One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
…
As you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could ever do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

—Mary Oliver (from The Journey)

A friend surprised me earlier this year by saying that “nothing can ever really be resolved”. When I challenged him on his remark, and expressed my own experiences in resolving things, he added that “believing that we can resolve things may be a useful strategy, but that doesn’t mean we ever resolve anything.” I was fired up by this conversation. I still deeply disagree with his comments.

What does it mean to resolve something? I like these definitions from my dictionary:

1. to settle or find a solution to (a problem, dispute, or contentious matter)
2. to disperse, subside or heal
3. to have a firm determination to do something.

Resolving seems to have two parts: returning (to the source of our troubles) and solving (finding a way to effectively deal with them). We also need to have a strong determination to really face our troubles and to work our way through them.

Doing our own resolving

I’ve done a lot of resolving during the last few years. As I’ve written before, yoga has been a key practice or “tool” that I’ve found very effective to do this. My daily yoga practice—which is actually a practice of working with myself—has been the most challenging work that I’ve done in my life. This might come as a surprise to people who think that yoga is just about relaxing. The form of yoga that I practice has been full-on. But it’s also being very fruitful.

I remember when I first started practicing yoga that I desperately wanted someone to “fix” some major difficulties that I was facing. This led me to look for great teachers. Yet none of my teachers have ever fixed anything for me. Instead, they gave me the gifts of care and attention and empowered me through the practice. The resolution has taken place within myself, but it’s been greatly supported through the interactions with my teachers.

There are many other “practices” that can be useful for resolving: e.g. talking and dialogue; artistic self-expression; therapy; writing; or simply making time and space in life to let our troubles disperse. Different approaches can be useful at different times, because the process of resolving never ends. Well, perhaps it does when we’re dead or if we become fully enlightened. For the rest of us mortals there will always be more difficult relationships and obstacles to work through. There will be many heartbreaks, body aches, and tensions to unravel. That’s life.

Sometimes I’ve found it very useful to step back from daily life (and into myself) to do some deep resolving. For example I’ve just completed two months of intense yoga in India. I don’t feel like there’s any really Big Stuff for me to resolve in my personal life right now, but lots of interesting things have surfaced. I’ve confronted many challenges and resolved them. That puts me in a much better place for the future. I’m less likely to feel bothered when I face further difficulties. I’ll still be affected by these challenges, but I’ll be calmer under pressure. That gives me more freedom to choose how I will respond.

I’m not a cave-dweller though. I enjoy being engaged in society. I do most of my resolving on a daily basis. It’s part of my routine. I learn lots through my interactions with those around me. I try to disentangle any tensions on the day that they surface. I guess this is part of leading a peaceful life.

What happens if we shy away from resolving our difficulties? I think we are missing an opportunity for learning and growing ever stronger. Plus our troubles will probably return to us in some form. They’re like weeds. They’ll keep trying to break through the rubble of our life if we don’t remove them from the roots. That doesn’t mean that we should get too obsessed with removing old weeds, as living well in the present is important for growing a good garden. It just highlights the importance of tending to our self with care.

Resolving troubles from our past, in the present, also strongly shapes our future. It’s like re-wiring our connections. We’re removing negative charges and repairing frayed ends. Then we can really feel the full force of life and enjoy it.

Can we only save ourselves?

I began this post with part of Mary Oliver’s poem The Journey. She catches the moment when she realises that she can’t actually “save the world” or those around her, because ours is the only life we can ever save. This is a powerful realisation. It’s also incredibly challenging. We all need to do our own exploring and resolving.

I love this poem but it still gives me a niggle. What does this mean for people working in areas like social and environmental change? Should people who care deeply about “saving the world” just turn their gaze inwards and stop looking for change outside of themselves? Would that resolve all the troubles of the world? Well maybe it would if everyone did this, but that’s not going to happen any time soon. Plus we can’t separate what’s happening inside us from the rest of the world.

What I see in Mary Oliver’s words is actually an invitation to experience the richness of our world directly: to take ownership of our life and to see our unique journey as an adventure. We’re not being asked to stop caring for anyone and the world we’re part of. We’re actually being encouraged to appreciate our world more deeply. We can only experience/feel this in ourselves. When we care more for this world, we’re also likely to treat it with more affection.

Doing our own resolving can therefore benefit the rest of the world. When we resolve something for ourself, we become better at assisting other people in their resolving. We can share what we’ve learned and offer helpful insights. We can infect the world with our positive presence. For example, instead of trying to “create” or “achieve” peace in the world, peacefulness is simply something that flows from/through us, affecting everyone around us.

Untangling the tensions in our minds can also enable us to be more effective change-agents. For example one of my favourite descriptions of peaceful resolution comes from Sami Awad, a Palestinian peace-worker, in this clip:

Sami describes how our life often gets covered with layers of dust. Sometimes all it takes is some wise words from a very peaceful person to blow these layers away.

Reaching resolution in this conversation

I’m grateful to my friend who kick-started this reflection. Will we resolve our differences in view? I’m not really worried by this because it’s not harming our relationship. I’m just curious to know more about why he said that nothing can ever really be resolved.

An area where we might agree is that nothing ever goes away. Even if we resolve our difficulties, we don’t lose anything in this process. Our history is still part of us. Sometimes (but only sometimes) we may need to re-confront something that we thought we had resolved. An old pain can flare up again. It just won’t trouble us as much if we keep our strong resolve to deal with it well.

So, I’m never going to stop resolving. This doesn’t require distancing myself from society. It actually involves stepping into my relationships with society more deeply through myself.
Image Note: The photo at the top is from the Paekakariki Beach lifesaving club. I’m more into savouring the world than trying to save it… but just to prove that there are always exceptions, yes: there are obviously times when we can save another life. If someone was drowning I would try to save them. It’s just important to remember that we can’t save someone from drowning if we haven’t learned to swim, or if we’re not already safely afloat.

Related posts:

1. Go Hard or Go Home
2. Reconnecting for regeneration
3. Sustainability & the “other S word”