Cheryl: Someone responded to one of your posts with this comment: Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone valued peace? It feels like some do, some want peace but don’t know how, and then another group thrives on power trips, conflict, and domination. It seems impossible to win everyone over, but I have hope that someday, we will.

Are there truly some people who don’t value peace?

Higg(in)s: The short answer is yes. The long answer is no.

Power trips are just that: power. Conflict and domination provide, for some, a feeling of power that is intoxicating. It feels good and powerful and strong. You will agree that feeling powerless is not a nice feeling? And you will agree that feeling powerful is a nice feeling? We encourage you to applaud anyone attempting to maintain a feeling of power, no matter how flailing their attempt may seem.

We use the word ‘flailing’ intentionally. Think of a person who is drowning. They don’t know how to swim or float and, in their fear, they flail wildly in an attempt to keep their head above water. Conflict, domination, anger, rage, hatred…all these emotions are simply attempts to keep from losing power and ‘drowning’. Rember that emotions lower than anger are powerless. Powerless maintained long term means dead. Powerless emotions lead to disease. Angry emotions do, too. Anger carried too long also means dead. So applaud those trying to gain power any way they can. When they are able to stabilize emotionally, they will lose their fear. Then they can begin to access peaceful emotions, which before they were not capable of accessing. Simultaneously, do your own work to maintain peace in yourself so that they do not cause both of you to “drown”.