The Artistry of LIFE: Knocking on the WHITE DOOR

Chapter 7: Don't Fear Conflict

7 - Don’t Fear Conflict

My friend and I had only known each other for about a month when he started teaching me about the spirit. He would always go ‘I know.’ and I would be like, ‘How do you know?’ He would say, ‘Because the spirit told me.’ He would play little games with me and be like, ‘How do you think I know this about you?’ It took me a while to catch on. I would say I don’t know. He would chuckle and say 'The spirit, duh!' Eventually I got it.

I remember when I told my friend I was writing our messages down and making a book. I asked him if that was okay. Everything that he was telling me seemed so magical I felt like I was writing down some ancient secret treasure or something! I was! He said he didn’t care what I did and thanked me for being considerate and asking. I was so happy that he didn’t mind because I wanted to write it all down and take it with me for as long as I lived on Earth, and hopefully to life thereafter, within my heart.

It’s hard to believe it’s been only five weeks since he started teaching me about the spirit. We were getting acquainted for about a month before that, but nothing like what was to come in those last five weeks. I’ve made more personal growth over the last five weeks than I have in the rest of my life combined.

Suddenly everything makes sense. Little by little, all the pieces of life’s puzzle started coming together. My friend told me I was a

shining star and that to hide my light was a sin. This was hard for me to believe. I asked what he meant:

"You love people. You try so hard not to cause waves that you enable them to be bad just so you don't have to correct them. You twist yourself into a pretzel so they can be themselves around you. Yet, that means you cannot be yourself with them.

Conflict is a natural part of life. It presents a wonderful opportunity for growth and understanding. Sporting events are conflicts. Organized debates are conflicts. Town meetings are conflicts. The success or failure of these conflicts to enrich the participants is directly proportional to their level of pettiness. Petty people will just be mad when they lose or gloat when they win. They will not build character. People who are not petty will understand that they can enter a spirited conflict with others and not have ill will towards them. That this conflict can help both parties become more spiritually and physically healthy, as it teaches teamwork and sportsmanship. It is the same in everyday life.

It is much better if you can approach this natural part of life with dignity and faith. Think of every conflict as an opportunity to grow, an opportunity to see another's point of view and help them see yours. Focusing upon winning and losing only is for petty people. Focusing upon character building is what good people do. What is the difference? Simple. As long as you remember each and every second that the person you are having a conflict with is far more important than the topic discussed or the game taking place, then you are building character as you resolve conflicts. The score resolves  a sporting event. Personal conflicts are resolved with compromises or Knocking on the White Door agreements. It is not the conflict itself that is bad, rather only the methodology used in the process. Learn the proper processes for handling conflicts and they will go from being problems that annoy you to being challenges that thrill you"

"But what if they don't abide by the same  rules I put  upon myself?"

"Whose life are you concerned with, theirs or yours? If you are concerned with yours, you will take full responsibility for it. If you are concerned with theirs, you will still take full responsibility for it. Only if you are petty do you refuse to accept responsibility. Let me put it another way. If you are a good person who does things right, who would you rather be than yourself? Why would you hide that from anyone? Now you are hiding because you do not take full responsibility for yourself. You don’t feel ‘good’. How can you be yourself when you are hiding? Be true to yourself, be a good person and everything else will fall into place."

I was looking for answers for so long I was very eager to learn. Finally things were starting to make sense! Life was beginning to have meaning! I stopped being a wallflower. I told people what I thought without pettiness. I listened to them honestly. Every day I made significant growth. Things at work had improved. My mother was easier to manage. My heath was being restored. All seemed right in the universe. Then toward the end of April I got fired from my job.

Surprisingly, I wasn’t upset about it at all. My friend said he thought it was a blessing in disguise and he was right. I even had a dream about it too. In my dream I was at work and I had made two terrible mistakes that would cost the practice lots of money. I knew that these mistakes were huge and were grounds for termination. I had this dream less than a week before I was fired. Now I was making little mistakes here and there but nothing like in my dream. This is how I knew. I was prepared. The spirit had prepared me.