How Many People Does It Take to Tango?
Through meditating consistently and deeply over time, many friends and I have found more peace within ourselves and our interactions with others. Yet emotional stirrings come up, and probably will until we become fully aware. When I meditate with full surrender in that moment of intensity, I often forget what was bothering me by the end of the meditation. However, sometimes the feelings do not go away or they come up again. In those repeated situations I wonder if we are meant to play out the karma through our emotional and human life. Either way, this past weekend in a program called The Gift of Conflict my eyes were opened up to a clear understanding of other tools and knowledge to utilize to overcome our agitations. The first premise to start with is that your outer world reflects your inner world. You have probably heard the phrase "like attracts like." Maybe you heard the idea that we manifest or magnetize to ourselves whatever we think in our head or vibrate in our being. Do you ever notice how the plants in your home thrive when there is joy and peace in the home or wither when there is sadness or anger? My indoor plant completely died when my mother passed away. Maybe you have seen the results of Dr. Emoto's experiments on how the shape of water molecules changes depending on the emotion of the word pasted to that jar of water. Researcher Michael Tellinger captivated me when he showed aerial photographs of many cities and archeological sites next to circuit boards. They looked exactly the same! So often a microcosm and macrocosm of the world shows up revealing the interconnectedness of everything. How many times have you expressed a discomfort in someone's actions to them and they replied with the same concern about you? I believe we are all mirrors for each other. There are no accidents. There is always a hint of truth inside ourselves for anything that shows up in our life. Through the exercises in The Gift of Conflict people were repeatedly realizing they were feeling what their partner feels and their partner was feeling what they were feeling. Even when people were working with complete strangers the same things came up that would frequently come up in their lives. At a certain point I started to forget who was who because we all felt and wanted the same things. It was as if the others played the role of my voice to reveal something in myself I had not recognized, accepted, or clarified yet. The next time you want to accuse someone else of acting in a way that bothers you, ask yourself if there is any piece of you who acts that way as well.
Sonika and Christian, the couple who lead The Gift of Conflict, stated they never finalize a decision until both of them are 100% comfortable with the solution they created. In one of their examples they rolled up a towel and played a tug of war game while each stated their point of view. Christian had done a lot of research to find the best website development company to meet their needs. The price was $10,000. Sonika did not want to spend that much on a website. They could have kept tugging the towel back and forth stating their case. Instead Sonika admitted she would like a really good website as well and Christian realized he would also rather not spend that much money. They laid the towel out in front of them and put the question in the air on top of it. Realizing they were both speaking the other's feelings and they were still in conflict on what the resolution should be, they waited. Very soon after this discussion a friend of Christian's told him about a course you can take to choose a good and inexpensive website developer from the Philippines. He took the course, hired a guy from the Philippines, and got a lot more service then just the website for much less money. There was something in both of them that stayed in confusion because the better solution had not revealed itself yet. Sometimes coming together, realizing the “we” in the situation, and being patient can produce even better results than originally expected. Knowing all of this means you never need to take the victim stance nor hold all the blame again. After the weekend ended I was quite disappointed to realize all the things I needed to work on in myself that I had complained existed in others. I also relaxed into knowing not everything is my fault. It takes two to tango. I then had a flash of all the recent moments people's tone of voice seemed to express anger towards me for something I did. I all of a sudden had a new sense of love and connection with all of them realizing they probably want to be able to do what I did as well. Or all they really wanted was to feel my love and connection with them. We are all so much more alike than we think. We are all in this game of life together revealing ourselves through each other. To take this one step further… I felt my tango partners had revealed what I needed to work on and it was time to go back to the solo dance. To work through those inner challenges and raise my vibration. To offer these challenges up to God. To remember my inner world reflects my outer world.
If we change ourselves we can create the potential to help change others and magnetize to ourselves an environment vibrating at our new frequency. Through the butterfly effect, if we heal ourselves, we can heal the world. Then the whole world is united in one tango dance.
To help detach yourself from conflict, here is an online program offering an Introduction to Meditation.
To help understand and gain tools to manage conflict, here is more information on the weekend workshop The Gift of Conflict.
And for fun, my friend Mirabai dancing The Blindfold Tango:
