Conflict, Lock and Key

Conflict is like a gate, it is both the opening into the walled off garden of love, and the obstacle which keeps us out.

Which of these it is depends on whether you have the key or not.

Conflict is the smoke that points out the fire - the passion in your life. It also burns your life up with destruction. It depends on whether you know fire-craft or not.

Conflict reveals the hidden truth in both parties, or it broadcasts the lies far and wide. It depends on where you look: inside yourself for truth, or at the other person for blame.

If you avoid conflict, your life shallows out. It becomes calm in appearance it is mirror smooth, but then it just reflects your inner turmoil.

If you become habituated to the anger and blame, your life becomes a series of eruptions punctuated by tense terror, and things just seem to get worse and worse.

There is a third path, where conflict resolves into respectful differences. Sitting quietly, the calm hands you the two keys: the first unlocks your own truth; the second unlocks your curiosity about the other person’s truth.

OWS: Leaderless or Leaderful?

The “Theater of the Oppressed” did several theater games with Occupy Together (a gathering of Occupies from all over New England) last weekend. I want to tell you about them because they explain something about the Occupy Movement that has a lot of people confused.

They had all hundred of us stand in a circle with our eyes closed. The director walked all around the circle, and told us that she whoever she touched would be the leader. The leader’s job was to lead, but to do so subtly so the cops wouldn’t be able to pick them out. The rest of us were to mill about once we opened our eyes, and find and follow the leader.

After a few minutes of milling, we went back into our circle, closed our eyes, and the director walked around us again, selecting the leadership for the next round. This time, everyone behaved really differently, much more action and movement, and lots more touching and laughter.

When we got back in the circle, someone asked, “Who was the leader each time?”

“The first time,” the director said, “I didn’t pick anyone. The second time, I picked everyone.”

I was immediately struck by how “Occupified” these two choices were: on the one hand, Occupy has no leader. On the other, in the “participatory democracy” which is the form of governance in the Occupy Movement, everyone is empowered to lead.

Some people call this “leaderless”, but that isn’t really a good description of the way it feels or works. In the Men’s Movement of the 1970’s, we used to call this kind of governance: “Leaderful.”

Did You Marry a Friend or Foe?

I did a session this week with a couple who have learned the language of NVC, but were missing the starting point of the violence: the assumption that the person you are talking to is an enemy.

Obviously, we marry people we feel friendly towards. That happens to also be the starting assumption of any non-violent, compassionate communication.

It creates tons of slack - we listen using what I call the “Best Possible Interpretation.” If your new love says, “Jeeze, you’re such a bitch!” you assume they mean your are really assertive and you feel appreciated and respected. If they say, “I’m gonna take you out an buy you a new shirt” you think, “Oh goodie, a gift!”

The whole time you use LOVE as your guiding assumption of their motives, it’s really fun no matter what they say or do. We call this the Infatuation Stage - it’s stage one.

Then, when your relationship transitions into stage two, the Conflict Stage; you switch more and more of your motivation from LOVE to FEAR, and eventually, imperceptibly, your significant-other shifts from friend to competitor to enemy. This is accompanied by a shift from “Best Possible Interpretation” to “Worst.”

Suddenly, black becomes white, and white black. Now, if your love calls you a bitch, you assume they are being really, really mean. And if they say, “I’m gonna take you out an buy you a new shirt” you think, “They hate the way I dress!”

Each of the parties in the couple I was working with had pretty much changed everything that they were going to change to suit their partner. What was left was the actual difference that they had invited into their lives by picking this particular person. The other change they had made, was from lovers to competitors, and when things got heated, they made it all the way to enemies.

They both now know enough NVC to know that when their partner is angry, that’s just the frustration that comes when one of your needs isn’t getting met. But they couldn’t figure out what to do about that, because when your enemy is angry, it’s just a drag; it doesn’t seem like it would be fun to help them out.

So I took a turn “being” each of their partners. I said the same thing that their partner said that consistently made them angry, and when they responded angrily, I opened my heart and let my concern for my friend to spread through my body, and express itself through my words.

Same anger, same relationship, same issues. I just modeled what it feels like to be received as a friend, instead of an enemy.

They turned and looked at each other with renewed interest. Instead of issues and anger, the relationship suddenly came back into relief.

The relief that comes from relating with a friend.

Speaking Quiet Truths

I took a painting class over the last month. It has changed the way I see. 

What used to be a “red box” is now at first one of a million shades of red, and then as the quiet looking deepens, becomes a gradation of purple-reds in the shadows, and a rainbow of yellow-reds where the sunlight etches into the painted wood grain. Colors have temperature now, and texture, thickness and contrast. A walk in the woods is like going to the Louvre. We live in a world painted by god in a pallet that changes even as we look.

Ayurveda has done the same thing for me to food. Fruit was sweet or tangy. Vegetables where bitter. Now that I eat for health, balance and energy, everything I eat is a piece of the life-force of the universe. It has color, and texture, properties which it will bring or remove from me, or add to my life. My hunger for food is now more like my hunger for truth or beauty. It is not about making the pain go away, it is a way to connect to my own essence.

The same is true about NVC. It has changed my relationship to thought and speech. I used to use words to carry my meaning, but that is like carrying fish from the market in a Rembrant. NVC has shown me that we live in a deep web of interconnectedness and although we can choose to just react to the situations we stumble into, the real gift is know how our deepest truth creates the very situations that many of us feel victim to. Knowing my part in creation empowers me to shape my life as perfectly as possible at my current level of self-truth-telling.

I worked with a couple yesterday that had a fight about their baby’s crying. They each reacted to the situation as though it was not a baby crying, but some creation of their spouse made just to annoy them. As we worked the moments through, slowly, sinking deeper and deeper through the layers of each of their internal truths, we came to the place where they could have been creators of connection and intimacy. As is so often the case, at this deeper level, they were in deep agreement about the very thing they had fought about for days.

I’m coming to think of “maturity” as sinking deeper and deeper into the truth of each moment, so that food, color, thought and feelings break apart into their composite parts and reveal the underlying beauty of each moment.

As a mediator, I hate compromise

I guess it depends on the world view you hold, but I believe in Compassionate Design: that whatever happens to you can lead you right into the heart of love.

When I first heard about this possibility, I was in my 20’s, and I decided to put it to the test. Along with two friends, I set out one winter to hitch-hike across the country on $2. There was a blizzard the day we started, and we considered postponing, but that would have been admitting defeat before we began, so we headed out into the snow. A month later we returned, tired, amazed, intact, and with our original $6; and so much richer for having “proved” the hypothesis.

If you travel in gratitude, you arrive fulfilled.

So it’s no surprise I ended up a mediator. I spend my days in rooms where people have lost their way, and I show them the gate of hope. Not all of them pass through there, even with a guide to help. But most look up from their distress with a sigh of relief and leave with a smile and new hope. Time and again they say a great weight has been lifted.

Last night I had a second session with a couple who married before they found out who each other was. Then they had a son, and now, for his sake, they are trying to get to know who they married.

I did what I do in the first session: I translated their accusations first into statements about the speaker’s truth, and then into requests of their partner’s indulgence. And I switched the description of our work from stopping the fights into finding the love. From less-pain into more-fun.

In their case, they were both mourning their single lives. All that freedom.  “Okay,” they seemed to be saying, “teach us how to compromise.”

As a mediator, I hate compromise. It almost always means one or both parties not getting what they want, and that just assures more fighting and discontent.

I told them what my marriage is like. It is a first marriage for both of us, and I was 50 when we  met. We both had had long single-lives, and really knew what we each liked. So instead of giving that up, we kept our autonomy and freedom, and added on all the benefits of married life.

I gave them an example. My wife hates standing on lines. She hates being told what to do, especially when it doesn’t make sense to her, or isn’t fun for her. I, on the other hand, don’t mind lines at all. I have a rich inner life, and lines just give me time to think. So anytime we encounter a situation that involves lines, just as Elise is tensing up, I offer to hold her place in line, and suggest she go exploring. I get time alone with my thoughts, and she gets even more freedom that she had when she was single, and had to stand in lines and fume.

Mediation Has Ruined Me

I’m finding fewer and fewer good reasons to justify being upset. I still get upset, but I’m noticing that in order to maintain it for any length of time, you have to keep giving yourself a pep talk about how wronged you were; and those talks are seeming less and less convincing to me.

I know most people are really good at those. Some people can take a tiny incident (some incidents are actually so tiny nobody notices it but themselves) and keep cheer-leading their hurt for years, decades!

I think being a mediator has ruined me for upset. Over and over I see people resolving their differences, discovering the moment of misunderstanding, uncovering the positive intention which was missed, letting go of the grudge and finding Love right there underneath.

My grudge-muscle is atrophying. Still all these people around me continue begrudging me and others as if it were normal. Well, it may be normal, but it sure ain’t healthy!

Rest

So many of my clients say they have no time to do the homework I assign them each week. They don’t have time to even talk to each other, sometimes not even once in a whole week.

Of course, they have no time to rest.

I prepare to rest on the next in-breath. I relax on the turn-around between in and out.  I rest deeply on the out-breath. I relax again on the turn-around between out and in.

Every breath, therefore, is an opportunity to rest.

Sometimes, between the typing of one letter and the next, I take a breath-vacation, and rest.

The wisdom of the world can arise on one of these breath-vacations. A single one. They are like doorways to the place where serenity is manufactured.

They are always available. Anytime you still have time to breathe.