Monday, December 12, 2022
Conflict does one of two things: 1.) it draws you into it, or 2.) it makes you more aware. Conflict is part of nature’s design, so there is no getting around it. We’re bound to bump into problematic people, and to encounter things that go wrong. But those things are not meant to make you stumble, but to open your mind and to push you into new levels of awareness. A conflicted person wants the world to leave them alone. They have a “Do Not Disturb” sign draped on themselves. But not wanting to be offended draws offense towards you. Conflict will never orbit around you, no matter what. If you’re a disaster, internally, external disaster is attracted to you. The best way to minimize disaster in your life is to not be a reactive, disastrous person.
A trouble free life isn’t freedom from conflict per se, it’s freedom from being offended. It’s striving to live neutrally when negative people and situations arise. That’s not to say you cannot respond to challenge, but the key is to act without getting sucked into the insidious mind patterns that blow everything out of context. Every human has something to deal with that may be going wrong in their life. The trick is to normalize it, and to not to take it personally nor to dramatize it.
Face adversity without becoming adversarial. The real challenge, in what looks like a challenging situation, is how to stay free from the drama – being responsive to the challenge, not reactive to the drama. You can either get pulled down into the catastrophic story, or you can get creative and figure out how to deal with whatever goes wrong as it arises. Accept, then act. How do you deal with conflict? If you’re a conflicted person, challenges rarely become solvable.