How do we survive?

Our interactions with the world are driven by the question: how do we survive?

In other words, whether we feel safe or unsafe will determine what we do at any moment, how we act or react in relationships with others.

Tension and conflict are central to life. When there is more than one person, there are conflicts. More people create more conflicts. When we are alone there are inner conflicts.

Conflicts exist when we feel unsafe and concerned for survival. We could say that we act out of conflicts. If there is no conflict, there is no creation. Conflict between being hungry and not having food leads to hunting for food. Conflict between needing company and not having company initiates the search for companion. Conflict between the goal and not being at the goal pushes us to work. Conflict between wanting attention and not having attention makes us do something to get attention.

Conflicts are motivated by fear. Fear of famine, of loneliness, of failing, of being insignificant and forgotten. When we feel threatened, our instinct urges us to search for ways to survive. We ask ourselves: what resource do I have, how to use them to protect myself, to feel safe again.

We use power to get what we want, to protect, to survive. We constantly employ three common modes of operating power. We use power to attack and to harm. We use power to defend when we are hurt or fear of being hurt. We surrender power, denying and distancing from problems.

How skilful we are with these modes of power operation, which mode we use more often, how we react to them when they are deployed on us, depends on our early lessons in life.

If it works, then it is good strategy. We identify real threat and handle it.

However, all these modes of employing power create distance from threats, and from other people. Disconnection prevents us from collaboration.

The problem is, having acted that way, we still do not feel safe. Conflicts lead to further conflicts. They do not lead to peace and safety, our goal of survival. Only in peace and safety, we can grow.

What is another way of using power to feel safe? So that we don’t fear and exhaust our energy in defences. So that we can be open and care for people we work with.