The intelligent way to treat your enemies

Un enemigo puede ser una persona o grupo en específico, una institución, una ciudad, un país. En fin, esos detestables que establecemos en dicha categoría ya sea por diferencias de pensamiento, de método, de objetivos. La presencia del enemigo nos polariza, nos obliga a querer dejarle muy en claro que su forma es la equivocada; o bien, es la razón por la que emprendemos acción para vencer su oposición. Entonces, vencer al enemigo significa debilitar, acabar, socavar todas sus fuerzas para, entonces, hacer o conseguir nuestros objetivos. Y claro, ganar.

On other occasions, our enemy makes us the life of squares, hinders us at every step, we cheat, and we can also have several enemies on different fronts: at work, in the neighborhood, in politics, in the family.What generates a polarized attitude against our enemy?: Anger, anger, envy, frustration, and the worst, hate.

This is crazy!

The first time I heard "love your enemy, bless those who curse..."I thought it was a waste of time or that it is actually a advice that leaves the oppressed by his enemy as someone very weak, as a victim or little, stupid.Who in his healthy judgment would love his enemy, who with two fingers from the front would be defeated by him and would give him not only the robe but the layer?

Out of all religious preaching, the essence of these bible lines are present at the work of Robert Thurman and Sharon Salzberg, authors of the book 'Love your enemy'.It would be very good not to prejudge a verse or a Buddhist teaching, since here it is only about reflecting a little and we may free ourselves from more than one enemy.

Types of enemies

Robert and Sharon distinguish at least four types of enemies: external, inmates, secrets, and supersecretos.Those who interest us here are external enemies and inmates.The external ones are those who spoke lines above, those that fulfill the generalized idea of the enemies;Yes, those we would like to erase from the map.

Internal enemies, as their name suggests, refers to those inside us, are our thoughts, those that sometimes catch us in a loop that we do not leave and fill us with anger, fury, hate, forthen explode in hundreds of variants that can cause tremendous damage, even to the people we love.

According to the authors of this book, love is important for both cases.Love for the enemy?, What is said, this is crazy!But before wanting to abandon (again) reading, give a small chance, this madness may serve something.

For these authors, love is the desire that the people we love are happy, as well as when we want to make those people happy.Thus, the trick of loving our enemies consists, in this case, not to invite them to the next roasted flesh, or bring flowers, but unhook ourselves from the idea we have about that person.That is, to see our enemies also outside the conflict situation, visualize them when they are in love situations, when they themselves want happiness to others.Nothing easy, huh?Now, this will also let us see your weaknesses, your personal deficiencies, we may even find the reason why you kill us every time you see us.

Yes, well, what is it all?Believe me, it is not an easy task, to get to that state in which we see our enemy outside the conflict we have with him, a lot of patience, perseverance and, above all, true desire to get out of the problem is required.One of the most terrible things to find in these exercises is to realize what we pay to the conflict, of the foot we put (literal or metaphorical) only to see in a vulnerable state to said enemy, or see how much flammable material (literal ormetaphorical) we add to the problem.Then the thing changes and we can see the size of our responsibility and that of the enemy.This will help us to change our attitude or at least stop blaming the other.

Ajá, and little by that, everything is resolved?The short response is no, the earth will probably open and swallow our enemies for that ours, it is most likely to remain there, however, that disconnecting from the conflict brings more benefits than problems;And in truth, changing attitude should not be underestimated.

If after all your anger it is still there and every time you see that enemy or you see it do something you want to threaten him, to bitter the day, to kick him under the table, that the real enemy may be you and it is time to recognize thenA: internal enemies.

Anger, hate, fear and other demons

You receive an email from your worst enemy (Call chief, neighbor or group), then a boiling begins in your head, a wave of anger that feels in the chest, a lump in the throat, tears of anger, fuss, words, words, andA whole climb of reactions that only causes us to harm ourselves;That if we are lucky that our beloved people are not close, because there are occasions that we grab them against them, we answer them badly, we whip the door in their noses, or see us to see things for an anger that does not correspond to them.

Then the enemy, ladies and gentlemen, has won.The external and the internal.

That internal enemy comes from the irrationality caused by all those negative feelings, in fact, and this authors mention it, to pay attention to them and let us direct our ego;understanding the latter almost as its own identity that claims to be absolute.Letting ourselves be carried away by this absolutist thinking is like watching a single channel on TV and believing that it is the only way to understand the world, in this case, the conflict and the enemy.This is commented by Robert Thurman in his book, and also explains that an important tool to overcome this enemy is meditation.

It's over, Bible, Meditation, what is not a technology website?The concrete answer is: no.And it is worth saying that meditation is a practice that science has found full of benefits.Now, to understand and practice it, it is not necessary.Meditation gives us benefits from the first weeks of doing it and for what helps us in this case is to strengthen the ability to choose.Yes, meditation, in a metaphorical sense, raises the volume to a voice that we almost never hear.This voice sneaks into our anger and our action;It is that little voice that tells us: do not take off with your daughter, do not throw that dish that you are going to scare everyone, do not send that email that you are very angry and later you will regret it.

Many people are fortunate to know how to do the above with virtuosity and without much effort they know how to remain calm and react in the best way.For normal humans we have to make a double effort, really dedicate ourselves to get out of conflicts and not make them bigger, as well as find tools that help us get out of that loop of external and internal enemies.For that search I got to that book and the talks of the authors of 'Love your enemy' on the YouTube channel, Big Think, and that, eye: it has 14 days of free test.

So, the most intelligent way to treat our enemies with love?The short answer is yes, although we saw that doing so is not easy and represents a great challenge.