I beg to differ.
Recently my favorite phrase is “we have different opinions.”
Standing next to my kitchen sink, I am using the sponge designated for wiping counters (which differs from the one used for washing dishes). This is my husband’s system, I adopted years back. Today I notice how happy I am to use his system while still feeling the neurological memory of my own system as my hands instinctively go to swipe the sink clean with the “dish washing” sponge.
I change course, smiling and musing to myself, “we have different opinions.”
For many of us, we watched our parents enmeshed in small skirmishes and all out wars about how things should be done around the house, with money, in parenting, with each other. Having a difference of opinion was wrought with the calamitous sensation that an intractable situation was about to arise. The focus was always on the “what” of it.
What is her stand?
His stand?
Who will win?
Similarly, our own relationships can get very focused on differing opinions that seem to have absolutely no way of being in the same room together, so much so that it can become literally unbearable to be in the same room with our partners or co-parents.
But what if there was the possibility that all “differing” opinions, positions, feelings could be completely welcome and could co-habituate under one roof (inner and outer). With no need to change what is arising through ourselves or our partners.
What if the heart of good communication is to be able to be present with things exactly as they are. No manipulation, no need to make it pretty, or “use different words.”
Now, I am a Taurus on the astrological chart, so granted, I like locking horns from time to time. But even if you are absolutely conflict averse, you might be surprised that allowing conflict is the least conflictual stance you can take!
In other words, GET COMFORTABLE WITH CONFLICT!
There are a lot of effective tools out there that can teach you to say things in a way that you can be heard better and they are very helpful. What I am proposing is something different, something maybe even a bit RADICAL:
What if the most effective form of communication and connection is to allow differences of all shapes and sizes. To forgive ourselves when the “less than perfect” expression comes through us. To marvel at the myriad of expressions, quandaries and predicaments that occur. To come at conflict with curiosity.
Now, this is not to say it will be comfortable (yes, I love to contradict myself)!
First of all, let’s talk about feelings. From a very young age there is an emphasis on learning how to name our feelings, recognize they are happening. For many of us, our feelings are like unruly children that we try to corral, contain and coerce for most of our life. But what if feelings/emotions are as fluid as water and there is no way around them but to allow them to move through us.
Look at your first moment of life. What did you do? All of us? CRY! Now that’s a feeling! And from that moment on, there are a stream of emotions running through us throughout our life.
Then we get into relationship, and somehow things get tricky. The two “streams” of our emotions crash into each other, currents with power heading in different directions. It’s hard to remember that the waters mix, even if they have different trajectories, intensities, currents -there is always a place of meeting, of mixing.
This is where the mind comes in. The great creator of structure, with its attempt to contain the fluidity of all things. There is this desire to escape the inevitable truth of the absolute lack of control we have over what arises through us. So the mind comes in and says, this feeling and that feeling are NOT FRIENDS. This thought and that thought are NOT FRIENDS. This opinion and that opinion are NOT FRIENDS.
Doors slam, and everyone heads to different corners of the house (metaphorically or literally).
YES AND!
In one of my favorite forms of expression, Motion Theater®, that is the practice – embrace everything that arises, especially in your own particular life. No separation. It is the YES AND principal of improv. Everything is the perfect roommate, the perfect storm, the perfect discomfort to grow you into someone who can hold it all. The big, the bad, the ugly.
So, go ahead and practice the next time a conflict arises. Notice if you are having an argument with arguing. Can you let it all run its course and then let it go?
Watch young children if you are not sure what I am talking about. They fight and grapple, kick and scream with a playmate and then a moment later run gleefully together side by side.
This is you. This is you and your partner. This is life arising as it is.
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