Whoosh - Beyond Conflict

It's suspiciously easy to remember the oneness - the ecumenical existence of everyone and everything - when reading it, or writing it down on paper. The trick is to keep that feeling tone when we are in actual situations of conflict.

I'm discovering that conflict fans its annoying smoke screen more frequently at the end of the day - afternoon staff meetings when I'm tired, or later at home when we're all scrambling for dinner with growling stomachs.

It helps to remember that every physical action and reaction - eating, sleeping, holding the pen over the page - remains part of the truth of oneness whether I'm feeling it or not. In other words what appears to be physical is actually the expression of that oneness, and the key is to stay in a synergistic harmony with that, despite the growling tummy or drooping eyelids. One solution is an after noon nap - not possible during the work week for most of us. But at least we can tell ourselves in the meeting, or during that rushed dinner preparation: "I'm tired, my colleagues are probably tired too, my daughter's hungry," and then take it a bit easier when we know we are more apt to snap back into the old mind set of irritability and conflict.

The park by my house is extremely helpful; in the evenings after dinner I walk over there, sit still in front of the duck pond, breath, chill, and remember the "whoosh" of what's real. That's when true awareness hits again, and I can watch my racing thoughts from the day as an observer, secure in what I am knowing, enveloped in that reality internally and externally. Then it's possible to relax and reconnect with the miracle of this life in its entirety again. Thank goodness for the park!!