Redefining Resolution: Why We Need to Transmute the Energy of Conflict
We cannot solve a dispute by disputing.
I spent eighteen years building a practice as a civil litigator. I graduated from law school cum laude, made partner, developed niche expertise, attracted clients and earned national recognition. And then last year I stepped away from the career and identity that I had held so dear. The traditional practice of dispute resolution is built on a faulty foundation. The unsaid truth that is not yet integrated into legal systems is that conflict does not naturally, or by its own course, yield to resolution. Conflict is an out-picturing of fear or similar energy that can only perpetuate more of itself. Conflict does not develop into expanded thinking, creation, opportunity or even peace—unless we are courageous enough to undertake something more powerful than fight.
Cease fires occur and legal disputes end through compromise, but such compromises generally occur as a result of a countervailing energy of fear about the outcome, or the costs of the dispute. The purported “resolution” is a redirection of the same energy into different fear sufficient to overcome the initial desire to fight. The process is no different than war. You can employ lawyers and judges, but a formalized fact-finding mission to discern a purported single “truth” amongst two or more warring parties is, at minimum, expensive, protracted and uncertain. And a compelled outcome does not guarantee a permanent cease fire, much less peace. It does not resolve the energy of conflict.
“Resolution” in the form of peace, neutrality or satisfaction requires something different than conflict. Resolution requires the actual unknowing and transmutation of the energy and intentions that underlie and propel conflict. It is more than a mere change, evolution or progression. It is a metamorphosis into a completely different form. As Einstein shared: “We cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” We cannot solve a dispute by disputing.
It helps to understand that everything is energy in motion. Our bodies are energy. All matter is energy. Through quantum physics we can measure everything—including emotions and values—as energy. Physicist Dr. David R. Hawkins discovered through extensive muscle-testing calibration experiments that values, attitudes and emotions can be correlated to a logarithmic scale. At the top of the range are expanded states of enlightenment, joy, peace and love, while contracted feelings of fear, guilt, apathy and shame are at the bottom. When we are in conflict we are generally responding to a threat or risk, or we are propelled by a fear or a sense of scarcity.
Quantum physics also provides scientific support for the law of attraction, the theory that “like creates like”. Atomic particles have an energy and are drawn towards atoms with similar energy. The law of attraction predicts that thoughts like atoms are drawn towards the same kind of thoughts. This bears out from our human experiences—we experience how a positive and infectious leader can lift a room, while fearful messaging can similarly spread. The law of attraction as applied to conflict means that, without more, conflict creates a response of conflict: fear begets fear, as one blow leads to the next.
We can engage in efforts to resolve conflict in more meaningful, lasting and effective ways when we understand conflict as emanating from energetic human emotion that attracts more of itself. We can only resolve conflict by disabling its energy from within. Even where we did not start the fight, if we react to it and participate, then we are holding the energy of conflict. But when one or more actors can transmute core energy into a higher vibration within themselves, that infects others and attracts more of the same. As humans, we spar in the dense energy of conflict, but we are bound by the expanded vibrations of love.
The human emotional energy that propels conflict can only be identified and transmuted by the humans who hold it. The tools for transmuting the energy of conflict include mindfulness and other modalities that create the capacity to observe our own thoughts, feelings and emotions without judgment. Focusing externally on facts, people, contracts, laws, arguments, etc. distracts from this inward process and allows the energy to perpetuate as it is. The path to resolving the energy of conflict is not an external process focused on others, but rather an inward exploration to identify and transmute the energy held within ourselves.