Purposeful Wanderings - Bradford L. Glass - August 2024
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there!”
– Rumi
Three or four times this past month, I was asked for coaching help on handing disagreements with loved ones. As each conversation unfolded and as I listened to the dilemmas, I found myself creating a mental model for what was happening below the surface … in the thinking (both conscious and unconscious) that drove the conflict. From these contemplations emerged this “framework for dealing with disagreement.” It is intended for, and effective with, two caring people who want to resolve things but don’t know how, so end up in repeated everyday struggles. It is useless for situations involving someone who wants to stay angry, despite a desire to resolve on the part of the other. You can’t make someone want to seek resolution. Best path for those: “No, thank you.”
Stuff happens. We talk. We enjoy. Life is good. Then it’s not. We get triggered. We react. Next thing we know, it’s all personal, it’s all tense, and we’re fighting things out. And in whatever sane moments there may be in the midst of the fray, we wonder how it got this bad this fast. But we’re now so immersed in the conflict that we can’t just “reflect” on our wondering. Both the “good” and the “bad” here are simply part of life (and part of language, too, for that matter). But what … really … makes them such different experiences?
What if there were two of you inside you? No, I’m not nuts, so hear me out for a bit. There’s one of you living in the present moment, consciously, experiencing “what is” right now. That’s the version of you you believe you are. But there’s another “you” … perhaps unknown to you, yet certainly hidden from conscious awareness. Think of this you as carrying a virtual sack over your shoulder, filled with everything that has ever happened to you for as many years as you’ve been alive. The sack holds all your lessons, experiences, challenges, celebrations, setbacks, struggles and memories. And it also holds a bunch of intangibles, like your attitude, the way you’ve come to see and think – about yourself, others, life – as well as beliefs you hold about how things “just are,” habits you’ve developed as a result … such as how quickly you react to things (just as a rather pertinent example). As you age, you’ve naturally got more to carry around. As you age, stuff that’s in there also becomes more firmly cemented as “truth” (which probably makes it even less visible than before, largely because it’s been in there so damned long.)
Let’s get back to the conversation. Everything’s going great. Then the other person says something a bit “off.” You get triggered and react. But, and here’s the point, the reaction comes from the “you” carrying the sack, yesterday’s you, not today’s you. The same is true for the other. Their outburst was more than likely an unconscious response inside them, coming from yesterday’s version of them, not today’s. So, at this point the “disagreement” looks like this: yesterday’s version of one person is having an argument with yesterday’s version of the other, and both miss the fact that neither of those is real, and that neither is living in the present moment. And without awareness of there being two of you in there, you think the disagreement is about now, and about each other, now. It’s neither!
With this framework as a [perhaps new-to-you] background, you have the capacity to soften/manage/eliminate much of the “everyday loving conflict” in your life. The path is to become aware that 1) you have two “yous” inside you, at every moment; 2) yesterday’s “you” is not real, but rather a virtual holdover from years/decades of lessons and experiences … and the unconscious habits they’ve spawned; 3) when you develop the awareness to recognize both “yous” in each moment, you can choose to ignore yesterday’s “you” and return to being today’s “you.” A beautiful byproduct of this work is that you come to a place of acceptance that every single one of us gets triggered … many times a day … by many different things … affecting each of us in our own unique ways. None of us is immune! We’re all in this together. That acceptance alone can help to reduce contention, blame, divisiveness.
Note: Yesterday’s “you” will always yammer its nonsense; always. It’s [perceived] job is to defend you from past hurts. You won’t stop the “stories” that set off the triggers. What you stop is the wiring that ignites the reaction. One day you realize you respond with: “Oh, that happened,” and just move on. See exercise for how!
Exercise: You can’t have an effective conversation with today if you’re unknowingly having one with yesterday!
It's tough to change things while you’re in the middle of an argument, although the first two exercises below can help you a bit there. The third one is the game changer, but can only be done in quiet time, alone, separate from any conflict. Awareness is the tool. And it works only if you do the process of discovery.
1) For common disagreements with any “regular other,” take on this experiment together: When either of you notices a disagreement barely beginning to brew, stop and ask, out loud, “which version of ME is talking here?” Both of you will soften, in that very moment, just because you stopped long enough to ask. And … and if asking the question leads to different choices, you will soften even more, in the moment.
2) Just for you, but when you’re with your “other”: See if you can notice – in the moment of contention – which version of your “other” you’re hearing from (unconscious yesterday’s … or conscious today’s). When you realize you’re talking to yesterday, practice saying: Let it go. Or go back to #1. You aren’t here to fix the other person, you’re here to find peace within yourself by learning more about you and your reactions.
3) Just for you, but in your own quiet time: Replay in your mind any event at all that happened since the last time you replayed. Listen … now …. for what triggered your response … then. Follow the triggers back to perhaps-old lessons stuck inside you … that influence your reaction … today. Get to know how your reactiveness was born! Then pick another event or conversation. Do the same. Keep doing this for 15 min. of quiet time each day; just learn. Write what you learn … about yourself, not about what the other person has to do to change!!
Important point: Change comes not by “trying to change” or by “making others be nice,” but by getting to know what drives your reactiveness. You do that with replays, as the audience in your life, not just participant. In this way, over time, you learn from old triggers instead of becoming them. Think about it: Imagine a future where you simply don’t react to other people’s nonsense. No reaction means no contention! You are your own answers.
Life Lessons from Nature: Rivers are the veins and arteries of the earth, carrying its life force from the mountains to the sea, regenerating the endless cycle that sustains life on Earth. Nature doesn’t have a goal; it just is. Rivers aren’t trying to work their way to the sea; they just do. In the process, they leave behind beauty on the land that has captivated writers and poets for centuries and has provided us with both comfort and peace.
Why is this so? Sit by a river for an hour or two. Notice how water finds its way around the rocks. Notice how the water doesn’t stop to fight everything along the way; it just does what it does (being a river), flowing around whatever is in its path. There’s no stress, no complaining, no problem about the rocks; they’re just being rocks. The rocks don’t have a problem either; they aren’t “being difficult,” or fighting the river. There’s peace in this system, despite its sometimes-turbulent face. The river gets to the ocean. And over millennia, the rocks are worn smooth by the presence of the river.
So, too, in our lives. We needn’t stop to fight with life’s “obstacles.” In fact, they’re “obstacles” only because we named them such. Just as easily, we could choose to accept that life’s path contains rocks. It’s just the way it is. Instead of seeing rocks as interruptions in our life, we could stop and ponder what we might learn from them, asking perhaps, “What does this experience teach me about how I might live my life?”... and then simply go around, wiser for the contact. Another line by Rumi: “If you are irritated by every rub, how will you ever be polished?”
Book of the month: Perhaps the best book you might read this month is the one YOU write … with what you discover … and learn … and change … as a result of these ideas and exercises. Give it a try!