Nov 9

Written by: michaela renee
11/9/2009 5:03 PM

This is conflict.

Conflict is right or left, North or South, East or West, up and down. Some people say that’s Yin and Yang.

Conflict is being caught in the middle of two people, or two ways of life.

Conflict is being a mother and a wife, a sister and a friend.

Conflict is what you actually think, and what you actually say.

Conflict is the little decisions in life, like buying brand name ranch dressing, or generic. It’s the biggest decisions in life, like I do before a marriage and I don’t before a divorce.

Conflict is the simple things, like whether to hit the snooze button, or whether to get out of bed. And it’s the big ones, like whether to do another round of chemo, when the outlook is grim.

Two month ago I attended an “evening with spirit” where a group of us sat in a warm quiet room, with nothing but candles lit, it was the turn of the equinox, mercury retrograde in astrology and the topic of the night was “polarities in life and finding balance.”

As we went around the room, I heard everything from “my work, and having fun” to “being conservative, and living on the edge.”

My polarity was simple, “the old and the new.”

My old life and my new life. My old thoughts and ideals and my new ones. My old pain and my new pain. My old happiness and my new happiness. My old friends and my new ones. My old relationships and my new ones.

After a brief moment of intense silence, the message I received was simple, and I knew where it came from, “cross the river, but use discernment.”

Obvious conflicts stared me in the face at the time, but discernment seemed simple at the time. Because I’m the kind of person who reacts on emotion, rather than deliberating over logic. Decisions came easy based upon that fact alone.

But now I find myself, sitting in a room I love, with a man I love, writing, which I love, while reflecting on the fact, that in my old life, I didn’t need a fire to keep me warm, because the weather was consistent at 72. I didn’t need to play the role of housewife, because I was alone. I didn’t have to worry about him, because there was only me.

And that, is conflict. They say with Yin and Yang, that there is no ending, there is no resolution. The circle ever flows between the good and the evil, the right and the wrong, the happy and the sad.

For without conflict, there would be no resolution and it is that which keeps us moving. My river flows, and I use discernment, and some days I know the conflict which tears me in half is natural and I‘m clear on the direction, and other days discernment through the emotion seems almost unattainable.

Copyright ©2009 Michaela Renee

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