Why we fight with those we love

At this time, it appears that human consciousness is rising, and this causes our shadow, our negative unconscious beliefs and conditioning, to come to the forefront so that it can be looked at and be dispersed into the light. The definition of healing is to bring darkness to the light, and that's what we are asked to do now, more than ever before: To bring our self-hatred into our awareness, so we can catch it there and disperse it, before we slam it to another person, and attack it there.

In your relationship struggles you may feel that often it's your partner who is attacking you and who makes your life so difficult. I know you know that this is only seemingly so. Our partners are our mirrors, and I mean that literally. What we dislike and hate in ourselves we see it in our partner and fight it there. The worse we feel about ourselves, the more reasons we find to criticize our partner. Isn't' that interesting! The mechanism at work here is called projection: what we don't want to acknowledge in ourselves we will find "out there", in other people, close and far, including the terrorists. That's why it is so important to become aware of our negative thoughts and feelings. It is the only way to not project them out and fight them in others, with the consequence that we attack other people each time we actually feel bad about ourselves!! It sounds so terribly unfair - and that's exactly what we all do, all the time.

A couple is watching TV at home, both are very tired from work, they go to bed, not saying much, falling asleep. They wake up, and at the breakfast table the woman explodes: 'We never do anything fun together, you don't talk, this is so boring' and off she goes. He takes it all personal, believing she means to say that he is not good enough, that he is boring, that he does everything wrong, so he explodes back and yells, 'what's wrong with you, you're never happy, whatever I do is not enough, what about last Monday when we had fun...' and both partners feel unhappy, empty, unfairly treated and angry.

• We are attacking someone because we feel bad about ourselves.
• Your partner is your mirror.

Let's look with understanding at what happened with the couple above, which is the basis of the Internal Freedom Process TM: We see that she felt bad about herself in the morning - for her own internal reasons - and instead of becoming aware of it and maybe even sharing it in a neutral tone, she attacks her partner, and the fight is started. In our example he does exactly the same as her: He thinks her remarks mean that he is basically not good enough, and so he defends himself (because unconsciously he really thinks that, but he denies it). In another moment he may choose to stay calm and say: What's happening for you now? It sounds like you're not o.k. And no fight would happen. If one of the two can remain calm, the storm will finish fast. What I'd like to show you and suggest to all of us is this: when we feel frustrated or bad in any way, take the time to feel it and first share it with yourself internally.

Know that it is your own perception of yourself and of the situation which created these unpleasant feelings. They will then vanish by themselves: Darkness brought to light disappears automatically. But the way you look at it needs s to be kind and loving, not judging, not thinking: "I shouldn't feel bad, what the heck is wrong with me that I can't be light and happy," etc.. This approach just reinforces your feeling bad of course. The way you look at your unpleasant feelings is literally like a loving parent is looking warmly at a child when s/he stamps her foot and wants what s/he wants when s/he wants it.

In summary:

• Regardless of who starts a fight, we can always choose to remain peaceful, to not take it personal - thinking: 'it's not about me' - and this will help the other person to realize that s/he could choose peace as well.
• Whenever we get angry at someone else, it's not because of what the other said or did, it's because of the interpretation we gave to their words and actions, and therefore, we always get angry, upset, frustrated and everything else because of our own thinking.

That's how powerful our mind is!! It creates our misery and our joy, and we are the ones choosing which one we want to experience in each moment. This is Internal Freedom!

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Marlise Witschi, M.Psych., Alternative Counsellor, is the founder of YourHealingWay, a psycho-spiritual system to heal yourself, your relationships, your business and your life. You may sign up for my free audio healing session at: www.internalfreedom.com.