Conflict and the Self

I have been embroiled in conflict lately, both with my own illness and other people. My default emotion when having conflict with others is guilt. I want to apologize until I’m blue in the face to make it all better.

Perhaps it’s my age or my experience, but my own way of handling conflict is not working for me. It encompasses that fear I want to live without. I cannot continue to live in fear of others, and nurse the hurt that came with the initial conflict.

When a wrong has been perpetrated, whether purposefully or accidentally, reparations should try to be made. This is called being responsible for one’s actions. It is my stand that forgiving and forgiveness should be offered with compassion. Compassion is an expression of empathy. If that relationship or relationships were close to your heart, the more compassion should be expressed. I do, in fact, believe this is how we should handle our relationships with all our fellows.

Sincere apologies and care must stop at some point. I have been fearful, but I shall work on changing this aspect of myself. There is personal responsibility, then there is responsibility for entire situations. No one person can shoulder that. I will no longer.

For what is the self? Does it stand alone without those acted upon?

We define ourselves in so many ways. I am a teacher, a parent, a kind person, an honest person, etc. I held onto certain “truisms” about myself because it mitigated my constant guilt. I am an honest person, I am a good friend, I love to help people. None of these things is absolutely true, I now understand. What I am is this and only this: human. I cannot believe I have forgotten to hold onto that. I am fabulous and fun, but often a total babbling fuck-up. I feel guilt and fear for not living up to some concept of self I have held, forgetting I am a fucking human being. That’s it.

There is a complicated (to me) concept in Zen called No-Self, or sometimes called no-self nature. As I understand it, this is recognition that the concept of self is false. We are all hung up on self-identifiers, and cling to them dangerously. Dangerously can mean two things. You can be both/either a detriment to other people or yourself (which is just as dangerous). The harder we cling to our self-concepts, the more pain is wrought by the recipient. That truth you believe about yourself will be challenged over and over. Until you let go of these concepts. Until you remember again that you are just a person.

Being a person who fouls up from time to time, someone who is worthy of compassion, is far less painful than holding onto self-concepts.

I’m Karina. I fuck up. But a lot of times, I absolutely don’t.