Comfort, Blame and the Container of Conflict

In a previous post, I talked about the idea of a "Container of Conflict" that we've created that seems to provide a kind of resonator that allows (empowers?) conflict to continue long past its useful life.

Conflict isn't all bad. Of course. It highlights differences and makes tangible the discomfort necessary to examine our behaviors. As I mentioned in my previous post, we don't always have to be "comfy". But we do, I think, have to be honest. And when things aren't comfy, it seems, we'd rather be comfy than honest.

Enter Blame.

Dr. Brene Brown, in her marvelous TED presentation (that I recommend to everyone - watch it as soon as you can...seriously), talks about shame, connectedness, and vulnerability. At one point in her talk she slips in a profoundly relevant comment.

"You know how blame is described in the research? A way to discharge pain and discomfort."

We have created a Container of Conflict in which blame ricochets back and forth, with virtually no "loss". Blame becomes the resonant frequency inside this container of conflict. It stays almost perfectly intact, resonating and re-resonating and (with a little encouragement and participation from us) builds and amplifies. The Container of Conflict is a superconductor for Blame.

Blame is pretty much pointless. "A way to discharge pain and discomfort". Is that what we need? Or do we need a way to recognize what behaviors cause pain and discomfort, and a way to heal the wounds that result?

I'm increasingly suspicioius that evil enters the world when we sacrifice someone else - their feelings, their rights, their freedoms, even their physical selves - in order to protect one of our own wounds. Think about it. Rather than experience the pain and discomfort of a wound, we "blame" someone or something else. 

When you look deep inside, does that sound familiar?

In reality, we're not so different, after all. It's only in our imaginations and affectations and illusions, which we cultivate with great pride and vigor (typically, to protect a wound we wouldn't want anyone else to see, out of shame, or fear). And we build up these ridiculous stories about "the other side", and maniacally invent stories about "what they think" to justify "what we think" - our own polemics and dogma and self-righteousness.

Not good.

Spirit whispered to me "Dissolve the container of conflict. Dissolve the container."

How? I'm still working on that. The first step, it appears, is to realize there is one.

Mars and Jesus Agree with Eisenhower

Choosing the Right Thing

 
This morning, someone whispered in my ear. Not sure who. Here's what I heard:

"Every act, even the smallest, benefits from a thoughtful and soulful choice to 'do the right thing'. Anything else is selfish, deceiving, and creates injustice."

Could this have been Mars? Jesus? Not sure. But, strangely, it reminded me of a slice of a Dwight Eisenhower speech, in which he said,

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

I thought it was Eisenhower's farewell address. It wasn't. It was "The Chance for Peace", given in 1953 after the death of Josef Stalin.

I was unfamiliar with the content. I read it all. I recommend you do, too - for both those on the left and those on the right. In it, Eisenhower is calling out to the world, and the Soviet Union. 

It's steeped in the language of a world in fear. It's message is from a man who desires to lead us forward in hope; one who recognizes that the best mankind could achieve without mutual trust is "humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

Eisenhower calls for actions, not words.

"We welcome every honest act of peace. We care nothing for mere rhetoric. We are only for sincerity of peaceful purpose attested by deeds. The opportunities for such deeds are many. The performance of ... them waits upon no complex protocol but upon the simple will to do them."

There is much to be harvested by us, today, from this nearly 60-year-old speech.

For example, do we welcome every honest act of peace? As a country? As a body politic? As a community, neighbor, spouse, or friend?

Perhaps it was Mars who spoke this to me, and tickled me to recall Eisenhower. Perhaps it was Jesus. Because to both of them, the honorable battle is the one waged against the weaknesses within the self, first and always.

Right action is simple once we trust that doing it will make the world a better place. And here, I take one step further from Ike, and one step closer to Jesus, because, sometimes,  we have to stop waiting for "the other guy" to do the right thing first, as we do to prove that we'll be safe if we go along. Trust ultimately carries with it a willingness to be vulnerable. And as I (and Dr. Brene Brown much more eloquently) have pointed out many times, vulnerability is the key to living a fulfilled life.

Eisenhower goes on to simply and clearly define the fundamental mission of his vision:

"We are ready, in short, to dedicate our strength to serving the needs, rather than the fears, of the world."

Wow. How about that. A military general calling us out to serve one another's needs, not our own fears.

In 2012, we could sure use a big dose of THAT.

Dissolving the Container of Conflict

Why is fighting so EASY? And so POINTLESS?

My friend and colleague Mary Electra wrote about a shocking act of violence in her neighborhood recently.

That week, I was also contemplating violence and conflict. I was on my way to a sound healing event, and the tension between our political "sides" was rolling through my mind.

Something about the brisk night air, the coolness, the moon. It seemed so beautiful without being "comfy". We don't always have to be "comfy". Sometimes, it's good to feel the brisk, aggressive, edge of reality. The cold night air aggressively drinking the heat from my hands and face. It's OK, sometimes. It's real. We don't always have to be in a container of "comfy".

I thought about containers. In the traditional/spiritual healing arts we talk a lot about containers. Creating a "safe" container for healing, or a "sacred" container for opening to the Divine.

Suddenly, I was struck by a message. It insinuated itself into my subconscious and then POPPED into my awareness. "Dissolve the container of conflict. Dissolve the container."

Wow. I'm so used to thinking of containers as being good things, useful things. It did not dawn on me that we might have to dispose of those that have outlived their usefulness.

There is a container of conflict in our culture that we have built and continue to feed.

Yes, we have differences. Yes, there are real, deep, and painful problems. Yes, each "side"  is partly right and partly deeply, shamefully, willfully wrong.

But this container of conflict we have built provides support for conflicts that have long outstripped their purpose, outlived their deeper meaning. In fact, the container emphasizes the conflict instead of the meaning, and allows the conflict to be easily sustained and amplified (like a resonance frequency). It literally damps out efforts at resolution. And over the years we've perfected it. For example, the 24-hour news cycle and the blogosphere have been harnessed to amplify conflict.

Why? Because conflict is exciting. It provides an adrenaline rush. Every screenwriter knows that audiences stay rapt when the hero and heroine experience conflict.

But aren't we kind of burnt out on conflict? I know I am. "Just shut up already...!" says my inner self, even when I'm receiving incitements to action for causes I care about. It's not that I don't want to be informed about the opportunity to act. It's that the opportunity is always framed in the language of conflict. In the container of conflict.

I'm suffering adrenal fatigue. Are you?

(Next: Part II - Comfort, Blame and the Container of Conflict)

Of Turbulence and Tolling Bells

Love Thine Enemy...Because He Shares Thy Destiny

Just watched a challenging TEDxBrussels talk by Paddy Ashdown on the evolution of global power. It's worth 20 minutes. While not all of it struck a chord, and while some of it was darn uncomfortable, it spoke powerfully about the fundamentals that are shaping the world we have created.

Power is shifting. The stability we have experienced over the years since World War II is falling away. Ashdown cites reasons that aren't necessarily what we think. (Hint: It's not the rise of China.)

Global power, unconstrained by national borders and unregulated by rule of law, exists in places we don't always recognize. Certainly, the Internet, Twitter, and a global mobile-phone network. But also increasingly comprehensive air-travel network provides connectedness - not just for us, but for pathogens and parasites!

Global connectedness means global connections, for good AND ill.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Where there is capacity to exert power, power will be exerted. Where it is untended - unstewarded - it will be exploited.

Turbulence is in our future. The degree of turbulence will be measured by the degree to which we can embrace one another and support one another.

Ashdown cites that what matters is the capacity to network. He cites "Ashdown's Third Law":

"In the modern age, where everything is connected to everything else, the most important thing about what you can do is what you can do with others."

We share a destiny with each other - all of us - for the very first time in human history. Increasingly and unavoidably, we share a destiny with not just our friends, but with our enemies as well.

Heed well Jesus's admonition to "Love thine enemy as thy self…" It's not just a noble idea any longer - it's an urgent matter of public policy

Ashdown finishes his talk with a quote from John Donne's "No Man is an Island":

Any man's death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know

For whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.