However, it may still be worthwhile to ask about the impacts of this agreement with disagreement. Some intentions are clearly good \u2014 to avoid rancor, for instance. But the agreement to disagree also largely means that vulnerability and learning are both curtailed. There probably won\u2019t be any big new insight into the workings of another person or the workings of ourselves, no acknowledgement, for example, where we might have been wrong, no new or refined perspective or change to our behavior, no lesson<\/em>.<\/strong> We may have worn out the conflict but we have not resolved it.<\/p>\n Suppose \u2014 and I think this is quite common \u2014 that under all that non-change I continue to operate on the basis of ongoing negative beliefs or assumptions about another person\u2019s style and motives. Applying this mindset as a filter wherever the other person shows up, these assumptions subtly, even unconsciously, continue to color my views even if they are \u2014 by \u201cagreement\u201d \u2014 unspoken. Things seem<\/em> okay, but are they? Part of the problem is that through the practice of agreeing to disagree I may learn to suppress my full feelings from my awareness \u2014 they only leak when I have a chance to complain behind the scenes.<\/p>\n An example. I happened to be talking with one of my clients, a very hard working manager, and he confessed that every time a certain employee of his asks about my client\u2019s new baby, he hears an attempt to manipulate. They get along well enough, he says, but an undertone is there. \u201cHe\u2019s a family guy,\u201d my client explains, \u201cand he\u2019s asking me about my new baby \u2014 our first child \u2014 because he<\/strong><\/em> doesn\u2019t want to work past five.<\/em> He\u2019s trying to convince me family should be so<\/em> important. If I buy it he\u2019ll be less on the hook for the hard work past five<\/em> that his job requires. Obviously he doesn\u2019t want me to work as hard as I do because then he might have to work hard, too.\u201d (This is a true story. I\u2019m not making it up.)<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure you can sense the nature of the conflict between these two managers, but there\u2019s also an internal conflict for my client that may not be as evident, one he generally hides but is willing to share on this occasion. It\u2019s clear he\u2019s being hit by his employee in a spot that\u2019s a little tender. He acknowledges to me he\u2019s working out what it means to be a father. He acknowledges (and his wife has already provided this feedback to him) that whenever he picks up the baby it\u2019s to a solve a problem, not just to enjoy and love and cuddle this new little person in his arms, his son. He\u2019s picking up the baby because the baby needs to be changed, because he\u2019s crying, because he\u2019s hungry. Otherwise, let him bond with Mom.<\/p>\n To treat a baby as an object in this way is tragic. And he can see an obvious parallel to his own management style, a pattern that makes his issues more global. He tells me that he\u2019s at work to solve problems, critique others\u2019 performance and correct mistakes \u2014 that\u2019s his purpose. He fills in the technical depth when others don\u2019t know what to do. He\u2019s there to do the work himself if it becomes necessary. He\u2019s not<\/em> there to relate<\/em> to other people, he says \u2014 and therein lies the not so hidden conflict. When asked about his baby what he hears is that negative assumption about his report\u2019s motives. If he relates<\/strong><\/em>, he tells me, meaning he takes the question about his baby at face value and as sincere, then he risks being used<\/em>. And that\u2019s an intolerable thought.<\/p>\n So he silently \u201cagrees to disagree\u201d about how much work a manager should put in, complaining about it in the background even before any overt conflict between the two of them emerges. He clings to a private and undiscussed negative assumption \u2014 which is to say he clings to his own avoidance by wrapping it in an unspoken insult he shares behind the scenes. In this way he stays out of the dark place that is core to the conflict inside himself. If the conflict were out in the open, he might have to go through that most difficult part of the journey, the tight, personally vulnerable space of seeing something about himself as a person<\/em>, a kind of tunnel<\/em> \u2014 which can truly be quite a mysterious passage for people, one often imagined to be more difficult and painful than it actually is.<\/p>\n Ironically, something can happen on that journey \u2014 if it is truly embraced rather than avoided or refused \u2014 something that is as much about about forgetfulness as about insight, as much about nepenthe, the mythic drug<\/a> that alleviates sorrow as about understanding. This is because part of working through conflict means ultimately surrendering some aspect of what we are so sure of in our negative thoughts about other people. At some point, maybe without really being aware of it, some part of the feedback coming our way gets through and we begin to sacrifice \u2014 even for just a moment \u2014 the self-protective negative assumptions we\u2019ve made about another person. <\/p>\n I think this is often a more or less natural reflex that enables human growth, almost a faculty, one we are lucky to have. Losing focus on our negative beliefs enables us to come closer to ourselves and the discovery that it\u2019s no longer about other people and their<\/em> motivations. It\u2019s about us and our responsibilities, who we<\/em> are in truth, not who they are in our fantasies. The faculty helps us stop pretending. We stop believing that we\u2019re being gaslit or victimized and accept some kernal of a truth that has been hard to see. Some would call this recovering a projection, but I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s always about Shadow so much as confronting scattered pieces of old conditioning and fears that simply haven\u2019t yet been understood.<\/p>\n Who knows exactly what real transcendence is and when it will come. It seems to me the best thing is to make all the feelings and worries and negative beliefs about self and others supremely<\/em> conscious in order to look at them plainly and to pick through them carefully \u2014 and then \u2014 and this is critical \u2014 to give it a rest, maybe even to sleep. Because it\u2019s just insane to hold onto all that nonsense. It doesn\u2019t help to cling and with a little letting go there\u2019s a shift to a simpler heart.<\/p>\n Following the example above, someday I hope my client will be able to say to his report exactly what he said to me:<\/p>\n Ah, my son. He is incredible and when he smiles he lights up the whole world!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n And let it go at that, rather than focusing on some story of how he\u2019s being maneuvered. <\/p>\n All those negative, dark and darker beliefs we store up. All those assumptions. All those fears of what could be done to us. It\u2019s like recognizing that the complicated pre-Copernican<\/a> algorithms we have used to define how our universe operates are actually incorrect. I find I have been living an illusion. I realize I travel around the sun, not the sun travels around me.<\/p>\n Every conflict I\u2019ve ever known is filled with such overly complex calculations, false paradigms, negative beliefs that in the end are discovered to hardly have substance at all. If my work fails it\u2019s because those in conflict maintain their place and status \u2014 and their stories about one another \u2014 not risking the true journey but instead agreeing to disagree.<\/p>\n \n The post Conflict and Transcendence<\/a> first appeared on .<\/a>. Some conflicts must be managed, meaning they continue between people but they are not allowed to dominate the relationship. We \u201cagree to disagree,\u201d we say. A more or less palatable outcome at times that \u2014 in theory anyway \u2014 ends the contest and interrupts darker feelings. I bet you\u2019ve been there. So have I. 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