the positive outcomes of conflict

The Potential in Conflict

Congressman Tony Hall is leading an effort to apologize for this country's support of slavery & to establish a commission to study further steps to reconciliation, beyond the apology.

Our nation can formally apologize thru the Legislative Branch of Government. People, though, often apologize after they've understood how their actions have affected others & only then can healing begin.

The suggested commission carries the opportunity for the people to process their understanding of each other, especially if it creates avenues for dialogue.

An agreement to apologize for slavery only partially taps the potential inherent in this historical conflict. To manage conflicts by just "settling" or "agreeing", is selling the potential in conflict short.

Individuals & even communities in conflict often refuse to come together & talk because they say they've settled the problem. They're still angry, frustrated & confused, but they've settled.

People can do more. Whether it's for the "sake of the kids" or the community or just your own peace of mind, know that a facilitated dialogue can clarify how you got there, reduce your anger & allow you to go on.

Whether you get back together or even agree on anything, the way you relate in that dialogue holds promise for constructive dialogue in the future.

Properly facilitated, dialogue can transform nations (e.g. South Africa), communities & individuals. Inherent in properly facilitated dialogue is a supportive process for each person's own decision making process.

This support provides for each person an opportunity to decide who is to be in the room, what's to be talked about & how people will talk to each other. This support is grounded in the facilitator's belief that the persons in the dispute are capable of understanding themselves, can be compassionate towards others & are capable of making their own decisions.

I support decisions, judgments & settlements resulting from our traditional ways of managing conflict. I also support a mediation process that respectfully helps people clarify their experience. To agree to remove a flag from a capital building or to apologize for slavery is important, but such agreements don't touch the deeper compassion people have for each other. People in conflict have an opportunity to connect in a positive & constructive manner. To accept less is to fail to see the potential we have to heal our communities & ourselves thru conflict.

The Gift of Conflict

"No man is an island"

said John Donne in 1624 & while he may be guilty of sexism, he appears ahead of his time in other ways as he expresses a basic ecological & spiritual principle, going on to say,

"...every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in all of mankind."

The great naturalist John Muir expressed a similar sentiment in this 1906 writing,

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe."

Indeed there's a seamless web to which we’re all inextricably intertwined; a cosmic, universal web in which the pure essence of life flows thru all creation. The electronic connections of the World Wide Web are just beginning to externalize in material form what has always existed in energetic form.

And yet, if we’re all connected in this manner, this means that whether we like it or not, we’re inevitably in relationship w/all things & all peoples.

What’s the nature of this relationship? As discussed in Buddhist psychology, all relationships in the mind & in the world ultimately take on 1 of 3 forms:

·        we're either neutral

·        we like

·        we dislike

It seems self-evident that we’d want to collect as many in the "like" column as possible:

we naturally move towards those people, experiences & places which resonate harmoniously within us.

But this betrays an important truth:

Some of our best teachers & most profound lessons come from those experiences & people we dislike, from those who "push our buttons", from those we can’t stand to be around.

And why is that? It’s because these experiences & people force us to see life from a different perspective, to get out of our self-created, self-limiting cocoons & filters of reality & consider alternative possibilities.

They force us to grow, to learn & to expand our beliefs about ourselves & the nature of life.

Conflict energizes any system & when approached with a positive, constructive attitude, leads to creative solutions & ideas.

For conflict prods & encourages us to stretch further, dig deeper & learn to be better people. It’s easy to be compassionate & loving with those that treat us well, but the real growth comes when we can treat everyone we interact within a loving manner & in so doing honor that universal essence which flows thru us all.

Well, you might say, that sounds good in theory, but how do I deal with my resistance to such people & experiences? Here are some helpful tips:

·        Seek out those that have a different belief system or world view than you do.

Really try to understand how & why they think & believe the way they do.

None other than Sigmund Freud once claimed that it was "intellectual suicide" to only talk to people who believe what you do (though he was also famous for surrounding himself with "true believers" & not speaking with others who dared to opposed his ideas!)

·        If someone you meet elicits a very strong negative feeling in you, examine that feeling in detail.  

What is it about their ideas or personality that grates you so much? Do you, as Shakespeare said, "...doth protest too much?"

That is, is there something in YOU that is similar to this person that makes you want to run the other way? In his wonderful book "A Path With Heart", Jack Kornfield relates the tale of his returning to New York City after living in an ashram for years & leading the life of a renunciate.