WARNING! There will be people on this site you do NOT like.

[Leila Raven]

In fact, unless you have the compassion, empathy, heart and mind of a saint, as the site grows I can pretty much guarantee it.

There will be those people here. Those people you try so desperately to avoid. Those people that grate on your nerves. Those people that believe in *that* stuff, you know, maybe it's the scary stuff, or maybe it's fluffy bunny stuff. Maybe it's not what they believe, but how they shove it down your throat. Or so it seems. Or maybe it's that they just seem to know it all, and they're SO wrong. You know THOSE people.

Well guess what, we're all one of those people. All of us come off the wrong way to someone sometime. Yeah, we might whine in our heads, but we know better. I'm really a NICE person, a SMART person, a RIGHT person. My intentions are all in the right place. Well guess what, we're all one of those people too.

Ayup.

There will be people here that will use words you don't like, and find offensive.

There will be people here that have beliefs and practices, that you find disturbing, upsetting, or maybe silly, stupid, or trivial. All of us, will have SOME negative assumptions about someone on this site.

Bottom line, we are all who we are.

If we want the freedom to be ourselves, we must extend that freedom to others.

If we want to be respected for our own choices, faiths, ideas, beliefs, we have to extend it to others.

What then to do with those individuals that rub many people the wrong way? Who are more extreme on the edge of a more out there belief, or method of expressing themselves that they disrupt a lot of people a lot of the time. I'm not sure honestly how I will deal with individuals that may really push this sites members buttons.

My first line of approach is trying to work toward an inclusive solution. Bring resolution and positive change without excluding someone. I would like to make removing someone from this site a really last resort.

There are people who thrive on conflict, and conflict is also often a positive part of people who are going through periods of growth and change. Overcoming conflicts. Learning how to resolve conflict. As well as learning how to communicate with others effectively and to co-operate with others, is one of the most meaningful things we can do actually in terms of our self growth and development.

You can use conflict with others on this site as catalysts for positive growth and change, for yourself, and for others. You can choose to try to change what you can change, not that other person, but yourself. You can choose to try to expand your empathy and compassion. You can make an effort to try harder to understand why that other person is who they are, believes what they believe, and feels how they feel, or expresses themselves how they do. All of us have baggage, history, triggers, brainwashing, etc, to overcome. All of us. We are all the walking wounded. If you want a less judgemental more compassionate world. WE have to co-create it.

We can start co-creating it here.

Defuse conflict, keep conflict to places where people who want to embrace it only can, and not impose our conflict onto others who do not want to be a part of it. Recognize trolling behaviours and people who feed on negative energy, or are addicted, literally to the adrenaline rush of the 'fight' or flight response, and just like a good fight (yup, some do, let them fight with others that like to do battle, and if your the pacifist type like me, learn to walk away). I have a tendency as a pacifist to want to repress or smooth over conflict, perhaps more than is ultimately healthy. Really, who gets to decide? and maybe what is healthy for one person isn't the same for another...

I know you're all intelligent enough to really get what I'm saying here.

Conflict will happen, be ready for it, focus not on what I can do as a site owner to fix it for you, or what the other person has to do to stop bothering you, and focus on the only change that really matters, the one you can bring with you off site and everywhere you go. Learn your own personal way of dealing with it, create strategies and plans for self for sharing spiritual space with a diverse group of people.

This place will have a lot of freedom, for many people, that may feel like a lack of 'security', that lack of security, is not coming from the site, that feeling of insecurity, is a feeling, and it comes from within you, and only you, can address it. You can avoid it, or you can understand it, and control it, rather than letting it control you.

Leila

[Grigori Rho Gharveyn]

Mmm, very good points Ferenzo,

When even one post begins to sound judgmental, it sets in motion people eager to take sides with teir own judgements, and the entire social conditioning that reinforces our habits of judgment is recapitualted, furhter conditioning ourselves to be judgmental.

A post can be entirely neutral, and yet it may still be perceived as judgmental, keeping the whole business in play indefinitely...

 

Blessed be...

 

[37k5peu2ugi2s]

i would be the first to agree that how we say things sometimes comes out unclear...i have the gift(?) of dyslexia, adhd and i two finger type....i screw up all the time...

i don't usually disagree with anyone..."if you like it i love it"

[3q31ysrgkm1nt]

hahaha!  yay I'm not the only one!  I'm not always sure to call dyslexia a gift however although it has made me laugh at myself a lot!

[37k5peu2ugi2s]

an elder witch told me that...he said adhd people can network and study many things at the same time...so i veiw it as a gift...i really do love to roam the universe...i see everything at the same time ...do you Nova Spirit? i could just slap my dyslexia at times..lol...i type dyslexic do you?

[2zvw9kxsea7gt]

So true.

[10yziazo00smf]

righton http://www.wix.com/danny108/nuclear

[2r9rxfbf3uni9]

Well said Grigori,  Anger is one thing, I believe we are speaking of RAGE here.  Anger is seated in the liver, not only is the modern world irritating and maddening, it is full of toxic chemicals that back up a already anger filled liver.  As an Acupuncturist, I spend the day providing endorphin relief for peoples pain, both physical and emotional.  However, this is a temporary fix for a deep seated existential problem.  The polar opposite of anger is creativity.  Imagination and creativity are our natural expression.  We should naturally adapt to stress in a imaginative and creative fashion.  It is far too easy to rely on the "system" rather then ourselves.  A system that sees everything in terms of conflict and polarized external stimulation. I find in my own life,  that finding creative answers that rely on imaginative new reality's, is frustrating and often ends in failure.  The system is broken and basically unavailable to us commoners.  What to do but keep trying?  I feel for all of us frustrated humans looking for someone or something to pin our pent up rage on.  I trust the answers will come to us all soon or at least eventually.

[Grigori Rho Gharveyn]

<smile>

Oh dear brother Indra, creativity frustrating?

Indeed!

Your powers for eloqent understatement tickle us.

Being creative requires a degree of self-cooperation that is inhibited by the ways we are culturally conditioned to behave.

Inner conflict is the biggest obstacle to creativity in many cases, one exception being people who use their inner conflicts for motivation.

Such people are often very paradoxical and may suffer extreme mood swings.

For most people, the mood swings of creative genius are intolerable, too disruptive of the ordinary pace and comfort of their lives.

We may become deeply depressed when our inner conflicts become so locked up within us we cannot function creatively, and then we may become wildly creative when we work past our inner conflicts and resolve them, releasing a flood of energy.

We have become very discouraged at times that our creative efforts are not rewarded by the world, too often the only rewards of our work are only personal victories, victores we may be unable to share with anyone through our art or writing regardless of how prolifically we may create.

So yes, frustration and heartache are part of being creative, but creativity is required, otherwise we can only live in the boxes of defintions provided by others, definitions that may poorly suit us at the best of times and which may teach us to lie to oursleves about who we may really be at their worst.

 

Blessed be...

 

[2r9rxfbf3uni9]

Yes Grigori,  My 20 year old son is a singer song writer/artist and a creative genius. We tolerate his mood swings, but it can be very trying.  My wife is used to it, her Father is the supplier of these moody artistic genes.  I feel we all need to be aware of our collective growing NEED to become more and even more imaginative.  The only way out is up.  Feed the BE!

[0x2scysfab9yo]

I have a very strong effect on the people I meet. They either Love me or Despise me. I am very into what is called the Integral Theory! I incorporate this into my spirituality and my studies at school. I highly recommend it to anyone that knows that more exist then what meets the eye. If you do not feel that then well its a waste of time to even look into it and good luck and hope your life is filled with peace and love at least!! I am open to all questions and love a challenge so please call my shit out!! Just know that I will respond back! I have at many times been revised to a differ way of looking at it which is why I love the challenge for those moments to happen!!

[Grigori Rho Gharveyn]

Excellent points Goldmund, Leila!

We find that fear drives reactive behavior, such that anyone in a 'confrontational' mode requires someone to else to enable them by also being confrontational with them in response.

If someone remains peaceful in such a situation then the confrontational person does not know how to proceed because the other person is not following any of their scripts and is providing them with nothing they can react to without possibly risking social censure.

Consequently, any creative behavior can defuse tense situations, as can anyone secure with themselves.

We have walked free from many felony arrests simply by being unafraid, peaceful, cooperative, and friendly but uninformative.

Many people expect to be feared, when we are without fear the authorities assume things are on the up-and-up even when they have hard evidence to the contrary, its a matter of respect and trust, we do not appear to be a threat, and that is all they really care about.

Even when all parties seem intent on conflict, peace, reason and trust can still prevail, for which we are always grateful.

Of course, a silver tongue and golden charisma help too.... <smile>

Peace works, always...

 

Blessed be...

Namaste

 

[3nhfalupls5mp]

The fact that this comment was placed on the profile of two friends sharing an idol banter, confuses me as to why it would be offensive to other. Unless one trawls all profiles to find things that upset them.

Yes we all have different views, and there are pictures posted which delve into the dark arts so why are they not subjected to the same scruteny??

So at the end of the day what I post on my friends profile remains between myself and my friend. If people come across it and are offended then they should reference this post and read it to see that not everone is going to agree on everything.

It makes me sad as a member who has pretty much been here from the beginning that this reference should be isolated and used as an example.

I am of christian Catholic faith and do not find this offencive for if I did then I should not be a part of an open minded site as this.

 

So really I think that its sad that peoples profiles are subjected to scruteny in this way. And its not fair on the friendships that share these banters.