The origins of JustConflict as a discipline do not go back to the intention of deepening spiritual awareness. It arose out of a curriculum I designed for working with abusive men. It was only as I clarified the practices and applied them to a broader audience that I discovered their potential as a contemplative practice.

We normally think of contemplation as closely considering something. A contemplative practice is something we do over and over in which we focus on a sound or thought or object or our breath or on a sensation or collectively on a chant or text. We normally do this in solitude or in the context of a small and safe community.

JustConflict starts in the most opposite of places. The object of our attention is the thing that bothers us the most in the relationship that is, at times, the most trying. One member of the Living School recently named the mother of her step-son as one of her teachers. This was not because she is so calm and wise but because she has the power to cause so much distress in her family and pain in her heart.

Our starting point is with a persistent pattern of conflict in a significant relationship. These are the places that have the greatest potential for our transformation. This is the place where I most want things to change. But it is also not a place of calm but of turmoil. This is not a place of clarity but of confusion. This is not me at my best but at my worst.

How then can this be a contemplative practice, even a form of contemplative prayer? Let us consider what contemplation is more from the perspective of what it does than what it looks like. What is the impact of contemplation?

It helps us know what truly is. It grounds us in reality. It connects us to ourselves in a manner that allows us to be more fully connected to all that is around us. It may be a kind of conversation in which we experience conversion to a more fully true and complete expression of who we are, who we are created to be.

This conversation is one which we try to have with the fullest and purest expression of divine love. But the energy and the intelligence which gives rise to all that is is present in all that is. So we can have that conversation with anyone or anything at any time. And if the goal of this conversation is conversion, then the best time and context in which to have it is in the one where I most want things to be different. It is when I am the most raw, on my last nerve, most wounded, vulnerable, frantic, and confounded.

At the Retreat: The Practice of Presence we will be sitting in silence, and chanting, and focusing on movement and breath. But we will also each select a persistent pattern of conflict in a significant relationship and discover a way of being that will reliably create what we need such that we don’t require or expect that others will change but such that we will be creating what they need as well.

One cannot help but be heartbroken by the news from the Middle East.  The violence seems so senseless from this distance.  And while I have been more exposed to the plight of the Palestinians, and have good friends in Israel who are actively seeking to change the hearts and minds of Israelis and with them the policies of the Israeli government, I have recently come across a couple of accounts of the perspective of Israeli Jews who speak eloquently about what it is like to live in such close proximity to those who are committed to your destruction.

So I wrote a couple of short paragraphs on my Facebook wall about something the devout Muslims in the Arab states surrounding Israel could do that would be a non-violent response to the conflict.  They could assure their Jewish brothers and sisters that, in keeping with the teachings of the Koran and the spirit of the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, that they support the right of Israel to exist and for its citizens of whatever faith to live in peace.  Indeed there are a great many Muslims who hold to just such a position.

It was not my intention to choose sides.  I was just pointing out that the otherwise non-violent tactics of public demonstrations and calls for divestiture against Israeli action against Palestine don’t acknowledge what Muslim Arabs all around the state of Israel are doing that create the tension.   There are some fundamental problems here that can be easily seen if not easily addressed.

From the perspective of JustConflict, the first best thing we can do to address persistent conflict in significant relationships is to stop doing what creates the problem.  There are a good many things we routinely do that move us away from what we need.  Most of them are things we do because in some way our society has taught us that this is what one should do.  First among them is that we are told by sports, politics, and what passes for our justice system that we can create what we need by making others lose.

Of course this never works and we know it.  If I have a conflict with you and I do something to address it which makes you fear that I am trying to make you lose, you will respond by trying to make me lose.  So I will try to make you lose.  And so we both lose.  But no one gets what they need, with the possible exception of the team owners, the party leaders, and the lawyers.

What the Muslim Arabs that surround Israel are doing that constructs the tension is that they hold as their fundamental political goal the eradication of the State of Israel.  However understandable this may be in the light of the oppression they have experienced, it is the central thing that Israelis point to as the justification, no, the necessity of their violence.

We know that we cannot make others change…we cannot cause them to choose what we want them to choose.  Nevertheless, this knowledge does not stop us from trying to change them.  And for our efforts we get feelings of frustration.  We become helpless and hopeless.

If instead we ask if there is anything about the current situation that is so troubling to us that we are willing to change ourselves, then we begin to discover a new way of being that allows for genuine transformation.

This is not just something the Palestinians can do.  The Israelis can see that their insistence that they have a right to build settlements on disputed land is tantamount to saying that Palestine doesn’t have a right to exist as a sovereign state.  They are taking what they see as Arab bad behavior and using it to give them the right to behave badly.  Each makes choices to cause the other to lose.

I am not denying anyone’s right to defend themselves. I am saying that doing what causes the other to lose, or even to fear losing, makes us lose.

When instead we act in our own interests to create what we genuinely need, we will necessarily also be acting in ways that create what the other needs.  But when we are so hurt and scared and angry that we can only focus on the destruction of the other, then everyone loses.

Back before I started calling this method JustConflict I wrote an essay about how it works in relation to the spiritual principle known as The Law of Three.  Here is a link to the pdf.[vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_button title=”Creative Conflict Resolution and the Law of Three” target=”_blank” color=”skincolor” btn_effect=”colortoborder” showicon=”withouticon” icon=”crown” iconposition=”left” size=”wpb_regularsize” href=”http://www.creativeconflictresolution.org/jc/The%20Law%20of%20Three%20and%20Creative%20Conflict%20Resolution%20for%20pdf.pdf”]

In a phone conversation with a potential client I asked what I have found to be the pivotal question in determining whether I can be of help.

“Is there something happening in your life right now that is so bothersome that you are willing to change what you are doing?”

He is obviously a smart guy and he laughed in recognition that this is his issue.  He would really like to find a therapist that is so good that the therapist will teach him how to get others to change.

The problem is not that we want others to change.  Of course we would like them to be different.  The problem is that we put our energy into getting others to change.  We have a very low chance of success with that.  If they want to be different in just the ways we want them to be different we will see what looks like success.  But if they don’t want to be who we want them to be, or can’t be, or want to thwart us more than they want to please themselves… for any one of a dozen reasons they may not be who we want them to be.  This does not stop us from trying to changing and–for our trouble–what we get is frustration.  We feel helpless and hopeless.

As futile as this is there is a more dire consequence.  When we focus our attention on getting others to change we divert our attention from transforming our own behavior.  We take our attention off of what would create safety and satisfaction for ourselves and instead waste our energies on doing the impossible.  So ask yourself…

I had told some friends that this site would be ready by the end of June 2014 and then I got really bogged down in creating the site.  It is now close to prime time and I am ready to return to writing.  I think I might just make it.