Conflict

In a period of less than 24 hours, I had gotten into major arguments with people I love very dearly and consider part of the fabric of my inner circle. This left me exhausted and emotionally spent. My eyes were red from crying, my mind was clouded from anger. I felt unheard. I felt misunderstood. I felt abandoned. I felt ignored. It was very difficult to put together any type of explanation of exactly what was happening and why it was happening.

My very first impulse was to go into survival mode. I wanted to justify and solidify my position. I wanted to make sure the message came through loud and clear that I was hurt. I thought of ways to strike back in defense of myself. I wanted to make them feel the hurt that I perceived they were dishing out to me. All of these thoughts happened in a matter of minutes and then the difficult work of healing began.

Once I was able to calm myself down. My first thought was “How can I possibly fix this within myself so that I can truly embrace the ones that I love and I know love me and truly meant no harm?”

The first thing I did was pray. I asked for the help of my dearest ancestors, the ones who have advised me, held me when I needed it. THe ones who were never afraid to speak truthfully and who stood up for me when I needed it. I asked them to help me see what I needed to see. I asked them to help me identify what I did, said, or thought that needed to be adjusted. I called on Obatala to allow me to see clearly with a cool head. I asked Osun to wash away anger and hurt, and replace them with compassion. I asked Orunmila to show me what I could not see so that I could move forward with wisdom. I asked Ogun to remove the obstacles of false pride and ego. After praying, I sat and I waited. I stopped trying to defend and deflect. I decided not to make it someone else’s responsibility to resolve what was living inside of me. I understood that I had to have the strength to turn away from anything that was going to fuel the fire that was feeding negativity into my emotions. I realized that this was mine and mine alone to resolve. My loved ones served as messengers of what I needed to see inside of myself. The true conflict was within me. So I decided to shut it down. I starved it. I was able to turn toward compassion which opened me up to understand what I needed to do to restore health to my spirit and my mind. It was a lesson in letting go. It was a lesson of acceptance for what is. It was a lesson in respecting that there are many ways to get to the same destination. It was a call to give. It was a call to be quiet and listen. Lesson learned, conflict resolved. Ase.