Life brings wonderous challenges: sacred thorns that enable us to cultivate wisdom, resilience, and fortitude in the light of our commitment to living a more graceful and conscious path.
I am quite okay with non-personal challenges: traffic jams, the internet won’t connect or I get a flat tyre. These sorts of things I can handle with a few disgruntled out-breaths and my stock phrase, “Don’t sweat the small stuff!” Usually within minutes or perhaps a day or two I can’t even remember the incident let alone how I felt. I make peace with it and let it go.
I am not so fast at making peace when there is disharmony with a fellow human being. If there’s been a disagreement, big or small, I tend to ruminate. Naturally, I want to fully grasp my part in the whole dynamic. I know that I am 100% responsible for 50% of the dynamic. I try and stay with my 50%. Of course, I veer off into blame and judgement and what’s fair and what isn’t. This is often a very painful place to be in; to feel I’m creating more and more separation when all I long for is unity and connection.
If I am too caught up in the ‘drama’ of it all; rummaging around in the enlivened story, I use the pain as my cue to firstly commit to what I call, Community Peace. This is where I call upon my maturity to be civil, kind and easy with the situation, to the other and to myself. I stay open and communicate with transparency what’s happening for me. I’m careful not to add fuel to the fire so I practise speaking in the first person and avoid inflammatory remarks. I stay with the facts and avoid interpretation.
I know things aren’t easy between us right now. I truly want to come to an authentic place of reconciliation, to arrive wholeheartedly at a sweet place of harmony where we both feel an authentic resolution has arisen. This can happen quickly or it might take some time. I will reflect on what I could have done better. I’m sorry for my part in it all. I wish us both true peace.
Community Peace is a bridge, an olive branch, so should I see the person at a community gathering or a friend’s or family dinner, we can be loving and open. It makes it ‘real’ and less awkward. I can then have space and time, as can they, to really come to a True Peace, where making amends or forgiveness feels alive and effortless.
Community Peace allows us to be loving and open when we cross paths.My go-to piece when I am in an altercation with someone is Rumi’s Heartfelt prayer:
Out Beyond Ideas by Rumi
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
doesn’t make any sense.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
This poem is a great anchor for me to ground in self-responsibility. When I recognise that I can only change my reactions and my responses, and not the other’s, then I have a real chance for True Peace. And in my experience, with all this good intention, True Peace will come.
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Do you have any favourite poems or quotes that bring you back into alignment with kind and right action? Please share your wisdom in the comments below.
Much love and peaceful resolutions,
Team UPLIFT
When I am in conflict with someone and feel at odds with the world, I look at the words a mystic shared with me, which I have written down to look at whenever necessary:
“Stay on track, don’t be side-tracked.”
It always brings me back to my self, to my mature self, my responsible self.
Thank you so much, all of you for having shared your inspiration and gratitude.
From my heart, Elizabeth.
In this blog has such a great heart touching line about love life. some lines dedicated to my mom, I love my mom because I can’t believe anyone, My mom is taking care to me, I speak never lies to my mom.I love you, mom.
I love my mom because I can’t believe anyone, My mom is taking care to me, I speak never lies to my mom.
I love you, mom. In this blog has such a great heart touching line about love life.
Thich Nhat Hanh!
A lovely heart-opening piece. Sweet and real and kind. Mary Oliver’s poem WILD GEESE would grace your
UPLIFT nicely. Also any pieces by Thich That Hath on Oneness and particularly his poem “ONENESS” from CALL ME BY MY TRUE NAME Simone
Thank you, for this great article, and Rumi and Maithri Goonetilleke poems.
I translated all three and will share with our Uruguayan Sangha.
¡Muchas gracias!
Love the poem by Rumi reminding us we can only control our response and be guided by doing the right thing.
When I am in conflict with someone else, I tend to turn to self-pity and get caught up in thinking about everything in my life that isn’t right. When that happens, I turn to this poem, which I keep saved in my phone notes so that it is always available.
Turn Your Face to the Sun, by Maithri Goonetilleke:
Beloved,
There are days when nothing seems right. When every shell you pick up on the winding shore is broken. When the silken treasure slips through your fingers too quickly. When comforts are empty. And the world is noise.
On those jagged edged days, when the wind is screaming for a reason only she understands. And you find yourself all alone.
Turn your face to the sun.
There is goodness in the world, that even the river of tears cannot erase.
There is love in the world, that the numbed armies of fear can not destroy.
Sometimes that goodness is everywhere apparent. It pours from the heart of every moment. From the light of every smile.
On those soft days, love hides in the eaves to drop like sweet honey on your forehead and sings her lilting lullabies in the arms of the winds.
But on some days, Beloved. On days like today….
We need to look, to see.
So turn your face to the sun.
Even when she is nowhere to be seen.
Go inside yourself. Find a speck, a splinter of beauty to be grateful for.
‘Yes’, the day has worn you. And ‘Yes’ our mistakes have been so many.
But say ‘Thank you’ anyway.
Take account of all that is in your possession.
A mind. A heart. A body.
A life that breathes, even if for just one more day.
Now count the eyes that have smiled
at you on your wild journey,
the hands that have held you tenderly,
the ears that have listened,
the prayers that have been made on your behalf.
And whisper your ‘Thank you’ again.
Count the sky that has watched you grow
with His painted eyes,
The heaving waves that find their echo
in the tides of your breathing,
The little birds that have sung
you their songs,
The stars which have been a lamp
to your path,
and are your
rightful inheritance.
Count unexpected laughter,
Count undeserved grace,
Count Passion and Love making and Dreams yet to be born,
And bow your head and say ‘thank you’,
Now count the lives who still need your light,
The hungry, the sick, the helpless,
Count the children who will die today
and imagine if with the breath of your body
you could help just
one.
Turn your face to the sun,
And know yourself as a child of the light.
You are the Goodness that cannot be extinguished,
The love that burns through the darkest night.
And perhaps,
In turning
You will see what i have seen,
that this day where everything seemed wrong,
was not your curse,
It was your gift,
Your chance…
To find inside yourself a forgotten ‘thank you’,
To smile in the face of the grim suppressors,
To stand in the heart of the glowering darkness
and turn your face to the sun.
This came when I needed it most to resolve a conflict with a dear friend. I’ve almost given up but now I can try reaching out again. Thank you ….
You know when you look for “the” message or the piece of advice and you open the inbox and find it? 🙂 that is it for me in these chaotic times of my life now.
Thank you for the inspiration that reached me grace to you writing this and sending it into the web of life!
Biggest smile ever :-))))
Am I right in saying this….
If someone hurts you and you know you have done nothing wrong…it’s the type of person who feels regularly wronged by others..
I suppose one must just make peace with oneself and accept that the friendship is over, no?
Very timely! Thank you so much!
This deep wisdom we all need to overcome Ego’s hurt ,hurting and resentment and to WAKE UP into Light and Peace of the Heartt.
Paul so much of what you say here resonates with me. Well written and profound
One thing that has made things easir for me is to rmember that, until I forgive another, they still have control of part of me. So I don’t forgive them to make they feel better; but to set myself Free! LoL
“ Rumi and Love what could be better “. From a Dear Friend.
I sent her a Rumi poem on Love and she sent me a link to this powerful and lovingly human writing.
With gratitude for your sharing.
A beautiful way to live.
There is a quote which has a similar resonance for me. I’m not sure who gets credit for it, but here it is:
Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.
Be kind.
Always.
Rumi poems like this remind me on many moments of past pleasure “out their ” in the deep woods.
This jumped out at me: “If there’s been a disagreement, big or small, I tend to ruminate. ” Yes, my mind goes over and over and over again all my conversations, like any time I open my mouth and verbalize. I suffer from foot-in-mouth disease. As in pointing out the obvious {to me}. Not all like to hear that.
This could not have come at a more opportune moment…great reminders of how to balance one’s responsibility in a difficult situation without breaking the ties that bind us to one another. A poetic reminder that peace is the uppermost goal. Thanks so very much.
There are some words that change us just by the reading of them. I found some of those words in this post. And realized yet again how important it is to keep a steady flow of healing words and ideas in front of me.
I would like to tell you that this article was really great! Definitly one that I will be saving…Thank You~
Thank you so much for this piece and sharing your heart.