Internal Conflicts
These blog pages usually address issues that can be helped with a bit of knowledge and some dietary changes and/or supplements. In the wee hours of the morning, my brain was talking to me about internal conflicts and suggested a blog. Part of the reason for doing this is to sort out some things in my own mind with the help of writing.
It seems to me that Life is made of conflict. We look at a serene forest but a little consideration will show that it is a battlefield. Plants and animals are competing for resources. Plants compete for light and minerals, animals eat plants or each other and plants secrete chemicals to discourage animals from eating them.
I am also reminded of my time snorkeling or scuba diving. It all looks so peaceful for the most part but the same battles are taking place for resources like the forest.
Air is always moving due to the rotation of the earth and temperature gradients from ocean currents and tidal effects. Without this air and water motion, life would be much different if even possible. It would be a different place if the entire surface of the planet were the same temperature with no air or water movement.
I don't think the concept of an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other is too helpful. This does highlight the notion of conflict but rarely are things in life so binary.
Life is not static and the existence of conflicts results in motion within the life system.
The conflicts within us can move us to make changes and that is a fundamental principle of life.
We can have different types of internal conflicts. These come from opposing needs, desires or values. Some possible types of conflicts are: Religious, Moral, Self-perception, Love, Political, Society and Existential.
It isn’t hard to think of some internal religious conflicts. Your religion might tell you to love your neighbor but that person may not be too loveable.
A moral conflict might arise as a person sells out a friend for personal benefit, for example.
A self-perception conflict might be a person crafting a public persona that is much different from their private persona.
Love interests give us more options for conflict. You might be in a stable, loving relationship but also want to be with another person. I have seen this play out in my patient population where a person risked a strong, long-standing relationship to entertain a new relationship with someone else. After the divorce of the previous partner, the new love interest I am thinking of lasted a whopping 4 months before they called the new relationship off.
A political conflict is also easy to imagine. This will nicely overlap with a moral conflict. What might be best for your political career might put you in direct odds with your morals.
Societal conflicts could include a woman who desires a career but her community thinks she should be at home. Of course, this could easily overlap with a religious conflict as we personally seen with some orthodox Christian groups.
Existential conflicts arise from a person questioning their own place in the universe and the meaning of life. Of course, these questions arise more often after experiencing loss.
Since internal conflict is natural and expected, how should we deal with it?
It is helpful to identify a conflict and decide if it is resolvable or not. With some changes, some conflicts can be eliminated or at least minimized. This is the art of living. You can make peace with a conflict once you know that it isn’t resolvable.
You might want to be 5ft 9in tall and weigh 135 pounds but instead, you are 5ft 5in and weigh 200 lbs. That conflict is not readily resolvable and you can accept that your desire is a constant but so is your actual height and weight. The strategy is to accept that you desire something you can’t have and come to peace with that conflict.
Some people have a taste for some expensive things like planes or boats and more but don’t have what I call the gift of commerce and maybe a job that would bring those kinds of resources is far off. It is OK to acknowledge the desire for these things and realize that it is happening and be OK with the internal conflict of desire and apparent reality.
Some motivational speakers will argue with this and tell you that you can manifest whatever you desire. I think that is hugely deceptive in most cases. My argument goes like this. I say show me a man who can transform into a woman just by the results of thought and manifestation and get pregnant and have a healthy baby (without crazy medical help) then I am listening. Until a person can show that this transformation is possible and repeatable, I prefer to accept that it is best to come to peace with the gap between what a person desires and what is achievable.
Which conflicts you are experiencing will be your own, and like Life, I am pretty sure that the lists of possible conflicts are as varied as people themselves. I think you get the idea. Identify the conflict. Decide if it is resolvable at the moment or not. Change what you can and come to peace with the conflicts that remain and are not likely resolvable.
