I put my left hand to my heart and my right hand to my head. I had been asked to do this last week in my Tools for Trauma class and to notice what I felt. In the class I had felt a power struggle. My mind raced with quick thoughts that I can’t recall now. Something about discomfort, useless, disdain for the little experiment. My body was also restless. Fighting back in its own way. ‘It’s not for me’ was the apparent conclusion.

Today in the last round of Sweat Lodge, as I intuitively repeated the experiment, that same restless feeling arose again. This time I was at the wheel. The polarity between the two contact points was acknowledged. I could see the fighting between my head and my heart, or my body and my mind, for what it was: the age old contest of sibling rivalry.

So like any good parent, I sat them down. I acknowledged the tension between them. The disagreement with seemingly no resolve. The push and the pull with no clear winner. They were against each other. I saw the situation for how it was. I gave them a cool, calm and collected talking to the both of them. I understood the reason for the conflict. One had failed the other at many points of time. There was no scorecard anymore. There was no game anymore.

They need to learn to get along.

The obstacle is the way.