One of our greatest challenges is to have a Peaceful Place to Live and Breathe with people whom we do not always get along with. Folks I interact with show a variety of egos, dispositions, illusions, opinions, judgements, etc. How to have a Peace Conversation With Another when the other position is My Way or the Highway approach.
Questions I ask myself are:
- Where is my Heart and my Head? Are they in the same place or different places?
- Have I asked the other person about how he/she feels things (rather than just see things)?
- Have I been willing to even have a conversation with the person whom I have issues with?
- Is that person willing to share what they feel with me or are they stuck in sharing little or nothing at all?
I find the most helpful advice is that having a conversation with the other person who is willing to lower the barriers to entry, let them share how and why they are feeling the way they are, paves the way for Peaceful Place to Live and Breathe. When that person replies with a Willingness to Share, I reply with:
- I hear the pain, suffering, or discomfort you are sharing me.
- What are the ways that you are able to change the outcome? or do you want to sit with it for a while?
- What am I able to do to support you without taking away or diminishing my feelings of the situation?
These are the forward movement steps toward Peace in This World. You and me experience life together. It is our perception of what we think and feel is happening, and we place these perceptions on another person. Our job is to remember that as humans projecting onto another gives a clue as to how we see and experience the world. Is the world happening and projecting stuff on me? Am I projecting stuff on the world and I don’t like what I see?
What I see and feel in the world every day is a direct reflection of who and what I am inside myself. Every day I observe the outer world, watch to see around me if I have “mirrors” that I need to work on within myself shown back to me by other people, or “transparent glass” where I see right through it to learn the lesson it is teaching me so that I can toward Peace.
You can too.