09 July 2012

Conflict - End Rant 16 January 2011 exLJ

A Course in Miracles, Lesson 102 talks about our belief in pain and suffering in the following terms: "It has not gone as yet, but lacks the roots that once secured it tightly to the dark and hidden secret places of your mind."

In teaching Peace of Mind Healing I emphasise that all pain and suffering comes from our thinking and that what we need to do is change our thinking. The most common response to this is "that's easier said than done". And I usually reply "don't I know?"

I don't know whether its the dreams, doing the lessons again or just simply life, but I still find myself in conflict with a lot of the stuff going on in the world. Despite my attempts to not be inundated with news (I don't watch news on TV or Internet, and I don't read newspapers) I still get to hear about some of the tragedies from friends or casual conversations.

Most of the time I'm superficially at peace and happy, but there is that underlying something always there. In psychiatric terms, it would probably be referred to as a compartment, some "dark and hidden secret place in my mind". Buried deep in my mind! How it got there, I'd like to say, I don't know, but I do. I absorbed it during my early childhood and then emphasised it again and again in all the arguments we had over the years. And that is argument in the sense of conflict not in the sense of clarification.

When I got old enough to be able to look somewhat objectively at all the arguments I could see what they are based on:

  1. I am right, you are wrong.
  2. If I am wrong, I cannot admit it.
  3. If you don't agree with me that I am right, even though we both know I am wrong, then I get angry.
  4. When I get angry, I puff out my chest, try to get higher than you and get ready to head-butt you.
  5. You usually back down and I'm left with the guilty feeling that I should not have done that.
The conclusion I came to was that "violence is the last resort of angry men and war is the last resort of angry nations".

The strategy to end rant is "I am right, you are right, we are all right."

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