When we hear “Embracing Conflict, Creating Peace”, the subtitle of the Book-of-the-Month for July we tend to think of external conflict, external forces, and peace amongst peoples, amongst countries. Perhaps that’s just our natural instinct – to think that the things that we deal with to grow and to evolve are outside of ourselves – sometimes the impetus is external. Most times though the stimulus is external, the impetus, the desire, is internal.
I spent part of the weekend in the company of a couple with a small child. At one point, the conversation between the two parents went something like this, “Do you want to change her or should I?” It occurred to me that that is how we view our life most of the time – someone or something outside of ourselves is creating the change for us. And, like children, we either allow this change to happen peacefully or we fight it, wiggling and resisting with all of our futile strength to make it stop. Also like children, if we embrace the change, allow it to occur without resistance, we are more comfortable during the change, the change is over more quickly, and we are once again feeling warm and loved.
As the author of The I of the Storm; Embracing Conflict, Creating Peace, Gary Simmons, says, “It is important to remember, however, that conflict does not come to us, it comes from us. It arises from within as an effect of two competing intentions: a compelling desire to feel safe, okay, and valued, and the drive to fulfill the soul’s purpose.” It is our very soul that cries out for change – taking us away from our comfort zone to grow and evolve into the purpose we have come here to fulfill.
