aim is simply to understand and validate. It’s important that you address your resistance with a desire to own its best interest — to understand and validate what it wants and needs.
2. Observe and Acknowledge Without Judgment
Let this part of you surface naturally—like air bubbles rising to the surface of a still lake. Notice any sensations, emotions, or thoughts that arise. Presence is key here. Rather than intellectualizing, feel what this part holds. If this is difficult, reach out for support—this step is crucial.
3. Treat the Conflict as Valid
Approach what arises with warmth and compassion. Even if the resistance is rooted in fear or false beliefs, it still has something important to show you. This respectful approach allows your internal parts to soften and open.
4. Explore the Part That Resists
Ask questions to deepen understanding:
What feels so bad about this thing I want?
What do you need instead?
Are you aware that another part of me wants this?
How do you relate to that other part—and to me?
Is there any way you could be okay with the other part having what it wants?
5. Find Integration, Not Compromise
Help each part understand and empathize with the other. The goal is not to have one side win, but to find a third path that honors both. Compromise means unmet needs remain. Integration means all parts of you feel seen, understood, and included.
6. Align Before Acting
Avoid taking action from a place of resistance. When you act from inner alignment, your decisions will reflect your full truth—and all of you will be moving in the same direction.
How does Inner-Conflict feel?
Pain and Frustration: Inner conflict causes emotional pain and frustration, particularly when it blocks progress or healing.
Energy Drain and Inaction: Resistance drains energy, leading to exhaustion and stagnation, making it feel pointless to pursue your goals.
Fear and Denial: Fear and denial often accompany inner conflict, making it harder to recognize and address the point of resistance.
Common Reactions to Resistance
Pushing Through and Ignoring: Many attempt to push through or ignore inner-conflict, which both intensifies the negative consequences and makes you blind to how you are creating these negative experiences in your life.
Bulldozing and Avoidance: Trying to bulldoze through your resistance by adding more effort without resolving the conflict is ineffective, like cycling a bicycle harder because you want to go faster, while you have the breaks on, instead of releasing the breaks.
Giving Up: Some, overwhelmed by inner-conflict, give up entirely, abandoning their dreams and desires, believing the struggle is too much to overcome.
Playing a win-win game with yourself.
When two parts of you are in conflict, the only way to make a choice that honors both is to understand them fully and facilitate a dialogue between them. This means helping each part to see the other’s perspective and working together to decide on a shared direction.
When you don’t resolve inner conflict, you end up disowning at least one part of yourself, leading to suffering, loneliness, and a sense of separation from yourself, others, and life. By embracing the resolution of your inner-conflicts, you will see that many of your relationship issues, life struggles, and frustrations will be resolved too.
Saving Time and Energy
The time and energy needed to dissolve resistance can vary. Minor conflicts may be addressed quickly, while deeper issues might require a longer process of self-discovery and action. However, resolving your internal resistance is always more effective medium/long term than pushing forward despite it or against it.
Navigating Inner-Conflict
Determinism Vs Free-Will
When I first understood inner conflict, I felt relieved—finally, there was a reason for my stuckness that made sense to me, and a way out. But I also felt frustrated: why do I have to deal with this at all?
Eventually, I saw it differently: inner conflict is a gateway—it moves us from a life of conditioned, automatic behavior (determinism) into a life of conscious choice (free will).
Inner conflict isn’t just a sign of indecision—it's a crucial part of how we experience free will. At its core, inner conflict arises when different parts of you are in opposition, creating tension.
This tension is the force that propels you out of determinism—a life encaged (pre-determined) by the beliefs and expectations you inherited—and into the realm of conscious choice.
In moments of inner conflict, you’re confronted with the friction between staying on a set path and forging a new one. This friction is essential; it’s what compels you to become conscious rather than following an unconscious path.
For instance, being stuck in a well-paying but unfulfilling job creates inner conflict. The safe, predictable choice is to stay, but another part of you longs for meaningful work. This discomfort forces you to weigh your options, challenging you to make a decision that aligns with your core self. Exercising free will is about choosing the right choice for you, through a process of understanding the conflicting needs and desires inside you. Some people would say the best choice is to keep the job, and some other people would say the best choice is to quit, making a choice based on what other people think, their expectations, and even your predetermined beliefs, is deterministic, and it will not resolve your inner-conflict.
In this way, inner conflict is a catalyst for growth, pushing you to examine your beliefs and take control of your life. Rather than a burden, it’s a powerful tool for personal evolution, moving you into the expansive realm of deliberate choice.
The Cost of Ignoring Your Inner Conflict
Every time that you find yourself stuck you’re dealing with Inner-Conflict (resistance). When you're not aware that inner-conflict is the source of your stuckness and that you can resolve it, you might find yourself stuck in a cycle of frustration and inaction. Still wanting to go in a certain direction, spending your money, time, and energy, but not being able to move the needle. It may feel as if you’re pressing on the gas pedal without realizing that your brake is on, leading to a feeling of futility, stagnation, or even setbacks.
Sometimes an unresolved inner-conflict creates a "doom loop" where it creates and attracts negative real life experiences, leading to more resistance, causing further negative experiences, likely to create a feeling of anxiety to say the least. This cycle can be hard to break, but it's crucial to address it. When inner-conflict is not addressed it blocks our ability to move forward and it leads to a buildup of negative emotions and circumstances. If you find yourself in this situation, slow down, feel, ask for help from someone who can help you make sense of what you are feeling and the deeper layers of your experience that you might be conditioned to not be able to see.
A personal note from Pedro:
If I could get you to understand just one thing, it would be that inner conflict is meant to be resolved, that’s why it occurs, and it would not occur inside you if it had no solution. I recommend you to take a proactive approach to it, even if all you can do is to ask for help, and let someone else guide you through the process.
Choosing growth, the path to liberation and wholeness.
I am the first to acknowledge that many of us are faced with some dreadful and horrible inner-conflicts. But I can also assure you that the more you can welcome them with a mindset of curiosity, the better. It’s an opportunity to grow and to choose. Every choice is an exercise of your free will and it contributes to your personal expansion. When done with awareness, it clarifies your values, desires, and preferences. This process helps you better understand who you are as an individual - the point of perspective you are here (in this life) to explore.
There is a space beyond inner conflict—a space that transcends all boundaries and limitations. If you are on a spiritual path, you’ve likely experienced moments where you feel free from all inner conflicts. These are times when you detach from a part of yourself and realize that a perceived problem no longer exists. However, you eventually return to a denser, more familiar feeling as that unresolved part of you resurfaces in your consciousness.
Many people use spirituality to bypass and avoid those heavier emotions. But this creates an inner conflict of its own: wanting to feel good versus the part of you that doesn’t. You cannot feel complete if you are rejecting any part of yourself in the pursuit of wholeness. As long as you’re playing this win-lose game with yourself (which is really a lose-lose), those unresolved parts will continue to hold you back.
Imagine you’re on a sailboat, wanting to sail forward. You open the sails, and the wind pulls you, but the anchor is stuck at the bottom of the ocean. The journey becomes a struggle, and you barely move. Or picture yourself in a car, stepping on the accelerator while pulling the handbrake. As the car malfunctions, you ignore the problem and press harder on the gas. In both examples, it’s clear that you wouldn’t even open the sails without first unsticking the anchor, and you certainly wouldn’t press the gas pedal without releasing the handbrake. But when it comes to our internal reality and inner conflicts, we don’t follow this logic. I believe this is because we either don’t know how to resolve them, or we’re unaware that we even can.
The more you embrace and own your conditional self—your desires, preferences, boundaries, and needs—and resolve your inner conflicts, the more you open yourself to consistently experiencing your limitless nature. If you seek deeper consciousness, unconditional love, and liberation from suffering, don’t bypass your conditional self, your suffering, or what remains unresolved. Embrace, explore, and resolve it. This will allow you to fully inhabit your individual, temporal self while staying connected to your transcendent nature.
The shadow side of this mindset is withholding love and pleasure from yourself until you reach perfection. But this approach doesn’t work because you are always growing, and there is no final destination. You can’t move forward without love. So, avoid withholding love from yourself or others until something is “fixed,” because it’s love that creates the very resolution you seek. Unconditional love and bliss aren’t just rewards at the end of the journey—they’re essential along the way. You deserve and need them as you grow.
Sacrificing your personal truth for societal and family values/expectations
I understand that there are incredibly difficult choices to make, and that’s why some people spend their entire lives in misalignment and suffering.
For example, imagine the immense pressure, anxiety, and fear experienced by a gay man born into a deeply conservative ‘Christian’ family. The core of his identity is in direct conflict with his sexual orientation and expression.
It’s understandable that some people choose a life of suffering and disconnection from their bodies and personal truth because what they’re up against is terrifying. It requires a deep questioning of the judgments, beliefs, and values they cling to for a sense of safety, compounded by a childhood that instilled a deep-seated fear of their own emotions, as well as the fear of holding different values or questioning the values of their caretakers.
However, I would argue that nothing in existence justifies the choice of suppressing oneself. Self-suppression denies our sovereignty and divinity—it is, in essence, a form of hell. It is the source of mental illness, emotional conflict, and physical disease.
Tension Between Desire and Resistance: the necessary pressure to clarify what you want.
Desire acts as a gravitational force between you and what you want. When you desire something, you begin to pull it toward you, and simultaneously, that which you desire starts pulling you closer. Imagine a rope connecting you to what you want, tightening and drawing you together. Now, imagine that an inner conflict is creating resistance to this force of your desire. The result is pressure, discomfort, and misalignment. If unaddressed, this tension grows, eventually leading to real problems in your life—accidents, illnesses, failed relationships, and intense emotional and mental suffering. The rope between you and your desire becomes unbearably taut, but you're stuck—energetically, it’s like you're being crushed.
This dynamic is also playing out on a global scale, explaining why the world feels so surreal, full of conflict and suffering. It’s the result of unresolved inner conflict—resistance on both an individual and collective level.
This discomfort and pressure are designed to help you see your reality. When you desire something that you are also resisting, you may start to feel uncomfortable sensations in your body, signaling that your thoughts are not aligned with your true self. If left unaddressed, these sensations become increasingly prominent until they can no longer be ignored. In some cases, this is a quick process, while in others, it may take much longer. Some people become seriously ill after only slight misalignments, while others can spend decades bypassing and neglecting the signs of their disconnection from themselves.
This phenomenon is known as the “law of mirroring,” commonly referred to as the “law of attraction.” It is designed to help you stay away from what is not aligned with you, much like how riversides guide the river along its path, preventing it from straying too far, even when the current is strong. However, the utility of this law is questionable. While opting into a dimension with these laws contributes to the intensity of our experiences by creating significant contrasts, it also contributes to getting stuck in negative experiences (what we don’t want) instead of easily guiding us toward what we desire.
