conflict resolution (branching off from self organization...)

[Julie Smith]

My husband, the builder, tells me of the boards and pipes dancing in his
head, weaving together in his mind, to his hands, creating our home.
 
Ideas dance through my head, weaving together in my mind, to my fingers
on the keyboard, creating I know not what.  Today’s vision:
 
The short version: 
 
In our spiral of expanding consciousness, we outgrow conflict.
 
The long version: 
 
During our journey, we encounter conflict.  As in all things, we have
two choices:
 
1.      We can respond with fear.  (In the Thomas-Kilman model, for you
CR professionals, fear might wear the face of avoidance, accommodation,
competition, or compromise)
2.      We can respond with love.  (In the T-K model, the face of
collaboration)
 
Most of us experiment for a very long time with one or more of the
fear-based responses to conflict.  None of these responses fully engages
the humanity/divinity of all the people involved in the conflict.  From
this place of fear-based response, it is an advance, a forward movement
of expanding consciousness, to recognize the positive value of conflict
that is expressed when we respond to conflict with collaboration.  When
we advance to a collaborative model, we seek to fully engage and honor
and respect every person involved in the conflict.  As we engage in
collaborative responses to conflict (through a variety of processes,
including OS and mediation) we experience fuller and more genuine
engagement with others, we are awed and inspired by the beauty and
natural intelligence of humanity, and our ability to love expands.
 
And then
.. there comes a point where conflict itself is no longer
meaningful.   It fades away because, in Jung’s words, “[s]ome higher or
wider interest appeared on the
 horizon, and through this broadening of

outlook the insoluble problem lost its urgency.  It was not solved
logically in its own terms but faded when confronted with a new and
stronger life urge.”
 
>From this place on the spiral, experiencing and practicing what it means
to engage with love with everyone in every moment becomes the “new and
stronger life urge.”  From this place, engaging in our own conflict is a
step backwards, a reflection of a momentary return to fear, an error to
be healed.  
 

..which leaves the question of whether and how we engage in the
conflicts of others

 I think the focus on particular processes must
also fade
..
 
I think there comes a point of flow, where we simply accept the
unfolding of people and events around us.  Our sole responsibility is to
quietly maintain our integrity to our loving intention, to be still
often enough and long enough to hear our inner wisdom, and to choose our
actions accordingly.   
 
Julie
 
 
 
 
 
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