We'll get into today and I just deep bows to you all showing up on a meditation,
A practice that is titled welcoming conflict.
Wow.
Um,
Just,
Just that,
Just that showing up is in a sense welcoming it.
And so you've,
You've,
You've,
You've done some of the work.
So I just first just want to honor you for jumping on a title like this.
And yeah,
We'll,
We'll talk a little bit in two directions.
We'll talk about inner conflict,
Things that stir us up,
Things that trigger us and,
And then outer conflict.
And in some ways it's all inner conflict,
But the outer conflict shows up when we have to speak or do something,
Say something that might be,
Might hurt someone.
It might put someone on the defensive.
We have to speak our truth sometimes when it's really difficult.
We have to have a difficult conversation or say something that might hurt someone when it's true for us.
And so we're,
We'll explore a little bit about those,
Those two welcoming.
The inner conflict comes back to a little bit of what we've spoken about recently in acceptance.
It is accepting our experience,
Accepting what's happening in this moment.
And our work here is accepting also the things that are creating the disturbance in us.
And it's,
It's beautiful.
We have this,
We are in,
We were living in a duality.
There's a polarity.
And so welcoming conflict,
It means like also welcoming our opposites.
This is a portal,
A gateway into our shadow and doing shadow work,
Welcoming this yin yang balance that we all have.
And where this practice,
Where I wanted to explore this with you came from was I sit in a men's group each week and this was early on why I just joined the group not too long after this experience.
There was a man in there who just kind of in a fun way,
Offhandedly shared that he had planned to,
And I want to keep some confidentiality here.
He had planned to do a drug that weekend.
And it triggered me.
It triggered me because I've been sober for seven years.
And I was like,
Just had this feeling of like,
Am I,
Should I be here?
I'm not supposed to like,
Like,
Why am I around this person?
I had all these judgments coming up inside of me.
And now I'll caveat by saying that if you're a similar situation,
Right,
Obviously,
If you're in a situation where you feel unsafe,
Leave that situation.
But this was,
This was a men's group.
And so it was an opportunity for me to like,
Oh,
Interesting.
And I got to speak a little bit about it and work through it a little.
And in many ways,
What I recognized even as this man was speaking was like,
I just saw so much of myself.
And it was like a moment to see a part of myself that apparently I'm still not okay with.
Carl Jung famously said,
You might've heard this quote before,
Everything that irritates us about another can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
And again,
It's not to say that we put ourselves in situations where we are dangerous to us.
But when we do have that trigger,
When someone is stirring up a judgment in ourselves,
This is such a beautiful mirror to look back to say,
Where is the conflict within me?
What am I not okay with?
Where does my empathy go?
Where did my compassion go?
And to start doing our own inner work.
If you want to explore this in a fun way to welcome inner conflict,
Find and I'm very,
I don't love politics at all.
But if you want to explore your shadow,
And you want to explore inner conflict,
Listen to a radio show or a podcast,
Something that you know that you're going to disagree with and see what comes up.
Like intentionally,
We always are pulling in content that just agrees with our current beliefs.
And it's actually really interesting to listen to content that is going to stir us that's actually going to be opposed to our own beliefs and seeing if we can actually not necessarily with the change our beliefs by any means,
But we can see and have more understanding,
Coming to this deeper truth of seeking to understand others.
We are so divided,
So divided,
Because we're not seeing the shadow where you are projecting our shadow onto other people instead of recognizing the darkness that is also in us,
Right and doing the work to love that part of us.
Parker Palmer writes to embrace weakness,
Liability and darkness as part of who I am gives that part less sway over me,
Because all it ever wanted was to be acknowledged as part of my whole self.
And so that inner conflict,
This inner good,
Bad,
And if we can just honor that we have both all of a sudden,
We come into that we touch that non dual space for a moment,
If maybe we let it all belong,
Everything belongs,
And we come into a deeper truth.
And so we'll work on some of that if you have someone that's triggering you,
Good,
Bring them into this.
And then just to speak on a little bit in the outer conflict in the sense of,
And this actually also happened in this group,
This group's it's a beautiful opportunity to practice all these things,
But I was speaking to someone about something I disagreed with in a way that not that I was like,
Just like triggered by it,
But I knew this man would get defensive,
Not defensive,
I knew it might hurt him in a way,
But it was just my truth.
And I noticed as I started speaking,
I was really calm at first.
And then all of a sudden,
I really started speaking up,
I started speaking up,
And I started noticing my body starting to close down,
Close down,
Close down,
Close down,
I started disassociating,
And I was like,
Oh,
My gosh,
What is happening right now?
Why can't I say this?
Why can't I say this without looking at this person?
Why is my body shutting down?
And I was able to do a little bit of work on it.
And kind of recognizing this little boy inside of me who had a moment where he tried to speak up and was shut down and I was able to do a little bit touch on it a little bit.
But it's a pattern for me.
It's a pattern I'm sure many of you can relate to avoid,
To avoid the uncomfortable conversation,
To avoid potentially creating dissonance in another,
When in fact,
It's actually you just speaking your truth,
And not being responsible for how other people's experience is.
It's reminding me right now of when the difference between Brene Brown talks about an atlas of the heart,
It's like the difference between shaming someone and speaking in a way that is calling someone responsible,
And not being if they feel shame,
That's what they're going to feel.
So it's this interesting balance to lean in to this uncomfort and to speak our truth.
And not only that,
But we're all of this work is getting freer.
We think of the spiritual journey,
It's a journey to inner freedom.
And so when our body,
Our nervous system is closing down,
There's something that is very unfree within us.
And so as we do the work to retrain our body,
And our experience,
We open up space,
We open up energy,
And we become freer within.
