Internal conflict – What is it and How to let it go?

Our internal struggles or internal conflict are deeply personal journeys. We long to be in harmony with ourselves, to accept ourselves as we are, while also wanting to be better somehow. We want to feel happier, fitter, healthier, more successful, secure financially, look better, be smarter… the list is long.

Add to this the hectic lives we live trying to keep up with paying the bills, being with the family and finding time for ourselves, and we realize we are also fighting with our exhaustion, stress and feeling overwhelmed.

We all carry shame on about something that we don’t accept in ourselves. It can be something we have done that we hide, or perhaps it is shame about how we feel, how we look, our place in life, or any number of things. All these aspects make internal harmony a tricky affair.

Why we ignore our feelings?

Sometimes the way we fight ourselves is obvious. We can feel the internal conflict. IT can be that we feel obligated to go and visit someone but you don’t want to. Or you are upset with your partner but pretending to yourself and your partner you are OK. It is the moment we try to convince ourselves we are feeling OK when we feel anything but OK. It is the dragging yourself or rallying yourself to get the never ending list of things done when we are exhausted.

The problem with this way of doing things is that it has become so normal we don’t question it. We are used to overriding our body’s signals telling us to slow down, or telling us that this path is not right for us. We have normalized the internal conflict as though it is just a fact of life. Don’t question it. We just solider on. It means we are living someone else’s life. We are living a lie.

If you want to know your truth, go to your body. What you are feeling in your body is your truth in that moment. Your mind will be trying all sorts of things to stop you rocking the boat or to keep the peace or avoid saying something… but your body feels it anyway.

I am lying in bed this morning. My mind is telling me to get up early to practice riding the scooter I hired recently so I can get  my confidence riding it when there is no traffic. There is a pit in my stomach that says ‘I don’t want to, I am scared’.  Yesterday a dog ran at me when I was on the scooter wanting to bite me, and I ended up hitting the dog. It was not nice. The dog was OK and I am OK so all ended well, but it was unnerving. This is India. Anything can happen. My body felt the echo of shock and fear that ran through my body. I know from growing up riding horses that I need to ‘get back on the horse’, but facing my fear is not easy.

I managed to drag myself out to bed and saw it was raining. Phew! I am off the hook. Relieved I went back to bed. But there was an unsettled feeling in my body as I was disappointed not to face the issue. I might be scared, but the disappointment of not being able to step forward was also there. I could not enjoy the extra time resting. My mind was not happy with the uncomfortable feeling in my body and I noticed my mind trying to talk my body into feeling something more pleasant. It was not working, so I lay there feeling this tension within me, created by my mind and body not being at peace with each other. It occurred to me that this is an example of where I fight myself because my mind wants my body to feel something different. I reminded myself ‘don’t fight it, feel it,’ and that helped me create some space. There is the uncomfortable feeling, but I make it much worse by fighting it. Think of it as multiplication. When we fight what we are feeling, the act of fighting it or trying to change it creates a tension and additional pain that multiplies how uncomfortable or unhappy we feel.

How to manage your emotions without fighting them

I notice myself fighting other experiences too. Like physical pain. If I feel a scratch in my throat or some pain in my knee, a surge of panic rushes through my body as my mind thinks ‘uh oh. This is not good’. I feel myself subtly fighting with the sore throat, as if my mind can will it to go away. There is fear in the fight. Or should I say, the fight comes from fear. There is not an automatic acceptance of my experience. My mind is pushing back against what I am feeling in my body a lot of the time.

Even when I feel great, there are times when I try to squash that experience in my body because I feel like I should not enjoy feeling good. That the feeling will go away, and then I will be upset, so let’s not feel good either. Most of the time I am not aware of the fight within me. It goes on underneath the surface, chewing up my energy and creating tension. I am practicing getting better at noticing it.

The inner tension directly effects the cells in our body as the mind and  body are constantly talking to each other. Muscles tighten up, we clench our jaw or perhaps our fists. Perhaps we hold on by holding our breath. The body is very good at showing us our inner conflict without us trying anything. If you notice your breathing change, or perhaps your breathing is shallow, then your body is showing you that your mind has decided it does not want to feel what is happening within you. Your breath is the doorway to feeling and being connected to ourselves. It can show us a lot.

How to Resolve Internal Conflict?

What I do know is that my mind cannot bully my body into feeling something that it is not feeling – and nor can your mind! I also know that my body is telling me the truth about how I feel, as it cannot lie. Your body doesn’t lie either. The mind makes up all sorts of stories and is not very good at acceptance. So, the answer is to let go of the ‘I should be feeling something different’ part of the equation and let ourselves feel what we are feeling. That’s how you can deal with inner conflict.

This is not always easy, and certainly not always comfortable. Yet there is an ease and harmony that happens when I let myself feel, and am present without judgement with my sensations. It’s a bit like the moments a mother or father can look at their upset child with love and acceptance, not trying to fix anything, but holding the child with love and letting the child know they are safe and loved. We can’t save our children from pain, but we can love them and be there for them. It is the same with ourselves.

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