A story of Courage, and overcoming Fear

[Spiritwind]

So I'm just going to jot down a few words about courage here. I'm just getting ready to do something that requires me to overcome my fear. My fear is actually multi fold. We have a neighbor who lives up the road from us in the rural area where we live. I won't go in to all the ins and outs of this story. Suffice it to say there is a conflict. It appears to be about our two Great Pyrenees that we have to protect our little goat herd from predators. But it is really about something else.

My husband spent most of 23 years in the military and has many sides to his personality. But deep down, although he can be a very compassionate man, will come out metaphorically swinging when challenged in the typically ego driven male way. In his mind, our neighbor has drawn first blood. He is about ready to launch into a counter attack. We have just purchased the five acre parcel just down the road from where we are. And we all share the access road.

My husband has forbidden me to talk to our neighbor, but I know I absolutely must do exactly that. And soon. So I am getting ready to go up and have a talk with him and his wife, to see if we can come to an understanding that will avert world war three. This man is well known for his difficulty with ordinary human communication. And I hate conflict with a passion. I generally go out of my way to avoid it. This situation presents a certain possibility that no matter what I do may break down into something that will actually not benefit anyone. I know the answer, but I don't like it.

So, in the interest of reflection and learning about what works and what doesn't, I am going to post this now, just before I go, and then see where it goes and what actually transpires. Wish me luck : )

I only hope they are home.

[Eelco]

Good Luck...

WIth Love
Eelco

[Christine]

Love always triumphs ... it heals and reveal. Spirit wind in the trees and the smell of pumpkin pie wafting your way. <3

[Naga_Fireball]

Dear Spiritwind, please be careful!
Remember that you can request that police mediate a conflict that has gone sour.

With the recent land purchase I'm sure everyone feels defensive. This guy could be dangerous if he has been bothering the dogs.

It would break my heart if things went in a bad direction. You have the right to report any threats or abuse, especially if you feel that the guy has weapons etc.

Sorry for worst case scenario thinking. My dad and some of the local hicks got into some terrible feuds. A couple of times peoples dogs got caught up in it. I think there was a scary tit for tat where aguy named Elgin shot our dog Pepper, my cjildhood favorite dog, and later unfortunately my father responded in kind when that family's male dog wandered too far.

Its very sad that hicks think a family dog is just lost property to be disposed of.

Hugs for you. Concern

[Spiritwind]

I am back from my little walk up the road. Whew! His wife was home but still in bed. He invited me in. And we talked. And as I suspected, the issue with the dogs was actually secondary. It did go back to an incident that happened this last winter.

All I can say is how funny it is to see in action just how dangerous assumptions can be. And we all do it. I listened carefully to his concerns, some of which were valid. Some were carried over from frustrations that had built up before we even arrived. I found that, as I had suspected, we did have a few areas in common. That is always good to build from. There is much both sides were not aware of. He has now been made aware of what our intentions are, as opposed to his fears and expectations.

My main goal in all of this was to diffuse tensions, and arrive at a workable solution. After explaining in detail what our intentions were, and the reality of the current situation from my perspective, I was delighted to hear him say he would not call law enforcement on our dogs again until this next spring when we can put a fence around our goats and horse, and a fence around that to keep the dogs in their own area to patrol. They had greatly extended their area because of being allowed to free roam. No matter what the reasons were for that, it was a valid point and needed to be addressed.

I am hoping that as long as we follow through, that we won't have any more problems with this neighbor. As always though, there is another conflict already brewing over the access gate at the end of the road. This is with an entirely different party who is very well known in a bad way for being the area's number one butthead. I guess I'll cross that bridge when we get there. Maybe we won't be putting up those cattle guards after all. And I even managed to accomplish my mission without the pumpkin pie, LOL.

People are strange.

[Spiritwind]

Dear Spiritwind, please be careful!
Remember that you can request that police mediate a conflict that has gone sour.

With the recent land purchase I'm sure everyone feels defensive. This guy could be dangerous if he has been bothering the dogs.

It would break my heart if things went in a bad direction. You have the right to report any threats or abuse, especially if you feel that the guy has weapons etc.

Sorry for worst case scenario thinking. My dad and some of the local hicks got into some terrible feuds. A couple of times peoples dogs got caught up in it. I think there was a scary tit for tat where aguy named Elgin shot our dog Pepper, my cjildhood favorite dog, and later unfortunately my father responded in kind when that family's male dog wandered too far.

Its very sad that hicks think a family dog is just lost property to be disposed of.

Hugs for you. Concern

I do understand your worst case scenario thinking Naga. As was previously stated, my husband forbade me to talk to him. But I knew it was out of concern for me. And my friend who owns the property we are currently on wanted me to record the conversation and make sure to bring my phone in case it went bad. But those things are all fear driven. And it is quite true that had I not been able to move into a neutral position emotionally, it could very well have went bad. There were a number of things this man said that could have triggered me. But I was able to stay the course and remember the objective. It's all trial and error, but it's still worth the try. I have somewhat learned to disregard the personality, because we all have personality traits that can rub others the wrong way. When your goal is clear, it is much easier to find a way to resolution. I knew the outcome if I didn't try was almost certain to not be to anyone's benefit in the long run. I know it's not just men who do this, but that posturing, taking sides, and getting even are really not the best route in any situation. Easier said than done though. I admit, I had to fight even some of my own shadow in this situation.

[Spiritwind]

So, we must have hit a core nerve this morning. After a lovely session of discussing this interesting sense of being at the point of creation, betwix two worlds, this in between place where it feels quite neutral, I experienced a sudden, and rather dramatic, effect of an unstable person in attack mode in my reality (I have actually felt it brewing under the surface). I have had this experience many times, where usually a someone, comes into full view, with their projected fear, and then indignant anger about some supposed wrong, or at least things not going their way, and the subsequent need to assign blame.

It certainly does seem to be coming from outside myself, but then, is it? How did my subconscious mind conjure up this particular scenario? Is it the matrix out to get me, since it senses it is loosing its hold on me? Or is there something else at work?

If I look deep enough, I will grudgingly admit that I also have this tendency to assign blame. No matter that my sense of doing so seems minuscule to what is currently being projected at me. I still have to admit, that there is an opportunity here, regardless of whether I find it appealing to experience or not. Maybe that is part of the problem. For I still very much have a knee jerk response in trying avoid that which is uncomfortable. And this person definitely triggers immense discomfort in my inner being. Again, I am called to demonstrate a skill I have not warmly embraced developing. Again, I am forced to step up, or step back. Not that one is better than the other. Just that whichever I choose, can I find that middle ground where I can reserve judgement? Such a sneaky little bastard it is. A work in progress.....

PS: It's not even the someone from the story above. Funny how life always has reserve ammunition, LOL! I said somewhere, and I'll say it again, no place to hide.

[Naga_Fireball]

Thank you for sharing this. I'm saddened.

My downstairs neighbor had a similar experience recently. Her disabled sister, niece, brother in law are homeless.

The nosy neighbor next to her (the crazy with smart phone on loudspeaker pointed at folk Lol) was rude when they departed and asked "are THOSE people gone now?"

...

Sometimes the creativity that goes into the evil is way beyond humor or prank but just downright depraved.

[Eelco]

Sorry to hear that Spiritwind,
the following was inspired by your latest post. Maybe it suits, if it doesn't then it is more about me that you.
Just thought i'd share.

Maybe just maybe.
The idea that we create our experiences is not the whole story?

Instead of our subconscious causing hardship and challenge, as popular belief seems to dictate.
Maybe stuff just happens because of forces beyond our control. What remains to control though is how we feel about those things and how we will respond.

When something or someone is to blame. Why not do just that. doesn't mean we have to respond in a manner that is harmful or outside of ourselves to balance the score. Besides in my experience often when I forego blaming another I end up blaming myself for manifesting some experience. Isn't that just blaming too? So if there is blame. Let it.

With Love
Eelco

[Spiritwind]

I don't know that my subconscious actually creates hardship and challenge. I think maybe it has more to do with my mind, perception, and how I interpret things. It's kind of difficult to explain. And I have thought about this a great deal.

Over my life I've met quite a few people, who just seem miserable and unhappy in life. And they may have come from circumstances that maybe even warrant some residual psychological issues. Some of them, though, from outside appearances, have so much. Some are wealthy, come from a materially successful family. With some it is more obvious where their difficulties in life come from. I guess what I'm trying to say, is that happiness, and enjoyment of life, can have almost nothing to do with appearances, looks, what you have or don't have.

I don't even know if I can tie this together, but another thing that I have noticed is a number of young women on my Facebook, women I am related to in some way, who are trying extremely hard to look like sex kittens. I mean, almost everyday they have a new picture of themselves, very touched up and posed, looking a lot like women you would see in a playboy magazine, just with their clothes still on. These women are all beautiful in their own right. But they never seem satisfied, and also seem to crave flattery and want to be noticed. Why do they really do this?

Me, on the other hand, I'm getting older. I live in a rural area where we have to haul water, then it has to be heated up to wash up. I never even look in a mirror for days. I'm getting a saggy face, LOL, for lack of a better way to put it. I have fun pulling the skin back and joking with my husband about getting a face lift. I like to be clean, but nowadays even that is not as important as it once was. And, strangely, I feel beautiful inside. No matter what I look like on the outside. And not at all because I think I am so great or perfect. I just am, and that's all I have to be.

But it's certainly not as easy as that. I find it easy to feel this way when I mostly stay away from society and people. Now, people are just how they are, mostly a product of their environment, and the personality they develop in response to that environment. But at a deeper level, that is not even who they are. Because I can see and feel the essence behind the body and the personality, and it is already beautiful and perfect in every way. So, I think we really came here to experience all that we have deemed, in the deep dark recesses of our collective mind, all that we have judged to be less than perfect. We did that with a mind separated from the heart.

Now, I feel this can happen in innumerable ways. In my case, I feel, on some very deep level, that I have experienced a challenge or conflict situation that severely traumatized me, but I can't fully remember it. And so it lingers on in my personality by showing up as a deep anxiety and sense of fear, when I have to face a personality that feels angry, hostile, and demanding. But you can't get away from it in life. So, everyone has their own unique issues they face. For me, it is much tied into this almost feeling of terror I have when having to face situations that engender such a strong, almost out of control response in me. I mean, I actually start having physical symptoms to the stress response that gets activated. So it's no small thing for me. That's why it seems so personal, even though my rational mind tells me it's not personal. The actual people I have to deal with have their own issues, personality quirks, ways of navigating their lives. It just happens to bump up against my own reality at times.

I guess after all that, what I'm trying to say, is that it is a choice for me to view these types of things as an opportunity, a lesson, if you will. Because it helps me help myself develop better coping strategies that actually produce better results. Because I also see a lot of that. People push their agenda on you, but they've learned to be tricky, sneaky, kind of underhanded, but in a way that you may be able to feel, but not necessarily see right away. This is where I have my most trouble. Because I tend to withhold acting on those inner feelings until I see clearly where they are coming from.

And then, sometimes, you can find yourself in a situation, as I have, where I can admit I made personal choices along the way that did indeed contribute to the overall outcome. I try to look at those, so I don't keep repeating an unpleasant cycle for myself. So it isn't about changing anyone else. It's about healing my own shadows, I guess you could say. And sometimes these situations, as one I am currently in, is so convoluted that any clarity about the most ethical course of action is just not there. Sometimes, there is just hard cold reality that can set in, and it can be greatly at odds with everyone's expectations. Sometimes, you can't please anybody. And I am in a situation right now that is going to require me to let go of any notion that there will likely be a happy ending. But there will be an ending, that much is sure. To make way for new beginnings.

I try not to take a lot of baggage with me in to new beginnings, since I have noticed that is where I have seen that I can sabotage myself without even realizing I've done it. And I am probably not making any sense at all. Oh well, such is life. See what you stirred up in me, Eelco! LOL

I love your thoughts and sharing of them because it does get me to thinking. And, heck, I just love you because you are you.