Toleration
Resolving conflicts can get really ‘iffy’. Everybody wants to be right, the rightest, the best, the smartest, the most….. adnausium. I have found it so much easier to just walk away. Walking away does not make the other person right, it simply means that I am tired of conflict. Conflict is nothing but chaos-making. Chaos-makers often like to get things going. I used to rise to their bait but I am not going there anymore. My right may not be another’s right.
I believe what I believe and if I truly believe it, I do not have to defend it. I do not need to be spiritually smug, elitist, or truncate my own spiritual growth by choosing to remain comfortable by walking away. I walk away because something is not worthy of a comment, or that I respect their right to have their opinion. Being quiet may just simply be good manners. How we surrender to not enmeshing ourselves in conflict can say volumes. If we can simply do it with grace, there is personal integrity in it.
Feeling like we need to stand up and bandstand, or be the loudest and the smartest and the most correct does not mean you are. We all carry different baggage. Most people have old insecurities. Most women menstruate. Most men will find their nether parts sagging as much as women’s breasts. We are in this for a lifetime and we can either have it chaotic and constant war, or we can learn to ‘zip-it’ and allow peace rather than defiance
or definitive one-up-manship. You know what? It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter. You do not have to think what you are told to think. You do not have to be so right that there is no peace.
We all have hidden agendas. We all have personal intent. We do not have to resolve everything. Sometimes resolution is simply surrendering. We can learn to be aware of how we communicate and can learn how to be conscious of ourselves and others at the same time. You can be direct without being condescending. You can explain yourself better if you find you are being misunderstood. You can clarify, do a summation, repeat what you said and even ask the other person to summarize what they thought you said. But, first and foremost….some of us have lost our ability to be empathic.
Lack of empathy starts out things that reside in the realm of “defensiveness”. We do not know each other’s history. Ask before making assumptions. Assumptions are not facts.
Lack of empathy is what makes people hit below the belt. Sometimes we know each other well enough to know each other’s vulnerabilities. To cross that line is pure evil as far as I am concerned.
If we find ourselves in conflict, invest some time in thinking how you can end the battle rather than intensify it. Just know that some things can not be fixed. You may have to live with it. Stay with the ” I” rather than start out with the “You”. Never mind anyone else but yourself and the way you contributed to the problem. Sometimes you will simply never be ones to see eye to eye. Perhaps there is too much water under the bridge.
Racing around trying to buy your way back, connive your way back into a relationship, is never the answer. That is manipulation. The content then gets lost but the wounds do not and they will fester and break open again. If validation means so much to you, you need to validate yourself. Just because you wholeheartedly believe something does not mean that anyone else needs to. It is yours. You keep it if it bothers others. Why sully what you hold dear by trying to force it on those who could care less?
If all else fails, as I have said, know when to let go and walk away. Perhaps the friendship or relationship does not hold enough care and compassion and empathy from both parties. Apparently not, or you would have felt validated and important enough for you both to be honest all along the way so that a straw could not have broken the camel’s back. Stay conscious enough to know that you might have offended in some way, or that you have been offended.
“Out beyond right doing and wrong doing, there is a field; I’ll meet you there.” - Rumi And, I might add, if you choose not to walk with me, I will not mind, the flowers and trees are such compassionate souls, they will understand me. In fact, they tolerate me.
Discussion Area - Leave a Comment