I think I have historically got this one. When someone disagrees with me (which is frequently) I do not feel that person is doing that in order to piss me off, but instead try to hear where the other person is coming from. Of course, sometimes, I can’t. What they are saying so flies in the face of everything I believe, I can’t see it and I can’t hear it. But rarely do I feel attacked because of the disagreement.
The feeling of attack, for me, comes from the other person’s behavior around the disagreement. Some people are cool, they just disagree with you but there isn’t a lot of attendant behavior. It is just like, “yep, well, I see it differently.” End of story. You move on to talk of other things.
However, there are those people who do attack you when they disagree with you. As a resident liberal in the United State military system, my ex husband used to drop the bomb that I was a Democrat at parties and then walk away. There was always some asshole conservative that then took it on as his personal mission to come over and convert me. Most of the time, they were nice, but sometimes they weren’t. Sometimes, they were not at all. Sometimes they launched a personal attack against me and everything I stood for. It was unfun.
I think disagreements can often feel like an attack, especially when the subject matter is deep or intimate. It is hard to hear someone else say something that is entirely contrary to something you believe to be fundamental.
For me, the whole matter cleared up rather quickly when I stopped associating with people who were hard, mean and drunk. I mean, what was I expecting to get? Once I cleaned up my social circle the attacking largely ended.
There have been times in the past where a disagreement has spilled over into something else for me and the other person. But I have come to realize that those types of things only happen when I am engaged with a person who is high on the Narcissistic scale or just nuts. And my engagement with those types of people is on me. I am the one who is engaging with someone who does not have a strong hold on the reality most of us live in, so I am the one that is getting exactly what is possible to get...given the limitations and issues of the other person. And my own bandwidth to withstand altered realities that do not really make any sense.
I guess for me, the problems of my past, cleaned up when I stopped engaging particular kinds of people. I am not going to go into details, lest these person be able to figure out exactly who I am talking about, but suffice it to say, when I stopped allowing people who treated me like shit to be in my life, my whole relational engagement improved exponentially.
I know what I believe today. And I am able, most of the time, to listen to what you believe with an open heart and mind. Politics still is a hard one for me. So I just do not engage in conversation about that subject. I am never changing my mind and I can’t fathom the other side so I just side step it and accept that others believe what they do and I can’t change it and I do not want to engage it.
I also have done a good job of eliminating those persons in my life who see disagreement as an attack. There are people who like to take offense. They do it all the time with everything they can possibly do. I know some people who just are offended by almost everything that occurs in this world, regardless of whether it is really happening to them. They get upset by things I would consider none of their business and allow their peace of mind to be destroyed repeatedly.
I have done a great job of eliminating these persons too. And those that I can’t for whatever reason, I have taken large steps back and give them a much wider birth.
For the most part, disagreements can be places of synergy. Places where we all learn something new. But just because you believe something and I believe the opposite doesn’t mean that either of us is attacking the other. And if there is an attack going on, then both of us might want to look at our relating and why.
I used to have a lot of people in my life that required eggshell walking. They were fucking everywhere. I lived in total fear that I would say or do something that would bring on their wrath. And for the most part, today, all of those people are gone. No more walking eggshells for anyone. I do not want people in my life that are hellbent on turning every single disagreement into a war. That is exhausting and I just don’t have the energy for it anymore.
Today, I think what I crave is a level of maturity from myself and others. People who can see that I am doing my best to live according to my own beliefs and that I am willing to see them in a similar fashion. Disagreements aren’t attacks until they are.
I have done a lot of relational clean up work over the past three years. And it has been painful, sad and required a lot of emotional maturity from me. Sometimes I was up to the task, and other times I was not. Regardless of how well or poorly I executed the departure, I am very glad today for being wiling to do whatever it took to rid myself of people who will not ever be able to see that just because you disagree, doesn’t mean that you are attacking them. Sometimes, disagreements bring a great deal of peace to your life. Most especially when the disagreement is so fundamental that when the dust settles, that person or persons station and time in your life has come to an end. Those are painful times, but, I have learned the hard way, they are the best fucking things that can happen to you.
Again...still.
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