Are Inner Turmoil and Global Conflict Related?

Last updated on: October 12, 2015 at 2:05 pm by Debra Landwehr Engle

Are Inner Turmoil and Global Conflict Related? 2015-10-12T14:05:20-05:00 Debra Landwehr Engle

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A few months ago, my husband Bob and I watched a documentary about violence in New Orleans. A 16-year old girl named Cece said this: “The problem is never going to end.”

One youth in her neighborhood is shot, she said, so another young person buys a gun to retaliate. That youth shoots someone, and the cycle is repeated. It’s very clear to this young woman that unending violence is not the answer in her neighborhood.

Let’s face it. It’s not the answer in any neighborhood, including the global one. But, unfortunately, the voices of wise 16-year-old girls typically are drowned out by louder fear-based voices that say things like, “Let’s bomb the hell out of them,” and nothing ever changes.

Really, how can we expect it to? Fear creates violence, and fear keeps people from speaking up for other solutions.

That’s why we have to call on spiritual guidance to break the cycle.

Let me give you the simplest example from my own life.

When I was in sixth grade, I was in a class of 20 students, including five other girls. The six of us played together, had slumber parties and traded best-friend status back and forth within our small group, as pre-adolescent girls often do.

One day three of us were standing on the playground during recess. We were just outside the school door, leaning on a couple of posts near the four-square court. Janet, one of our classmates, came up to us and started talking about one of the other girls in our class. Janet, for reasons unknown, wanted to exclude her from the next party.

“Why would we do that?” I said. “She hasn’t done anything to us.”

I can remember feeling good as I said it, as though something right in me was showing up and taking a stand.

Janet scoffed. “Oh, stop being so prissy,” she said. “You’re just weird.” And because she was prettier and cooler than I was, I believed her.

In that moment—the simplest and most ordinary of moments—something in me changed. I can remember being so sensitive to Janet’s criticism that, on some level, I made a decision. I would not stand up for what I believed again, because it meant risking disapproval.

I gave away a piece of myself, feeling it fly out my left side and disappear into thin air. From that point on, the ground on which I stood always felt like it could shift suddenly beneath my feet.

This may seem overly dramatic. It was just a simple exchange between elementary school girls, after all. How could it be so pivotal? And what in the world could it have to do with world peace?

Well, here’s the thing. Our ego’s clamor to be accepted often overrides our higher Self’s gentle existence. So even minor conversations or actions can become a fulcrum point—that moment when we make a choice between fear and love.

This has everything to do with world peace because, whether we’re talking about a person or a country, the pattern of ego attack and defense is exactly the same. And just as Cece, the 16-year-old said, it’s never going to end—unless we enlist the help of spiritual guidance.

Inner peace is not just about meditating and doing yoga and being in nature and trying to make better decisions. Instead, it’s about doing all those things—or doing anything—with the willingness to listen to Spirit for ongoing wisdom. Honestly, how can I even begin to think about world peace as long as I still get irritated every time Bob lobs dirty socks at the laundry basket—and misses?

So here’s what I’m thinking: As you go through your day, pay attention to the tiny conflicts that bind you up. Feel the pull of revenge and what it does to you. Be aware of when you need to forgive and when you need to accept. Use the presence and relationship of Spirit in your life to help you rise above the boxing ring, where you can see conflict for what it is but not engage in it. And ask for help from Spirit all day long.

Know that it matters. For every minor shift we make in our own minds, we’re changing the balance from fear to love as part of a bigger peace.

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