Conflict: fun versus perfection
Anne K. and I have exchanged a few communications today about dealing with conflict. One conflict I’m experiencing is related to creating the entries for the Shift Diaries. I announced they would be imperfect, but I notice whenever I work on an entry, I trigger my belief that they must be perfect. They’re being made public, after all. What will people think if they aren’t PERFECTLY written?!?!?!?
This conflict makes writing for the blog (how I HATE that word) a chore, which is not what I intended. So, how to allow my natural energy to flow in a free and fun way without opposing it with expressed beliefs about the importance of looking good in public? How do I allow my natural energy to flow when an automatic response is galloping away with me?
As usual, it’s very easy to parrot the concept, “I simply need to accept that whatever I do is FINE!” Implementing that concept is not so easy.
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I’m still thinking about how I handle conflict. Here’s what came to me as I was in the shower:
When conflict arises, my aim now is to switch to focusing on the process instead of the outcome. It’s that Shifty difference Elias told us we’re headed toward.
Instead of getting into who’s right, who’s wrong, or what anyone thinks they want and how to make sure they get it or don’t, for me nowadays, dealing with conflict is like dealing with everything else in my life: it’s not about the details of the conflict, it’s about “what am I DOING?” that’s generating this energy of conflict.
I’m not saying I don’t trigger myself to all kinds of defensive automatic responses anymore. I still do. I’m defending myself before another human ever enters the scene, that’s how automatic that response is. But what’s different since I got into the “you create your own reality” groove is that I now want to back up and look at what’s REALLY going on, what am I doing to create the conflict and how can I reconfigure that energy to allow and accept what I want instead of oppose my reflected stuff.
Now, you said something about how you feel that accepting and allowing other points of view makes you feel that you have to bottle yourself up or go along with stuff you don’t like and don’t agree with. Abraham constantly hammers away at this misperception of accepting and allowing, since their workshops are called “The Art of Allowing,” and they always talk about ALLOWING as a cure for just about everything.
Allowing doesn’t mean I let people trample on me. It doesn’t mean I let people do whatever they’re going to do and suffer in silence. Nor does accepting mean I agree with them. Instead, what allowing and accepting are about is focusing on what I REALLY want and allowing my natural energy to flow. It’s about not putting out that energy of RESISTING what’s being reflected to me from outside, but instead recognizing that the RESISTANCE is the problem (and that I’m the one creating it), not the outside situation.
The resistance/opposition within me is what creates the outside situation of conflict, so allowing means I need to let go of projecting my attention to the outside/other person/situation (which means I need to stop defending myself – recognize I’m defending myself against something I oppose or don’t accept in MYSELF), and turn my attention toward “what do I want?” knowing that I can create what I want by focusing on TRUSTING myself to generate that. There’s nothing to oppose OUT THERE. There’s nothing OUT THERE to resist, convince, threaten, persuade, or anything.
Allowing and accepting means I recognize that I’ve generated the conflict IN ME. It means I accept my own opposing, conflicting beliefs and turn my attention to what I really want, which is always about relaxing and allowing my energy to flow freely in some form or another, instead of keeping it riveted in the direction of resisting what I don’t want.
And this can be VERY challenging, as we both know. You’ve given yourself some splendid examples of doing it, after first giving resistance and opposing a good run. Sometimes there’s nothing to do but wear yourself out opposing until you collapse from exhaustion and allow the door to allowing and accepting to open. I do that plenty myself.
Here’s what I notice right now, which may seem off the subject, but it’s not. I can quickly write an e-mail to you any subject. Yes, I do edit it a bit and reread it a couple of times to make sure I’m being clear, but it feels easy and fun. I’m not “writing for publication.” When I edit an e-mail for the Shift Diaries, it turns into a slog. I feel it has to be BETTER. More eloquent. Flow more smoothly. Not seem so off the cuff. That makes it harder, more chore-like, and NOT FUN.
Hmm….
How is this like handling conflict for me? It’s about the process, which when I write to you, I experience as an easy flow, like conversation. I’m not wrestling with my belief in the importance of perfection (much). When I do the Shift Diary entry, I don’t know who I’m talking to, so I get outcome oriented. I’m trying to make the entry bullet proof against the critical eye of all those Sumafi purists (that would be me) who might take issue with a turn of phrase that violates the purity of WHAT ELIAS SAYS is the correct definition of a word or concept.
How very annoying of me. See, it’s that “defending myself automatically” thing happening. I’m trying to write a “defensible” Shift Diary entry, where with you and I, if you misinterpret what I say, I get to say it again, more clearly. Or it goes by and no one really cares because you’re not that exacting. As I so often and tediously am.
I wonder how I’ll resolve this. I want the Shift Diaries to be FUN to create. I might begin to address it by putting this out there as today’s entry. Just as it is.
As soon as I type that, I feel I need to reread what I wrote and tighten it up more. Make it more ready for the spotlight. Jeez! Is the solution to simply throw these things out into the world, warts and all, and just GET OVER IT! or is there some middle ground between that and making this a chore.
I wonder how I’ll resolve the inner conflict I’m generating about having fun writing versus looking PERFECT in public.
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Funny, but right now, instead of feeling oppressed by this conflict, I’m kind of interested in how I might resolve this. Usually, I’d feel inclined to wrestle with the issue and FIGURE IT OUT, but at this moment, I notice a sort of amused curiosity about what I’ll show myself that will help me be clearer about this.
That’s a nice step in the preferred direction.