The Conflict Is The Initiation
The conflict is the initiation.
As I’m navigating some conflict in my own personal life, I was sitting in prayer this morning and had an epiphany: the conflict is the path to initiation.
I used to run from conflict a lot. I turned away, because it was scary, because it was uncomfortable, and because it was hard to cultivate an inner and outer safety that would allow me to actually be able to face the conflict that was unfolding in and around me. Often, it was much easier to dissociate and pretend like everything was okay or everything was “normal” because I was able to handle it and dissociate, rather than actually looking at the conflict head on and saying my own piece—no, I’m not comfortable with this; the way you’re treating me isn’t okay; I need things to change for my own safety. I’m not perfect at conflict now by any means—often I have to fight the tactic in myself to dissociate or accommodate to the other person more, to self-abandon in order to keep the peace.
Conflict is a moment of rebirthing, of thinking about what needs to be shed and what needs to be created. In the conflict we navigate the ingredients of our rebirth: what can we bring in with us, what we want to be part of our new self, what is the healthy dose of what makes us safe to be reborn and what challenges us to grow into new life. But, I’ve been learning, that facing the conflict head on is what allows us to shed the old layers and the old defenses, to step into who we are meant to be, to re-strengthen our boundaries and to get rid of the false binary of this or that and embrace the both/ and. Both this and that. And in that tension, is where the initiation is, where we can get to a deeper sense of truth, and where we can move in a direction that feels more in true alignment with us. The conflict, and our ability to accept and embrace the conflict, is what allows us to deepen into what the universe is asking of us, and for us to rise and meet the challenge rather than to shy away from it.
I think this truth/ realization feels particularly hard for me in this moment—hard when what we see in the world around us. For over a year, Sudan has been undergoing a genocide. And as we all know, genocides don’t start in a singular moment—like all conflicts, there are moments and threads and longstanding tensions that flood through the fabric of time and are being violently exposed in this moment. Since October, we’ve also been seeing the most recent genocide in Palestine, which is also part of a long line of genocides. We’ve also been seeing the ways that slavery and slave labor is being actioned in real time in the Congo in order to serve Western interests, convenience and empire. And we’ve also seen the genocide taking place in Tigray. There’s a lot more global conflict that we’ve been witness to as well, which has been something we’ve all been navigating.
It feels to me like, over and over, people are saying No. No, this is not an acceptable way for humans to be treated. No, I don’t want to live in a world like this. No, I don’t consent to being in a world where others are being stripped of their humanity in this way. We hear the no at all times, in protests, in organizing, in the poetry of the people from these places, in their daily acts of resistance, in their faces, in the way that the continue to show up for life even among such cruelty. It’s hard to see all of these ‘nos’ and to see this abuse continue to thrive, to see these no’s be ignored, to see this complete brutality not only just continue, but escalate. And I say that from my place of privilege, of not being someone who is in these places, and who doesn’t have to bear the weight of this on my body and be on the frontlines of fighting for my survival against this evil.
In my own personal life at the moment and throughout these months of ongoing and increasing conflict, I’ve been witnessing what happens when you choose to ignore the conflict, verses when you choose to go through the conflict. We’ve seen it in even the delusion of Zionism—what happens to one’s humanity when you choose to hold onto your pre-existing programming rather than letting the conflict around you change you, interrogate your narratives, and soften you to the possibility of seeing another’s human-ness. I’ve seen it interpersonally in my life, when people chose to not engage in the conflict in a way that allows them to truly look at and see themselves, but instead, cling to control and lashing out at others rather than admit the harm of their actions. When they just follow the route that enables them, rather than stopping and taking into account what they have done. I’ve been really struggling with this tension—the pain of people who refuse to be accountable (especially when they have power or have committed harm) and the pain of people who are being bulldozed by that harm, their no’s falling on ears that refuse to listen.
In my prayer today what came to me was what if this isn’t so binary in this way, and the conflict of that tension is actually what yields the result. That by engaging in the conflict, we find the way to our own initiations, to fight, to show up and live the life in our integrity in a way that ignites our soul’s purpose, and that brings us closer to who we pray to be. Allowing that point of tension to be the thing that calls us, that rebirths us, and that makes us possible.
I’ve been struggling with the concept of justice over the last year, especially given what is occurring in the world. What does justice mean on a global scale when people are being genocided? When we’ve seen dead child after dead child? When entire families are being wiped off the face of the planet? When none of this seems to be accounted for? What can accountability even look like in this—what does justice look like when there’s so many dead, when there is nothing that can fix the impossibility of what has happened?
I feel that too, in some interpersonal conflicts in my life. What does justice and accountability look like when the person refuses to admit harm, when they keep doing what they are doing, when they are unwilling to listen?
I don’t have an answer to this. But I do know that I’m following the small window that I see in that tension, that I’m jumping through it and allowing it to take me on my journey, one that brings me closer to who I want to be and how I want to show up in the world.