Enjoy the love, power, freedom and sense of purpose of being yourself
Don was having a problem with a co-worker named Jim. Jim, who was new to the company, feared his more established colleague, Don, might try to harm his relationship with the boss. He also thought that Don might do things to serve himself at Jim’s expense, ultimately interfering with the promotion he dreamed of. Feeling insecure, Jim looked at Don as a main character in his personal story about the way the world worked. He accused Don of characteristics that might better describe himself: hostile, dishonest, disloyal, deceitful and definitely not a team player. Jim shared his negative opinions of Don freely with quite a few people including their boss. Eventually, he confronted Don himself.
Initially, Don was surprised, as he had always spoken well of Jim and had been in his corner. He had fully intended to support Jim’s desire for a promotion in any way he could.
What would you do, if you were Don?
- Retaliate in kind.
- Act kindly but hold a grudge. Look for any opportunity to right the wrong done to you.
- Ignore Jim, yet feel hurt and angry.
- Do what you could to become neutral to the conflict.
- Come from a totally different perspective.
Many people in this situation would feel justified acting in the same spirit as their accuser. Their reactions arise from hurt, anger or the belief that you should treat people the way they’ve treated you — a “do onto others” mentality. Or, you may have been taught to ignore those who treat you badly or unfairly. Many of us can remember back to our school days, our parents telling us to ignore children when they were being hurtful: “Don’t let them see that they upset you — that will only encourage them to do it more!” Or we may have been advised “Don’t let ANYONE get to you. Don’t be bothered by things that don’t go your way. It’s not worth it.” This sounds like a good idea, but rarely did we know how to truly manifest that point of view.
The choices people make about how to react
Jane retaliated on her cheating husband, trying to discredit him professionally. While she managed to tarnish his reputation, she felt guilty and confessed that her victory didn’t make her feel better.
Carl’s brother-in-law was quick to point out Carl’s shortcomings and any mistake he made in the family business. Feeling mistreated, Carl decided to behave in a way that appeared kind and considerate, yet he managed to covertly maneuver situations to show every error or slip-up his brother-in-law made, and to cast him in a negative light. At one level Carl took pleasure in turning the tables (while looking like the good guy), but he felt stuck in a game of blame and ill feelings.
Jan, teased early in life for being overweight, had learned to ignore others who “made” him feel bad. He carried this over into his adult life, minimizing the impact of what others might say or how they treated him. Unfortunately, the way Jan learned to do this, he also suffered the side effects of being shut down and constricted, and missed much of the joy in life.
Julie, learned techniques to help her be more neutral about conflicts in her relationships. While she might be upset initially, she was often able to shift her feelings so that she would be not be hurt by people or events that had the potential to be very disturbing. Although her life was much better than it used to be, she felt something was missing. Julie was focusing on the important issues of over-reacting and being neutral. However, she was not putting her attention on coming more fully into her own power and connecting with her passion.
And, back to our story about Don. At first, Don struggled with how to respond to the conflict with Jim. Should he be angry by the unfounded accusations and act from an angry perspective? Don’s father would have considered that appropriate for someone who had been treated as he had. But as Don thought about how he might have responded earlier in his life, he realized how far he was from that realm.
A quantum leap in the inner world
Recently Don had made a paradigm shift that is affecting the nature of how he lives and experiences life. He went from a place of striving to be neutral in the situation with Jim, to a state of being in which the irrational behavior of others are not the forces that shape his behavior and feelings. He went to a new place in his personal reality that says “I don’t want my good feelings or happiness to be controlled by others in my life. I don’t want to be dependent on anything external for well-being. I’m going to focus on what I want to feel — the power, joy, love, my connection with Source —and resonate as fully as I can from that place.”
Now Don has principles and tools that help him shift his patterns in the face of difficulties. He’s learned to recognize when something makes him feel strong or weak. When something weakens his energy, he can feel it clearly — it may feel heavy, or like a sinking feeling. He takes this as a signal to strengthen his energy field. One way he’s learned to immediately strengthen his here-and-now presence is to think about a vertical line going down the center of his body. To get even stronger, he points his toes to face each other. When angry or upset, he likes to envision a circle, which both supports and relaxes him. Then, Don imagines that the circle turns into a cloud and his feelings of upset float away. Although energy-shifting techniques are simple, they are very powerful, and Don, like many others, has found them to be very effective.
Rather than ignore Jim at work, or try only to be neutral — something that seemed hard to believe would have been possible — Don decided to correct his energetic patterns to be neutral to the conflict, and then go beyond that to the place of deep personal connection, focusing on feeling what it would feel like to “be all I can be.”
Don learned that he could claim a truly joyous state most of the time in his life. In addition to being neutral and taking whatever practical actions are necessary, he could take Jim (or any other source of conflict) off his radar screen and put his attention on what he wants in life. And, Don received strong reinforcement for his new perspective. Once Don made the firm decision to take Jim off his screen and focus on being who he is and who he wants to be, several fantastic opportunities were presented to him within a few days. This affirmed that his new point of view created the magnetism to bring what he wanted into his life; that is, he became a vibrational match for the life he wanted, and he felt connected with his true self.
Try this yourself:
Think of a situation in which you were treated badly, or if you prefer, imagine one. As you go through each of the scenarios outlined below, pay attention to how you feel. Check to see if you feel strengthened or weakened by your imagined response. See if you feel like who you truly are and who you want to be:
- Imagine that you retaliate in kind. How do you feel? Retaliation may be an exciting rush for a few moments, but then how do you feel over time … are you worried that you now may receive retaliation back?
- Next, imagine that you pretend to be nice but are secretly looking for opportunities to retaliate. While even pretending to be nice can feel better than open retaliation, how good are you really feeling?
- Then, ignore the “other” — the object of conflict. While this doesn’t feel great, do you feel a little better than before?
- Think about being truly neutral to the person or situation. This is more comfortable, but does it bring you the power, joy, or full sense of yourself that you want to have?
- Finally, imagine that you are not in reaction to “the other” at all. You are totally engaged with your commitment to be yourself, to be all you can be, and to feel your connection to Source. Imagine you have shifted to being neutral, but have gone further to come into complete alignment with your personal power, your oneness, and sense of self. What is it like to finally experience the natural joy of being yourself and connected to Source?
Notice how, as you moved from scenario 1 through 5 above, your feelings and sense of self improved. When you played out the fifth scenario, you were, of course, feeling the best.
Let’s see how Jane, Carl, Jan and Julie are doing now …
Jane has stopped living in relation to what happens to her ex. She has put her attention on creating the life she wants and is now in a mutually supportive relationship, Carl has stopped the blame game and has brought the entire family into a totally different way of functioning. While his brother-in-law was the last to embrace this new arena, he has become more open to a new relationship.
Jan stopped ignoring and started re-focusing. He learned how to deal with negativity without shutting down. He’s now enjoying intimacy that he never thought was possible.
Julie now uses her techniques to get neutral. However, she also focuses on creating the richness she wasn’t feeling before.
In summary: the first step in overcoming a personal conflict is to become truly neutral …but you don’t have to see that as the finish line. Once you arrive at a peaceful, neutral perspective, place your attention on what you want and who you want to be — your natural self … your true nature. Then, watch the universe respond to your new, positive focus.
