Love and disagreement, can they live together?

Disagreements are part of any relationship. These are the places where we are challenged to stay true to ourselves without closing our hearts.

Disagreements create discomfort as they carry the scent of possible loss and rejection. However, disagreements in our relationships challenge us to think and look at life with different eyes.

These are the places through which we can grow and strengthen ourselves. Moments we can stretch and expand. These are intersections of letting go of the need(iness) to be liked and the insecurities emerging from our difficulty feeling accepted, loved, and having a place in the world.

Relationships can thrive on disagreements, as they ask each one to stand in their power while coming together.

Disagreements clarify where we are, what insecurities we may hide behind, and what is dear to us.

Suppose we manage to release the fear of not being liked and heal the wounds of rejection or feeling unloved and unseen; we strengthen our sense of self and ability to love.

We can enjoy many relationships in which love and trust are not threatened in the face of possible disagreements. We will have solid and long-lasting relationships in which we do not need to compromise ourselves or bend others to fit us.

If you want to create more space and a better sense of confidence, trust, and love, you can start by creating a mental map exploring how you deal with disagreement.

Not being able to move through disagreement keeps you in the sense of victimhood, helplessness, and insecurity, with which you need to invest a lot of effort to manage to survive rather than spending more time to enjoy and thrive.

I invite you to look at different areas of your relationships: friends, colleagues, and family.

There will be different people with whom you will tend to one way of behaving and responding and others with whom you may tend to the opposite.

You may find a more significant tendency to one approval than the other.

Mark the places you cave in, try to be liked, and not say something you fear will make the other person angry or reject you and the people with whom you are on the hunt for how to blame, accuse, put down, and prove your superiority, and being better then.

Both approaches close you off. In both, you are disconnected and fearful. In both, you are fighting with yourself. You may be trying to overcome and fight with insecurity and fear or an old sense of shame.

When you have recognized where you meet the discomfort of disagreement, try to identify how it is being held in your body. What efforts can you recognize in your chest and belly? What do you do with your breath? How do you stand and hold yourself?

What fears are you holding within you? What sense of shame or self-disdain do you carry?

Sit with these responses, learn them, and follow them within yourself to recognize the fear or hurt you are getting stuck in or still fighting with.

Remember that feeling these emotions and sensing those experiences will not break you. When you fight or fear them, you stay with a sense of weakness, constant alertness or constant mistrust, need for immediate judgment, which traps your heart and drains your energy in the long run.

When you have sat with this disagreement- response and have identified how it is created and held within you, start to breathe, move, and try to let go of those efforts.

Give yourself the time to do so. Let fear and all other experiences move and flow within you to be released and transformed to activate that state of release and reconnection to your confidence and strength.

Pay attention to the state of expansion that starts to take place. A state in which you can have more of who you are and of life.

A state in which you can feel and admit your needs, abilities, vulnerabilities, and fears without feeling weak or threatened. Pay attention to the experience of strength, feeling grounded, and the option of refusing if needed. A refusal that is not hateful or needs to be harsh and pushy.

Then, breathe deeply and see what questions you can raise in the next disagreement that can invite the other person to open up.

Try to see what the intentions, needs, and wishes you share, even if there are still disagreements or differences that will stay. And last, recognize what you can now be at ease with without needing the other person to accept or approve of.

I encourage you to commit to creating more love for others and yourself by shifting your way of dealing with disagreements in your relationships. I am sure you will see that you share more than you know, and the disagreements will reveal much more of your courage to follow your heart than to convince, ask for approval, or be better than…

Yours

Anna

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash