I wrote this “vignette” a while ago… long before the constant shouting from the Left and Right and a way long time before the current coronavirus pandemic. I came across this today and felt like it was a good reminder not to get caught up in the bickering and holding one’s corner, but to find a way to create a dance of sorts with each other.

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As we all know, our lives are filled with opportunities for learning and growth… often disguised as lessons in pain and suffering. I have come to realize that how we choose to define these opportunities impacts how much we suffer as we work to get through them.

Very often, we think of the difficulties in our life as 

Conflicts

But, what if we thought of them as 

Dynamic Tensions

Let’s have a little dictionary fun before we continue: (all definitions a from the Dictionary app on my iPad)

CONFLICT: opposition; clash; at variance with; do battle; antagonism.

DYNAMIC: energy or effective action; force that motivates, affecting development or stability.

TENSION: stretching or straining; suppressed suspense, anxiety or excitement; potential; the longitudinal deformation of an elastic body that results in its elongation

So, the connotation carried by Conflict is definitely one of us-vs-them. It’s adversarial and doesn’t leave much room for dialog, common ground, or respect of various positions or feelings. It feels like compression, an act of force of one thing against another ~ the desire to smash or beat down an opponent. If I have a conflict in my schedule, I will need to work some schedule magic to fit everything in. But what if I’m in conflict with a loved one…. or, myself? There is not much room for heart-centeredness of any kind in a conflict – it feels hard and fixed; everyone to their own corner of the ring, at the sound of the bell, come out with your dukes up, and try not to get knocked out. The opponents are likely to be circling around each other looking for a weakness to exploit, a soft underbelly to pound on.

But, Dynamic Tension ~ WOW! “The longitudinal deformation of an elastic body that results in its elongation” – that definition nearly knocked my socks off! Add to that the concept of dynamism, which is fluid and creates change and you have given yourself a powerful vantage from which to approach your troubles. Now we’re talking about forces acting on each other in such a way that while they may be opposing, in some way, neither is fixed – there’s the potential for movement, for growth, and for more than one position to be held simultaneously, pushing and pulling on each other in some sort of dance. The rope in a game of tug of war comes to mind ~

Both parties are necessary to hold the rope aloft, pulling it back and forth, back and forth many times before one side or the other releases the grasp on the rope.

Maybe the weaker will get pulled into the mud in the middle, or maybe one will let go of the rope, causing the other to end up on their seat…

Maybe both parties will drop the rope and go their separate ways…

One thing is sure though: both parties are moving, they are responding to the movements on the other side. There is only a dance between them going back and forth – and sometimes sideways – and there is the opportunity for listening and feeling as much as the searching for a strong footing.

The parties are connected by the rope, the thread that runs through every participant. There are no corners to retreat to, there is no separation.

Everyone is in it together, experiencing the same rope burns and sore muscles.

I wonder how much the rope changes for all the pulling on it?