When it comes to resolving conflict, from family members and neighbors to negotiations between nations, our attempts are rarely adequate. We’re all struggling with the constant barrage of stressors that come along with living in a society like ours. We’re most often depleted and looking for security where we automatically view differences in opinion as a threat. Our competitive instincts are triggered and our critical thinking capacity is reduced to good and bad, winners and losers,us against them. To neutralize this threat, we try to inject our rightness into others and blame them if they don’t see it our way, or we follow the protocol of avoiding things that challenge what we think we know. This challenge requires an immense mental/emotional effort that we often don’t have the inner resources to exert. It’s far easier to be motivated by our fear-based competitive aspects, where defending our views is prioritized over expanding them. We tend to avoid discussing these differences with the ones we’re contrasting with,fearing the loss of our ability to relate with them. Diverging viewpoints, though, are an indication that we’re making a critical assessment of whatever we’re viewing. It’s only through the exploration of this divergence that we can clarify these views, so we can build bridges rather than destroy them. None of us are seeing things as they are. We’re all looking through a particular set of lenses and we really do need the broadest range of perspectives to get a full view.
Shalimar George