“Conflict is the beginning of consciousness.”
Mary Esther Harding
I make a living from conflict. I sit with couples, sometimes parents and children, siblings, and even business partners and at times, neighbors who are experiencing conflict. I help them cross the empathic bridge to the side of the other, and it takes everything people have to do it most times: courage, compassion, reason, perspective, vulnerability, willingness, humility.
I don’t like conflict, and never have. I have evolved as a person sitting with other humans while they are in conflict. When I do it well, I rest in equanimity within myself and hold all involved in love. I am better at it sometimes than others, and doing that over and ever has helped me be a better me when I am in conflict with someone myself.
The world seems to be in a perpetual state of conflict right now, a turbulent adolescence of consciousness. I believe that whatever each individual does to raise the bar on their own capacity to deal with conflict skillfully, can make a huge difference on the planet. We need to grow up in regard to our differences!
Here is what I have learned that I hope you can use in your own question to become a skillful at the very human experience of conflict:
1. Conflict is connection trying to happen.
The word conflict comes from the Latin words con (together) and fligere (to strike) which means to strike together.<
Resolve to remember that when you are in conflict—to remember the vision of connecting, coming to some understanding or consensus—to find the common ground—the higher ground—that is what conflict is about. Our country was founded on being able to do that, and it is but a distant memory at this time. It is not about mud-slinging or character defamation, or stone-walling.
Let your vision be on the field that Rumi speaks about: Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,, there is a field. I'll meet you there.
2. You can either be right, or in relationship.
I had this statement which I heard along the way made into magnets to give to folks. The need to be right comes from the fear of being wrong, and guess what, sometimes we are.
Not only that, in most situations between two people, the issue doesn’t have a “right” or a “wrong.”The conflict comes from a difference of perspective or preference. The issue begins to feel like a threat to one’s sense of self, and creates a sense of powerlessness.The attempt to get the other person to see it your way creates a power struggle, and the essence of the connection is lost.
Let go of being right if you want to master the art of conflict.
3. Resolving conflict means taking 100% responsibility.
The Jewish Philosopher, Martin Buber said that our relationships live in the space between us, not in either of the people involved, nor in the dialogue, but in the space lived by the two. Buber called this space “sacred.”
This space is the relational space, and one of my inspiring teachers, Hedy Schleiffer, speaks of three invisible connectors: the relational space, the bridge between the worlds, and the encounter. “When we don’t know about the space, we pollute it quite automatically with a word, a look, a reaction, a withdrawal, a criticism, a judgment. We put it there unconsciously. And the space becomes uncomfortable.” (from her Ted Talk at TEDxTelAviv, April 20, 2010). Hedy says that we take responsibility for the relational space when we cross the bridge to the world of the other and bring our full presence to the other side.
Imagine if there were more of that going on!
