Week Two: Friends with Conflict ~

Hello and welcome to week 2 of The I of the Storm virtual book study.

I trust you are finding the readings, quotes, insights, etc. are providing greater depth and awareness to you and your journey.

Our overall focus for this week is Friends with Conflict. For Week 2 you are invited to:

• Read Ch. 3 & 4, The I of the Storm by Gary Simmons
• Journal on the questions at the end of the chapter (Aware-apy)
• Review the weekly discussion questions.
• Post your Affirmation.
• Repeat your weekly affirmation daily.
• Commit to participating in your study Group.

One thing to note, I am experimenting with the optimal way to post our discussion questions. Week 1 questions were in individual posts; Week 2 are on one post. Let me know your preference.

With Clarity & Focus,

Antoinette

Week Two: Friends with Conflict ~ Quotes

Quotes from our Text

“No one is against you. This person’s hatred is not about you. It’s about what’s missing in your relationship. Or it’s about what’s missing in this person’s attempt to find love and peace. Your purpose in this relationship is to find a greater sense of wholeness and worth and to be the avenue through which God’s love flows into the relationship.”

“If to “return to mountain” is synonymous with equanimity, peace, and harmony, the ancients believed that it could only be realized by becoming present to life, by embracing the “tigers” that crossed one’s path.”

“When you disagree but are willing to discover what is underlying the disagreement, you strengthen the relationship.”

Week Two: Friends with Conflict ~ Wisdom and Insights

Wisdom and Insights

“Our blessing the enemy allows us to reclaim our power and dignity by accepting and loving that place inside ourselves where we are not connected to God, those parts that we would disown. By owning and accepting those parts in ourselves, we have blessed our enemy.”

-Larry Watson

Week Two: Friends with Conflict ~ Questions

Questions to Guide Our Group Discussion

●“The soul seeks to move one into those areas of life where full potential has yet to be discovered.”

What was your first reaction to that statement?

● How do you endow your enemy with the capacity to be a source of good in your life?

● In the four steps How to Deal With the Enemy, the book outlines the kind and generous internal dialogue that you can use when dealing with an “enemy”. As you imagine using these steps with a particular enemy, how does it feel? Is it possible? What would it look like if you could do it easily?

● In remembering a conflict where you felt very defensive, what were the triggers to your defensiveness? What is the meaning that you give those triggers?

● Are you caught up in needing life to be a certain way in order to feel okay about yourself?

● What does “Authenticity” mean to you? (Pg 60) How does it feel when you are not authentic?

● From you own perspective, how does authenticity and self worth relate to each other? (pg 61)

● We often can script what we would have said after the conflict has passed. Why can’t we think of those things when we are in conflict?

Week Two: Friends with Conflict ~ Affirmation

Friends with Conflict

I am willing to see all “enemies” as a source of good in my life.
I embrace resistance as a path to intimacy and trust.
As the expression of God, I, ________ , am authentic.

Welcome

Welcome to The I of the Storm virtual home study group blog.

This blog shall be our format for engaging in the group aspect of the exploration of our personal experience of nonresistance and peacemaking. Each week we will focus on tools and principles of peacemaking so that we might expand our abilities to be the voice and life of God expressing through us. You are invited to become aware of your wholeness by participating in this virtual small group Homestudy. You are encouraged to live the life of God, right here, right now. You are called to deepen and expand your awareness of communion and nonresistance in your daily life experience.

For clarity and ease of use, the focus for each week will be in the Title/heading/subject line. The Wisdom and Insights, Quotes from Our Text, Questions for Group Discussion and the Weekly Affirmation are posted separately.

Regarding Questions for Group Discussion, each of the questions is posted separately so we may more easily follow each other's train of thought. You may post your comments/discussion after the questions and after each participant's comment.

Comments can be posted/added anytime during the respective week or in subsequent weeks as various awarenesses come to you. This is one key difference between our virtual group and in-person groups. To read and post comments simply press the comment link at the bottom of each post. By the way, to see all of the postings for the week, and previous weeks, press the "Older Posts" link at the bottom of the page.

And now to get our group started, take a moment to introduce yourself and let us know a little about you and why you chose to participate in The I of the Storm.

Thank you for this opportunity to share this journey and exploration with you.

Antoinette

Week 1: Search for Wholeness: For this Week

To make the most of your participation in this virtual study group for Week 1, you are invited to:

• Read Ch. 1 & 2, The I of the Storm by Gary Simmons
• Journal on the questions at the end of each chapter (Aware-apy)
• Review the weekly discussion questions.
• Post your Affirmation.
• Repeat your weekly affirmation daily.
• Commit to participating in this study Group.

Week 1: Search for Wholeness ~ Wisdom & Insights

Wisdom and Insights

There is no greater misfortune/ than underestimating your enemy.
Underestimating your enemy means thinking he is evil.
Thus you destroy your three treasures/ and become an enemy yourself.

When two great forces oppose each other,
the victory will go/ to the one that knows how to yield.

-Lao Tzu

Week 1: Search for Wholeness ~ Quotes from our Text

Quotes from our Text

The future can only be regarded as probabilities floating upon a see of infinite possibilities.

Searching for wholeness in terms of what’s missing or what completes you creates a hypersensitivity to how life looks and feels.

Wholeness is not outside of you, nor is it separate from you. It is the essence of your true nature and spiritual identity.

I make my life mean what it means. The way I choose to relate to my experience is what my experience becomes.

Week 1: Search for Wholeness ~ Question 1

Discussion Question

If you can imagine for a moment that, literally, no one is against you, what emotions arise?

Does fear arise?

Does joy arise?

Are you anxious at the idea?

From what part of you does this feeling come?

Week 1: Search for Wholeness ~ Question 2

Discussion Question

Searching for wholeness in terms of what’s missing or what completes us divides the outer world into good and bad.

Even when imagining you were whole and complete from within, what would you still fear?

How is that thing against you?

Week 1: Search for Wholeness ~ Question 3

Discussion Question

Think of a behavior that you find unacceptable, and look for the belief system that supports that judgment.

Can you find the experience or lesson that created that belief system?

Week 1: Search for Wholeness ~ Question 4

Discussion Question

Which people in your life have you assumed the best when “filling in the gaps?”

Which people in your life have you assumed the worst when “filling in the gaps?”

Discuss why this is so.

Try to step back and observe your thoughts on this.

Week 1: Search for Wholeness ~ Question 5

Discussion Question

How many of your interpersonal challenges are linked to your feeling inferior or feeling superior?

How does that relate to your sense of your worth?

How does your sense of your worth change from experience to experience?

Week 1: Search for Wholeness ~ Question 6

Discussion Question

When looking back on a time you avoided conflict, can you recall your sense of worth and how that determined your behavior?

Week 1: Search for Wholeness ~ Affirmation

My Search for Wholeness

I am a whole and perfect child of God, and no one is against me.
When in Spirit, I am not my experiences.
When in Spirit, I am always greater than my challenges.