Much of our life movement has been around avoiding pain. To engage with conflict in a life-giving way we need to start working from a place of love.

For most of us conflict is just associated with pain. To cope, we’ve learnt to separate what we like and what we reject both in ourselves and in others. In this way we try to avoid fighting, to cover the tensions we feel or to defend ourselves against a perceived threat. We end up thinking some people are ‘wonderful’ while others we put down as ‘awful’. This is a common pattern in conflict, but is not a life-giving one.

Conflict will always be part of our human condition. So how can we find transformative, life-giving ways with it? It is uncomfortable to face ourselves and to risk doing this inner work instead of choosing our easier, more familiar, but fear-based pathways. In too many situations we may simply take our foregone conclusions as correct, and allow our negative thoughts to run their repetitive routes. We need to become aware of misconceptions we’ve believed from our childhood. We can choose to embrace a more life-giving reality by not fighting these thoughts, but by identifying their negative messages.

Through facing our distress in a difficult issue and not running from our struggles, we receive deeper awareness of inner processes, patience, and empathy for our own pain and that of others. Though initially hard to believe, we can come to realise that people who ‘trigger’ us are not actually the problem. They are simply showing us where we are vulnerable, having grown fragile or touchy from our having been wounded there. These areas of pain show us where we particularly need protection and healing. This ongoing process need not overwhelm us if we lovingly manage only what is coming up for us at one moment.

It does take courage to choose to remain on this more life-giving pathway. This work of love remains our highest calling, essential to our inner healing and the transformation of our world.