A student recently reached out to me recently with the following quote, asking me if this is true. He was especially concerned because he felt that conflict was pointless since all it would end up becoming was an endless argument. I share my response to the question in case it helps others.
IF YOU AVOID THE CONFLICT TO KEEP THE PEACE, YOU START A WAR INSIDE YOURSELF
Cheryl Richardson
It is a lovely question, and I think one that many might have. If only it were that simple – to fight or not to fight. It isn’t.
I think you might be confusing things here though. It doesn’t sound like you’re avoiding conflict to keep the peace here, but more because there is simply no point. If the other person is not invested in our happiness, there is absolutely no point in engaging with such a person, all we will find is arguments and excuses.
The key is to stop and ask a few questions.
What do I lose by keeping silent? Suppressing your own feelings makes you invisible in the relationship and you disappear basically, you don’t matter anymore in the relationship, your needs are irrelevant.
What do I lose by sharing my feelings? If sharing how you feel creates problems, then it usually means that the other person does not have your well being in mind. If there is fear of abuse upon sharing your perspective, then more action needs to be taken in order to protect yourself, because such a relationship can destroy you in many ways.
Do I intend to blame the other person or share how I feel (because no one disputes this other than narcissists, who freely tell you what you are thinking and feeling) Look carefully at whose problem it really is. Is it their problem? Is it your problem? Is it a joint problem? Are they violating boundaries or is this just an irritant?
Am I keeping quiet for their sake or mine? This is critical. Are you staying quiet because you’re getting something out of this? Are you doing it out of the fear of hurting the other person? And if this is the case, are they the sort of person who will not feel hurt if they realise they have been hurting you?
Here’s a question I received yesterday and my response to it.
Ashwita, what’s your take on luck? Does this relate to things outside of our control or is it based on our inner alignment and what we ‘invite’ ???
Interesting you ask this question because I had a fascinating discussion with a friend yesterday who went to a Nadi astrologer. So this was his finding. He said when we go to regular astrologers, they see where we are headed, and suggest us remedies. The nadi astrology takes done remedies into consideration and tells us the final result.
I think a visit to a nadi astrologer is usually great proof for many people just how much of life is totally scripted, because people I know have found predictions to be coming true even a decade later. I’ve never been to one, but things that were told to my parents about me came true a decade later, and no astrologer we visited could even predict those incidents. However I do know someone who was told he’d have a great life, he then thought wow I have a great life ahead of me and did nothing. His life still sucks and nothing came true.
So basically. I don’t believe we have free will to make our lives any better – if we live in the flow, our life automatically floats up to the best case scenario that was originally designed. However, we do have all the free will we need to make our lives far more miserable.
Luck is nothing but oneness with the universe in a particular moment. When we are in alignment, we function like the whole universe is one machine, and we’re aware of something much, much larger than us at play, and things falling into place which we could never have facilitated by ourselves. Because that is actually the default state of existence. But we get out of sync, then we’re small and limited, and being in the flow is considered a ‘spiritual’ thing to do
The purpose of relationships in all forms, whether with lovers, family or colleagues is the same as life itself. That is, to express, share and celebrate happiness, peace and love, rather than to seek such things from others.
Just like any other pattern of seeking, if we feel we will be happier when we have a relationship, or more at peace when someone has committed to us, or more able to love when we have someone to love, then we setting ourselves up for disappointment. We are doing things in the wrong order. We are turning our relationship into an economic transaction.
Like any other effort to seek happiness, peace and love in an object, a state or in this case a person – a relationship will provide temporary relief. For a moment, when we fall in love, there is no distance, no separation. The search is off and we glimpse ourselves as we are – connected, happy, timeless.
However, if the belief remains that we are separate and finite, then ultimately there are two, still two separate selves. As long as there are two separate selves, there will be something you are looking to get from the relationship. Something you are looking to complete. In this set-up, even so called ‘giving’ is with a view to getting.
As long as we feel finite or have a need to be complete, we will enter relationships in a way trying to protect oneself from being diminished or to be aggrandised.
Ultimately we must accept that our search for trust, security and commitment in a relationship is in vain. If we are honest with ourselves, relationships however strong are unstable. Relationships, however sweet, will die.
Things fall apart. People leave us. Death parts us.
There is a deep intuition that comes from an innate knowledge that we have, that everything is insecure, nothing objective lasts. Nothing.
We can face that fact. We can face it honestly and courageously.
We can do so by asking what has always been with us? What have we never been separated from? What has never let us down?
Only this aware presence that we know ourselves to be.
This has always been true. It is always present. It is never distant. It will never leave. It doesn’t judge.
You can trust what is stable. You can feel secure with that which is ever-present.
That which is always present, that which never changes, that which is not dependent on the state of your mind, that which is reliable in your experience; that is worth committing to.
As the sense of separation falls away relationships cease to be a relationship between two individuals trying to find love and instead are instead diverse expressions of the same love, the same happiness.
If we see our true nature, our capacity to enjoy relationships does not diminish. We are more able to have truly loving relationships.
That is the joy of this. Our relationships in all forms really thrive as a result of this understanding.
Your nature is happiness. You can express, share and celebrate that in relationships understanding that you lack nothing, so there is no need to look for completion in others.
Your nature is peace. You can express share and celebrate that in relationships, knowing you cannot be agitated, and don’t need to seek refuge in others.
You are connected. You can express, share and celebrate that in relationships, and be free of the need to mask a sense of separation by investing in another.
Have this understanding in the background. And let it infiltrate the way you relate in a more intelligent and loving way.
Greet old friends and loved ones like it is the first time you have been introduced, like all is fresh and new.
Greet new friends like you have known them forever, like your connection has been there forever.
However close you are with your lover, family or colleagues understand that they are not yours. You are not theirs. You are not together. You are free. You are free not to walk away. Free to dance together eternally.
There is a great freedom in knowing that nothing holds you together. You just share an essence.
There is a great liberation knowing that you do not derive love, happiness and security from the another, but that together you can express, share and celebrate it. You can enjoy healthy relationships without being attached to them.
When this is a shared understanding relationships flourish.
There is a non duality inside the duality. A stillness inside the movement. Light inside the shadow.
If we overlook the deep understanding that we are one, and instead walk as two separate beings, then there will always be distance. If we know what we share then we can not only walk as one, but dance as one.
It is this understanding that allows you to go out into the multiplicity and diversity of the world and truly enjoy it as it is. We need not abandon desires, just as long as we don’t seek happiness in them. Instead we can express happiness through desire that comes from our aware presence.
What we truly appreciate that all there is here is no one, no things and no others: then we are able to truly appreciate the appearance of things and others, and dance as one of those things in relation with life, with people.
This is real love. This is real intimacy.
A relationship where the only commitment is to love itself: celebrated with openness, shared in abundance and enjoyed with no contingent agenda.
This is the perfect place to start a relationship. Knowing happiness and love is not dependent on someone or something means a relationship can be conceived out of freedom rather out of need.
Your intimate relationships will improve. Your friendships will flourish.
Of course not everyone will have your understanding. People will want you in their life to complete their sense of incompleteness. People will insist upon resisting you even when you have no agenda.
Be open. Enjoy a total lack of resistance.
Without an agenda, you can simply observe but not judge.
With compassion and understanding you can know that they are doing the best with what they think they have.
Without agenda or judgement, you can remain present, and in your heart relate to who they truly are.
Don’t buy their story. Or any story.
Don’t reject it either. But don’t buy it.
It doesn’t mean that you ignore them. Or cannot be in a relationship with them.
But really, the one you are speaking to is the presence behind the one they believe themselves to be. The one around whom the drama is revolving, is not there.
They may not know. But you do know, so let them burn it out. Be like an open window that and wind can blow through. No resistance.
Be transparent. Hold onto nothing. Take nothing personally.
Be spacious enough that you can take anything in. You can welcome anything home.
Making this work without compromising your inner freedom is possible. It just requires sensitivity and skill on your part to make it so.
See in others the same aware presence that you know yourself to be.
Be gentle and assure that person that your love is real, but that you will never think of them as an object, obligated to make you complete and happy. Encourage them to swim in this pool of unconditional love, until their own fears and tensions dissolve.
Anthony Jacquin is a hypnotist. Author of ‘Reality is Plastic – The Art of Impromptu Hypnosis’, and teacher of therapy at Jacquin Hypnosis Academy. His primary preoccupation is playing games with his sense-of-being, and watching ‘I’ slip through his fingers whenever he tries to grasp it.
How can an individual (a HSP especially) transition from their usual self to a more assertive self like this? I believe it can get pretty challenging to put this into action?
Twice a day Reiki practice would be essential, to be able to develop the kind of self-awareness to make this kind of shift. I don’t know why or how, but a strong Reiki practice makes inner shifts significantly easier, many times simple realising something can bring about a transformation, with zero effort.
What worked for me (I don’t like labels at all, but I’m an HSP and empath) was watching a friend who had really clear, healthy boundaries. When in trouble, I’d ask myself ‘what would she do?’. You don’t need to have to watch a friend, because I can share the critical part, what happened next.
Heal your anger. I started to realise that I couldn’t act reasonably because of the anger I experienced inside. When people violated me, I got offended, angry and my natural response to anger was to shut down, be quiet, agree, say yes. That always got me into a lot of trouble. So I started working on that anger one step at a time. The day I was able to just see a person trying to have their needs met instead of someone who wanted to violate me, my responses became a lot healthier.
‘I’ll get back to you’. Another big one that helped was this – a family member told me to make it a habit to say ‘I’ll think about it’. He told me to just make it my internal programming when I was supposed to make a decision. ‘I’ll think about it, or I’ll get back to you in a bit’ – even if that bit is 5 minutes. When you take a breather and a pause, usually you come back to your senses, slip out of the freeze mode and you are able to respond much better. Over time you then become equipped more and more to respond more honestly in the moment too.
Get comfortable being a bitch. HSPs and empaths are frequently addicted to the identity of being a ‘nice person’, and this is a big obstacle. You cannot be nice all the time. There are (abusive) people who will push you and leave you with only two choices in the end – to be rude or to do what they’re demanding. In these cases if we’re enslaved to being ‘nice’, we’re enslaved to that person. We need to get comfortable with being a bitch. This is also dangerous advice to take literally as it can be used as an excuse to abuse people. Usually it is a more internal state than an external one, because there’s almost always a way to convey your message in a civilised manner.
I was probably 6 or 7 when my parents first told me that I would never ‘really’ die. I thought about it for months.
Have you ever been part of a group? Have you watched how the group has a life, a mind of its own, that feels like an individual identity? Who are you without the group? Do you live on, do you continue to have a life and a mind of your own when the group ‘dies’?
Have you realised that a human being is an ecosystem? We consist of trillions of cells and bacteria. To imagine that we are an ‘individual’ is erroneous.
The consciousness of the food we eat, the person who cooks our food, the people we spend our time with, the memories of and relationship between the cells within our body all affect our ‘life and minds’. We are a group identity. When we die, that group dies.
But the cells don’t. A part of you is unperishable even by fire and decay. You live on forever. Just not as a ‘group’ anymore, but as a trillion separate pieces that have a life and a mind of their own.
