What do you do when someone close to you makes a choice that you feel is not true for them, but they are convinced it is? It could be with your partner, sibling, teenage son or daughter or a close friend. How do you handle that disagreement… with love?
We often see things as a choice between Right and Wrong, but there is also Truth.
The most loving thing we can do at any time is to express the Truth of what we feel, but it is not loving if our own expression is laced with our reaction to their choice, or with our need to maintain a good relationship, or simply with our need to avoid being hurt.
When we express an absolute truth with love, we are offering someone an opportunity to see things differently and move out of their comfort zone, but they may react if they feel they are being judged. The disagreement comes when they are convinced that their opinion is the absolute truth, because it’s what they have experienced in the past and therefore what they believe to be true.
So… how do we break the impasse?
If we compromise and hold back our expression to avoid a reaction, we are slipping back into our own comfort zone. We can numb ourselves to what is going on, ‘forget’ that we disagreed, and appear to support their choices just to be ‘nice,’ but that is not love. That is not supporting them to feel Truth and it does absolutely nothing for our evolution or theirs.
When we both are complicit in this game of ‘let’s pretend’ we are both denying Truth.
How can we change this?
We cannot draw on any outside sources because anything we say that comes from outside ourselves is purely mental and so can be argued with. We all have our own authority and inner knowing within our own bodies.
If we live in such a way that we are sensitive to what our body is feeling, then we can be aware of subtle shifts of energy that happen as situations arise, and we can express these. Sometimes we can sense what is going on in another person’s body that they may not be feeling for themselves at that time and we can choose to express what we have felt.
Before we say anything, we need to let go of the need to be ‘right’ and be open to all possibilities. We all learn things in our own time and everybody needs the space to make their own choices with no judgement, no attachment, and no pictures or ‘hope’ of a better outcome from us.
When we can offer a holding space for others, they have an opportunity to reconnect back to themselves and can make different choices in their own time. We can provide a loving reflection for them through the quality of the way we live more than any words we might say.
It’s not loving to hold back what we feel and if we do speak, it cannot be laced with any judgement or they may react, so we need to do our best to be sure we are well supported, well nourished, well rested and tender in our movements so that what we feel is a truth can be expressed and shared with the other.
Anything we express from emotions – with our own reaction or with judgement – is harming, not healing. If we are not totally connected to our body, our minds can go around and around in circles, working us into a state of mental chaos that we can’t see our way out of. We may then move into blaming the other person instead of feeling inside ourselves first and observing what is truly going on.
Instead of going around in circles, we could use more discernment with our expression: we are not perfect but we can learn from our experiences. If we don’t say anything, no-one learns anything, although sometimes it is more appropriate to say nothing and simply offer a loving space for people to work things out for themselves.
So, back to the original question of, “How do you handle a disagreement with love?”
The answer is simply to be in your body, feel what is there to be expressed, and feel if it needs to be expressed in that moment. Or we can stay respectfully silent and simply provide a tender, loving, holding space with no judgement while allowing the other to evolve in their own time.
By Carmel Reid, a student of life
Further Reading:
Having The Right to React?
Being Nice
Why Do I Do That?
121 Comments
Simple appreciation of what comes through another eliminates judge-ment and allows the space for their evolution.
I have learned with the years that ending up in a disagreement is like a dead end or like a prison. There is no coming out of it by standing by the oppositions and even one giving up and follow the other is not a true expansion of the situation. Nothing is learned. There has to come up a 3rd element that gives focus on a world beyond. It is like the 2 people who have a disagreement are A and B and they build a line. This is 2-dimensional. With bringing in the 3rd element – as you said Carmel, ‘we both are not true’ – and open up for MORE to become aware of comes the expansion and the liberation so to speak of the prison. When i get stuck in any way, I now know: there is more to discover. What an opportunity! And how amazing if I can go on this journey together with the other.
When two people are committed to being in truth, rather than being in the justification of who is right and wrong then it can be easy to solve any disputes or arguments with love. With neither person having this as a fundamental foundation then I’d say it’s almost impossible to bring a quality of love to a situation.
“We all have our own authority and inner knowing within our own bodies.” Letting go of the need to be right, as you say in your article Carmel – is so important. Feeling from the body, rather than what the mind wants to say brings a different angle to the situation when differences occur.
“The most loving thing we can do at any time is to express the Truth of what we feel, but it is not loving if our own expression is laced with our reaction to their choice, or with our need to maintain a good relationship, or simply with our need to avoid being hurt.” When we no longer hold an investment in being ‘right’ we can let go and allow the other to hold their opinion while we express ours.
A great philosopher once said: “The greatest form of love is allowing people to make choices” (and not judge them). Very hard to do.
We are all free to make our own choices and sometimes there is a greater learning in making a ‘wrong’ choice as we get to understand a deeper truth.
As long as we don’t bash ourselves for making the ‘wrong’ choice but use it as a learning opportunity, a work still in progress for me.
Sometimes, giving someone the space to ‘make mistakes’ can be a very supportive thing to do. If we try and rescue, what can be learned?
“Anything we express from emotions – with our own reaction or with judgement – is harming, not healing.” This is something we should be taught from young because it not only harms another, it also harms ourselves and is rarely noticed till the consequence in our body is far more complicated than the original moment of reaction.
Yes I agree Lucy teachings like this are so important for us to know and learn about and essential for our wellbeing and positive relationships and something we should be taught at from young.
I know for me when I’m overly involved in another’s life it can sometimes be an avoidance to take responsibility for all the things I need to look at in myself.
Yes, being detached doesn’t mean you don’t care – something I have been accused of because I wasn’t playing the game. Again something to let go of! So many opportunities to learn….
” The answer is simply to be in your body, feel what is there to be expressed, and feel if it needs to be expressed in that moment. Or we can stay respectfully silent and simply provide a tender, loving, holding space with no judgement while allowing the other to evolve in their own time.”
Words of great wisdom thank you Carmel
Yes, good point, does what you want to express actually need to be expressed. There are times when it does and there are times when it doesn’t. Stepping away from having a need to express offer the space to discern which one is called for.
Yes I love this too. Honouring the body’s messages and its own wisdom is a great tenet to hold in life.
The moments when I am truly free of judgement are so exquisitely sweet and free; all the love I naturally feel for people is there to be expressed untainted.
If we look below the surface of a disagreement, we often feel the hurt and upset in self or another. Our responsibility is to respond in a way that expands awareness, not fans the flames. It helps to have a clear sense of who we are and what we bring to situations.
Yes and that comes with practice doesn’t it, remembering to not run away from what we feel in our body but to embrace the opportunity to deepen our awareness.
What most supports me in a disagreement is looking the situation with the other as an opportunity to deepen in my relationship with myself. Did I judge them? Did I hold any kind of investment? Did I react to what they were reflecting me? Is there something that I didn’t realised yet? Am I offering myself the space and the permission to express what I feel? Did I communicate from my head or from my heart? Is there any resistance to understand what I offer or receive? Can I hold the other in brotherhood even when there is no encounter with them?… The list of questions might go on and on, hand to hand with the surrender I allow myself to find the answer to all of them, and wih this, suddenly the understanding that comes from the acceptance of any form, the openness to continue learning and the truth that is always found in my heart.
It is super simple yes. The more I honour myself the more I honour others. And my experience is that there is no end to this, as in there is endless depth and development. If I can attend to my relationship with myself without judgement then I am not going to taint others with judgement. This brings me to the simplicity and significance of responsibility.
To be able to express from love one needs to be free of all attachment to outcome and know that what is communicated is for the healing of all
“When we both are complicit in this game of ‘let’s pretend’ we are both denying Truth.” I have so been here many many times before, when my hurts jump in the way of reality, oh well we are all learning, and blogs like these offer an amazing reflection.
I know of times when I’ve feared to say what I know is there to be said. I’ve let my need to not ‘rick the boat’ or upset someone and then feared the reaction get in the way. But then I remember to hold the other in love and us both as equal, then what is said comes from the communication that we are equally amazing. If I observe without judgement, there is space for them to come to their own choices. And if they react I can feel that’s their prerogative but it needn’t impact me internally.
“The most loving thing we can do at any time is to express the Truth of what we feel, but it is not loving if our own expression is laced with our reaction to their choice, or with our need to maintain a good relationship, or simply with our need to avoid being hurt.” This is gold Carmel – and so true. Expressing our truth with love feels so very different from wanting to be “right”
Beautifully expressed Carmel! I absolutely connect to your sharing. Thank You.
Great blog Carmel. I came back to study it and all the comments today. As others have said a much needed discussion, and I enjoyed from the whole expansion and conversation. I wrote this a few days back, before returning to it, that just felt to leave here:
“Everything that I complaint about in my relationships, everything that I complaint about feeling separated from the rest and the “seemingly” the lack of support, I have created it. But that is no reason for not holding me in great love and respect, and expressing what needs to be expressed. I am learning how to stop, feel and connect before expressing. I am learning to work with and allow space. I am learning to feel the inner knowing… I am reawakening to a different way of relating to others.. what if I don’t relate from the need to say something, as it will make it imposing. What if I just make the space to feel the group, the person first and in that space I allow myself to feel what is needed, what is the meaning, potential and purpose of that connection, that moment.. it could be something very small, it doesn´t matter.. but what if I just forget about everything I know and I just simply allow myself to feel and feel the pull inside. Why I don´t first learn to hear, understand, no preconceptions, no agendas… What if I make it about feeling, reading, understanding and honouring the person in front first and foremost. Woudn´t that be honouring me too, the truth within me I have been neglecting for a very, very long time?”
Every moment is an opportunity to go deeper with our care, understanding and tenderness. No amount of ‘you’re wrong and I’m right’ is ever going to help anyone see the light.
So true Joseph. Sticking stubbornly to our beliefs and making the other ‘wrong’ gets us nowhere. whereas expressing our truth with love gives a very different feel.
And when we expose the trap of ‘right or wrong’ it is super clear that we need to let it go.
It hurts to see and feel others choose to harm themselves – but if we speak from this upset we just add to the abuse. It’s crucial we accept and surrender to the way the world currently is and also our own behaviour.
Thanks Joseph, so true about accepting and surrendering, there is a much bigger picture than the small snapshot of others we allow ourselves to see. Most people also want to be loved for who they are, not seen for their choices, and that love is incredibly healing when we are seen and met in our essence.
“It’s not loving to hold back what we feel and if we do speak, it cannot be laced with any judgement or they may react,” This is a forever developing journey I know there are times when I react and times when I deliver whats needed with love and truth, making this a consistency and not going into to judgement is super important.
Thank you Carmel. There is a key strategy here and that is to ensure the way we live honours the physical body so we can read what is energetically needed in any given moment.
A much needed discussion. So many times we may get into situations whereby there is a difference in opinion.
Do we force our point with the need to be right?… which brings in a force of supremacy and anger, or do we hold ourselves from a point of stillness & holding space and calmly speak what our body is wanting to express from truth and love. I know for me the latter feels so much more expanding in my body.
It is a beautiful thing to know how to respond to another in any given moment. This knowing comes from our alignment with God and nothing else. Not driven by any desire to be right, we offer love and express in a way that inspires and brings greater understanding for self and other.
And despite our pretence that we don’t recognise love, we all actually do because how else would we be able to do such a masterly job at avoiding it if we didn’t have a good idea of what we were avoiding in the first place.
We have been brought up with the belief that having disagreements or different views is not loving. This is simply not true – it’s actually the energy of supremacy and anger that we let through in reaction that taints it all. Keep our true steadiness and anything is possible.
If we are honest it’s easy to tell when we are speaking out to bring harmony, greater understanding and true love or attempting to win an empty victory. The latter always comes with a horrible force.
There is a huge difference between ‘speaking out to bring harmony, greater understanding and true love or attempting to win an empty victory.’ And it is felt in the body, we can speak out from truth still feel settled, whilst to speak out from reaction brings tension and ugliness, borne from a ‘horrible force’
A much needed discussion on the absolute love that can be delivered even when tension arises.
Tension scribbles over the top of love but it doesn’t obliterate it, it just makes us lose sight of the fact that it’s constantly there.
Sometimes responding in haste to something written or said can worsen the situation and cause harm. Where there’s potential for conflict, and if uncertain, better to pause (even overnight) and feel before expressing or writing. Often a droplet of wisdom comes in that allows us to express what needs to be said with love, elevating understanding for self and other.
Wise words Kehinde. Often when we react and do or say things in haste we can come to regret them very quickly. Learning to pause and support a situation by checking in with myself first – checking to see why I am in reaction, allowing myself to come back to a place of connection, supports then with a much more loving expression. In supporting myself in this way I am much better able to support the other without investment either.
Yes I agree responding or rather reacting in haste can always make a situation worse something I have experienced a while ago from myself and also another with me. It is always better to stop, take time out (walk away) reflect and evaluate and then express from a place of clarity rather than reaction.
A great point Kehinde. Taking time to feel before expressing is always valid. However our body will express energetically first, regardless of what we may then say or write.
One way to handle a disagreement with love is to separate person from words and actions, which may not necessarily be theirs, but comes through them. It is possible to read an email or blog disagree with it’s content or way of expression and see beyond the words, to something deeper for example a childhood or family hurt, resentment, or long held grievance. And in some cases, the true response is to not respond because the person is not communicating with you, but expressing a hurt or much worse.
I so love this, “When we can offer a holding space for others, they have an opportunity to reconnect back to themselves and can make different choices in their own time. ” it is is so true the more we let go, don’t judge and just love someone is when the magic really happens.
Last night a friend and I went into proving ourselves to be right, there was no consideration of what the other person was saying just an absolute determination to prove ourselves right. And the funny thing is that we both came up with evidence to back ourselves and yet neither of us was the least bit interested in looking at the other person’s ‘evidence’. It feels to me that when we are trying to prove ourselves to be right that we never reach the point that we are trying to reach’ i.e. the other person saying ‘yes, you know what, you are right’.
This being right and wrong always exposes itself because we go round in circles justifying and defending and never actually listening or reading the situation.
So true. Not difficult to see. It does really expose itself, yet we grab it as a dog grabs his bone. Surrender & LET GO. Striving to being right is such a waste of time, in the best scenario it gives us a very brief and supreme pleasure, but at a high price: love and connection are lost.
Great blog. So with this ‘How do you handle a disagreement with love?’ to me as well as what you have shared it is seeing and holding the other as an equal in the same love I hold myself in. The moment I think or see another as lesser or greater than me then I know I am off track.
This is a simple ‘formula’ that I love too. Thank you Vicky.
Being able to see where another is at, without getting entangled in their emotions and expressing your truth simply and clearly supports them to find their own way.
Not reacting to their emotions and expressing without attachment to an outcome allows the other person the space to explore their options.
Not having an investment in an outcome creates space and allows more open communication. It also means we stay true to ourselves and are less likely to be manipulated.
If only we gave each other more space then we would all heal so much quicker but we don’t. We hem each other in with our emotions, reactions, expectations, ideals and more. We interfere with the potential that space offers by filling it with all manner of debris.
I have felt that I choose to not give others space or give space to the situation because I want to own the whole process. I unconsciously feel that I am in-charge, that I have the right to fix it on that precise moment. It is a lack of humbleness or inability to surrender, let it go (without putting my point across) and give space.
Wanting to be ‘right’ is a hook I’ve a attached to in the past for sure. Holding on to fixed positions, intensifies arguments and pushes us apart from one and other. Feeling the space of listening, observing, without judging, staying silent if there is nothing to add is more likely to deepen relationships.
Wanting and trying to be right closes down space as do so many other behaviours and anything that closes down space greatly reduces our access to Universal Intelligence because space is Universal Intelligence. And unfortunately most of us live in a way that almost constantly reduces space which is why we are so ignorant to what life is truly about.
Little do we know the harm caused when we shut out another or put them down in pursuit of being right, or because it is ‘what we do’. In doing so we also reduce ourselves and another and deny ourselves ‘ access to Universal Intelligence’.
We are Universal Intelligence, shut ourselves down and so too do we shut down Universal Intelligence. But, open ourselves up and hey presto Universal Intelligence is able to flow through us once more. The simplicity and magic of life just blow me away.
In a recent workshop we did an experiment where a group talked about another – who was out of the room at the time. It was shocking to understand that those vibrations could be felt by the absent person who reported back on re-entry, be they ‘positive’ talk by others or ‘negative’. How much harm gossip about others does.
Indeed – any form of contraction closes down space. This in turn over time, can leave more hurts in the body (sadness, anger, frustration and so on) that then have to be worked on and cleared before we can get to that original form of contraction and why that happened in the first place. Understanding and feeling that everything in life is about energy and that we are vehicles of it, supports greatly in our awareness of what life is about, even in the imperfection that we are and in the recognition that contraction is always going to hit us in places.
We are walking frames through which one of two energies enters. The biggest contributing factor to our deeply ingrained and long held misconception of life is that we have fallen for the illusion that we are more than a frame for energy. Not only have we fallen for the illusion but we have totally and utterly immersed ourselves in it and almost our entire existence revolves around our belief that we are fleshy individuals who are living a human existence. We’re not, we’re moving frames through which energy pours. And currently the energy that is pouring through most of us is pranic, which is an energy that loves nothing better than the fact that we are choosing to live a lie and to deny the truth of who we all are.
So true Michelle. Contraction in the form of negative talk, whether it be from others or self-talk, harms everyone in the long run.
We get hooked into the “right and wrong” scenario, because as you all have been saying we dont give us the grace of creating a moment (space) in the middle of the argument to accept that our point of view is not going to be acknowledged and accepted. It could be true and important for us to express it, but never in that way (when truth turned into an investment). If it is being rejected by the other person, it doesnt matter the amount of force we call in to make sure we will be heard, it will never make the other accept. It is wiser to give up on all of that: stop, feel, accept and detach.