A fight with our partners can unleash painful emotions: vulnerability, helplessness, anger, frustration, shame, self hatred, unworthiness. Despite the work we've done and the precautions taken, we couldn't sidestep a rupture. Within the Imago framework, conflict is a call to greater consciousness, growth trying to happen.
Our challenge is to stop and turn towards ourselves during conflicts. Can we see the value in our uncomfortable feelings? Can we accept that suffering doesn't in and of itself make us or our partner or the relationship bad or wrong? A fight or disagreement isn't a sign that either of us has failed.
Emotional pain is a part of life and a part of relationships. Though we may know this in theory, it's easy to get caught in a loop of avoidance where we judge conflict as intolerable. In a happy-emoji culture, we can fall prey to a distorted version of what we believe is our fundamental right to pursue a rigid happiness, enforcing peace at the cost of our own and others' authenticity.
It's hard to deeply accept that those we love will feel pain and even harder to accept that we will trigger their pain despite our best intentions. They will also trigger our pain as they navigate their own challenges. Unless our own or others' safety is an issue, it's not necessarily in our best interests to avoid conflict or the unpleasant emotions it awakens.
We can accept and even expect rupture as an aspect of our relational evolution. We can trust, let go into the prickliness or heaviness of the experience, and breathe ourselves through it. We can permit disconnections and disagreements to teach us. We can feel what it's like to release our self-righteousness and be humbled.
These raw aching moments where we feel emotionally at a loss have alchemical potential, if we open to them mindfully. They can connect us more fully to the truth of our essential vulnerability. This connection underlies compassion, respect, morality, kindness and love.
Try taking three slow breaths before each statement you make the next time you find yourself disagreeing with your partner.
