Am I Going to Or Am I Going to War?
Practice Peace?
I wrote a poem to my family members a few Thanksgivings ago, after a certain election. I could already sense a divide forming, people taking sides, and I wanted to reach out and somehow share that we still had some commonality. I wish I could say that it worked, that we’re closer than we ever were, but alas . . . My husband framed the poem and it hangs on a wall in our entryway with a beautiful earthy old barn-board frame.
As lovely as it is on our wall, it doesn’t seem to do much good there. My family tends to avoid conflicts, so we just don’t talk about it, hoping our differences will fade away, or we’ll just forget about them. For others, especially during these current troubled times, the answer is to be a little more aggressive. And I understand. There is a lot of anger and hurt out there, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic turning our world upside down and Minneapolis burning over racial injustice. Angry tweets and posts abound. Everyone is divided and labeled as friend or enemy. Either you agree with me and my side or I’ll “unfriend” you. Even worse, Social Media has made it easy to attack those we disagree with, to act as judge and jury, condemning them publicly and sometimes ruining lives in the process. My husband had to delete a Facebook post recently when something he said sparked a response from one group of friends, who were then angrily attacked by another set of friends, all complete strangers to each other.
16
June 2020
Anger and hate breed anger and hate.
The Psychologist from Detroit, Marshall Rosenberg, wrote the book Non-violent Communication where he said “Violence results when people trick themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished.”
Lashing out at our so-called enemies, or hanging a lovely poem on the wall and avoiding the difficult conversation, do little to bring us toward a more peaceful world. I don’t want to be angry, and I can no longer live in a bubble where I think things will work themselves out with little effort. I believe only patience and kindness will grow more patience and kindness. It isn’t easy though, you have to do the work. But as Martin Luther King Jr. said “It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it’s nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.” Racial violence, poverty, unemployment, the appropriate response to a pandemic, politics . . .these are all emotionally charged issues. Any time we get into a discussion about politics my father-in-law often tries to change the subject: “What else can we talk about, religion? Sex?”
Sitting with someone and having a conversation when your core beliefs fundamentally differ from theirs, is more than just a little bit uncomfortable. We feel judged. A need to defend ourselves. To explain why we are right. We feel anger rising. We want to lash out, run away, or we just freeze.
I finally had that difficult conversation with my parents this past Thanksgiving. I sat & felt the heat rising from my toes, spreading upwards. I sat with it, and I felt the pain deep in my bones, but then I breathed. I remembered that I loved these people sitting in front of me, & I was able to speak from my heart, but with kindness & compassion. This is my challenge for you: work on growing patience and kindness instead of hatred and anger. Sit with your discomfort, walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. Withhold judgement until you have all the facts.
A good resource to help with this is Marshall Rosenberg’s book Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life.
Another favorite book of mine is by Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart. In it she says this: “All over the world, everybody always strikes out at the enemy, and the pain escalates forever. Everyday we could reflect on this and ask ourselves, “Am I going to add to the aggression in the world?” Every day, at the moment when things get edgy, we can just ask ourselves, “Am I going to practice peace? Or am I going to war?” Marti Peters-Sparling, MD is a board certified Family Medicine physician and co-owner of an integrative Direct Primary Care wellness center, SWMI Health Matters. She has experience in all aspects of Family Medicine including preventative care, chronic disease management, meditation, and mindfulness. Dr Peters-Sparling seeks to meet her patients wherever they are, without judgement or bias.
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