Medicine in Conflict

photo by David Zawila

I’m active in many groups on Facebook that are in constant discussion about relations between men and women.  There’s “Tantra” and “Conscious” and “Enlightened” hoody-ha all over my inbox.  I wade through it every day. 
After hours and days and weeks of feeling my own triggers and witnessing the triggers of others and feeling into the knot in my brain and the pain in my heart I’ve come to a phrase that’s the best medicine I’ve found: 

I’m curious about your struggle.  

I don’t exactly mean I literally say this.  I mean I hold it in my heart while interacting.  Your struggle is not my struggle so I don’t know it.  And I mean this in a spirit without comparison.  I mean it without an attachment to a particular “team” or identity that makes for a loyalty or a debt.  

So how does this phrase land with you?  

If you’re busy wanting to talk about your own struggle then you aren’t going to be able to hold this phrase.  
And then, hopefully, someone will hold it for you.  

This is the personal yoga- noticing for yourself if you have the space to respect someone else’s struggle.  If you need more space for your own then that’s just fine.  I’m not saying anyone should ignore, suppress, or move through that need faster than their system, spirit, or body is ready for.  
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Holding this phrase in my heart is my practice when I’m ready to not be in the focus of my own healing, but in service to the collective, or to that soul over there, who it turns out, isn’t really so separate from me.