This is something that is very close to the foreground in our society, the many conflicts that are happening within the world.  Recently there were riots in Dublin after a stabbing.  The days and weeks that followed were filled with a lot of voices of calling out around the wrong doing.  The air was electric with the feeling of right and wrong the demonizing of the wrong doers, which were different for everyone depending on which group you attached to.

So, I have been really contemplating this idea of conflict and our ability to ignore it.  To turn our eyes away from it when the initial horror has subsided.  It made me think about conflict closer to me and how did I show up in those situations, did I make the other the demon, did I ignore the wrong doing because it was easier?

Then I brought that attention in a little closer to my own internal conflict.  The times that I have not spoken up when I really felt I should, when I didn’t act in a way that I knew was the authentic way for me, when I haven’t done the right thing for the people around me because it would mean I lose something, when I have stayed in jobs that were damaging me, when I have used relationships to hide in.

I could start to see that I had learnt a skill of ignoring my own internal conflict.  It was a strategy.  I thought, what if I could practice turning up to my own internal conflict with interest, not needing to take drastic actions, but could I at least acknowledge the internal conflict?  Could I see that I was compromising myself in some way?  Could I bring patience and understanding to it? Not deny it, or blame it on someone or something else, could I own my own experience within a tender heart?

The feeling of being unheard, unseen or unappreciated, is a crippling experience.  Particularly when it is in an extreme situation.  Can I show up for myself, to hear my own struggle conflict, can I see my own pain, can I appreciate the difficulty that I am experiencing?  I wonder if we can make this internal repatriation more and more, how will it ease our conflict, will it allow us to be in the world and not ignore the suffering if we have learnt not to ignore our own?

Aileen xxx