The Real Fight

When we don't have something to fight against, when there is no longer any blame in us to project outside of us, we end up in the real fight, which is with ourselves.

I am truly learning that part of making peace is learning to step out of the battles. I am no longer feeling interested in providing myself as a distraction to keeping others from their own work.

As I find less to fight against, I find myself approaching the root of this pain that exists in each of us. I am feeling less afraid of it.

Without the mystery to what this pain contains, without the fear that makes it seem like something going bump in the night, I can look at it face to face and not feel the need to run.

Without the scary music and devilish masks, it is simply this: separation. A deep divide generating discomfort that exists and manifests itself in our lives in all ways. You will find it at the root of hate and love. And we are not free until we are no longer afraid of it, as it is what drives our every action and reaction, whether we recognize it or not.

Do you recognize this pattern? Love anything: vegetable, mineral, animal, idea. Protect it. Watch it get destroyed. Blame others. Blame yourself. Begin again.

I watched my beautiful little daughter come up to the edge of this pain, and because I've stopped warring with her, I watched her war with herself.

She had created something beautiful and delectable for us to eat, but when she couldn't stop her sister from ruining the experience by stealing treats off the plate, she became angry. Little by little her anger turned to rage as her idea of our how our little party should unfold became obliterated by a general lack of cooperation. The more she demanded, the less she was heard.

Then she lost it, picking up the plates and emptying everything on to the floor, and crushing everything into a million pieces.

Normally this would have sent me matching her rage with my own. But things have changed for me. I could see my daughter and the painful thoughts telling her how everything was ruined, how all of her hard work had been disrespected, how she'd had no choice but to destroy it. I could see her air-tight thoughts that suffocated any possibility of flexible thinking, that might have 'saved' the party.

And this is when the real fight began within herself. Without me to fight against, she broke down into a million pieces, admonishing herself for her destruction, hating herself, wishing she could turn back time, mourning all the time she'd spent in creation only to have destroyed it.

I was amazed to see that she held no blame. Perhaps she couldn't hold blame where none was directed at her?

What became hard for me to watch was how hard she was on herself, how she wanted to escape the pain of what she'd done, but her thoughts wouldn't let her. They wanted her to suffer for what she had done.

I could only reassure her that it was okay, that everything was as perfect as it had been before she 'broke' everything.

In some ways it was easier to have her fighting against me. She was much harder on herself than I would have been, and it was heartbreaking. I could see, however, that with me out of the way she was allowed to go deeper, to find her own very good reasons to challenge her thinking that was mercilessly suffocating her.

When the crisis passed, as they all do, I told her how proud I was of her working through her process and becoming okay again. I told her that it was normal for things like this to happen, and how it had taken me multiple decades to realize that destruction just isn't a working method for me anymore, and that it was my love for her that set me on this course of discovery.