[W]e seem so quick to fight as a species. The urge appears strong and indomitable. Fear and ignorance abound, driving our behaviours as we strike out at one another in so many different ways. It’s so easy to dive into a place of extreme negativity in our thoughts and actions. Although the ties that bind us are profound, we seem to spend inordinate time in moral combat being aggressive with one another through the way we interact. Even when we mean to connect, we can so often find ourselves caught in the depths of disconnection.

Every single day, we are bombarded by the media with news and stories of greed, aggression, and conflict, each one reflecting an almost relentless temptation to think ill of another, less of another, to suppress the other, to denigrate them, to dominate them, to reject them, to judge them in some way. We seem obstinately skewed to the worst case and the negative.

But wait….. this urge to fight is not actually representative of all that we do in the social systems we live and work in. Are we really so fixed on fighting and taking others down? There are innumerable stories that challenge this notion, stories of grace and humanity, of generosity and love. To enter the territory of tenderness and positivity may be akin to facing a monster, but there is heart in this terrain; the world is actually a better place than many of us may think or want to know.

It is perhaps only through a process of deep personal enquiry and reflection that it really becomes possible to discover the untold insights into where the struggles between such well-known negativity and unrealised kindness come from. And it is only when we engage with one another deeply in dialogue that we can really begin to figure out how to overcome the negativity, how to reconcile the inner struggle, how to discover more equanimity within and between the ‘Self’ and others; how to end the seemingly endless fight.

Sarah Hill & Peter Hiddema