Although we live as if we are separate individuals, humans are profoundly interconnected with all life on our living planet. It’s easy to lose touch with this in the midst of the more immediate demands of everyday life.  Even so, the truth is that the wellbeing of the whole and the wellbeing of the individual are not separate, and what we say and what we do makes a difference. Whether the whole is a family, a school, a neighborhood, a country or the entire planet, the whole is in the one and the one is in the whole.  This awareness can light a path forward towards a life a spiritual integrity, cultural evolution and collective thriving.

We are wired for connection.  We are meant to be embedded within and nourished by community.  Both giving and receiving can be natural and joyful, yet, at the same time, there are real obstacles to being in this kind of flow.  And although it is true that we are wired for connection and generosity, it is also true that we are wired for survival.  It’s human nature to split ourselves into the parts of us that we show others in order to be loved, to have belonging, acceptance, approval, and to survive and shadow parts that we hide, even from ourselves.  When we’ve experienced relational trauma, especially in the early years, and at key developmental stages, the world we develop on the inside can become divided, causing us to seek outside of ourselves that which we have exiled within ourselves.  We can spend a lifetime trying to fill a void on the inside with stuff from the outside.  Combine this with the phenomenon of confirmation bias and it’s possible to stay stuck in an endless loop within our own minds.

When our deep seated beliefs bump into the deep seated beliefs of another person, conflict happens.  This is inevitable.  There are ways to work with conflict that tear us apart, and there are ways that can begin to weave a fabric of togetherness. How we work with conflict starts with how we work with our own emotions. When fear or anger get activated, it’s natural to respond in unconscious habitual ways, the ways we developed in our growing-up years. When the fight/flight response takes over, we experience ourselves as separate, and we tend to speak in ways that further alienate us from ourselves and others.  What we say and do from this activated state feeds the sense of self as separate. 

It is possible, however, to train ourselves to pause and to self-connect before we jump into the ring with our partners or our children. Conflict shows us what matters to us. It also shows us our adaptation patterns.  It is an opportunity to connect with ourselves and others.  It is also an opportunity to update our inner scripts and bring presence to our inner children.  How we work with conflict, within ourselves, and within our relationships profoundly affects the quality of our relationships.  Most of us, however, have no idea what this looks or feels like.  We haven’t had role-models for this kind of relational work. We are quite practiced at avoiding, ‘fixing’, shutting ourselves or others down, pushing our agendas, complaining, isolating, and giving up. 

When we participate in community with other humans, we will have lots of opportunity to practice.  We can begin to observe our automatic reactions.  We can take the time to connect to our own and one another’s humanity.  We can begin to know ourselves as human ‘beings’, and not just human ‘doings’.  We can become curious about and aware of the impact that we are having in our world.  Conflict can become an opportunity to know ourselves and others more intimately and more compassionately.  Our roles as parents and partners invite us to grow more connected on the inside, therefore giving us more capacity to be present in the places where presence is needed.

If we approach conflict as an opportunity to integrate new information into our existing systems of thought, to let go of outdated beliefs; if we see it as an invitation to bring presence and healing to our relational wounds, a chance to become more caring and inclusive of ourselves and each other, and a way to grow more connected, it becomes a vital aspect of our social and cultural evolution. 

We just need to know what this looks and feels like.  

And we need an openness to try something new.

This is a shift at the level of being. This is a movement towards creating a culture that reflects our wholeness. 

We can do this, one conversation at a time.