Yeah, I wanted to use a song quote as per usual, but nothing seemed as appropriate as the scene that this line is from. Because we’re going to talk about something I avoid: fighting.

I know, there’s many of you hiding a laugh or giggling. I’m not know for shirking away from conflict. I have been known to wade into it, mental or physical, online or in person. And with an impending invasion of Chicago by the federal government, conflict is on my mind tonight.

But this won’t be about politics. you can find how I feel by looking at my FB page, And if you don’t like where I stand, there’s the door. But here’s the thing about fighting: I don’t actually like it. At all.

I grew up in a household of immense violence. Emotional and physical violence were rampant, and there’s suspected sexual violence as well. My father never hit me, but he threw a lot of stuff at me, and at times, threw me.

By the time I reached my late teens, I had been in alot of fights. I lost most of them, until a growth spurt at 16. Then I started winning them. Or so I thought. When I was 18, I got into a fight with a guy outside a bar. I put him in the hospital. I was given a choice:jail, military or find a martial arts class.

Thanks to the gods, I found Sensei Tseng and Aikido. It introduced me to(after several kickings of my ass) to non violent conflict resolution, and that was folded into the Samurai way of conflict resolution. Bottom line: I don’t start fights. Ever. You start a fight, you’ve already lost.

This si a good philosophy, but it left me blind. I was so busy looking for people who started with me, I didn’t notice the people who’d already started a fight with me, and I didn’t see them coming. Until it was too late.

As a result, I got hit. And hit in the soft places. My mind and emotions, left wounded by decades of trauma, never expected those blows to come again. And what did I do? Did I fight back? No I retreated. I fled and fawned. Look up trauma responses, and that’s what I did. And ods, did it cost me.

But that brings us to today. I had my triggers for conflict pushed hard today. I wanted to rely on my old pals, Fawn and Flight. But I didn’t . I fought. Not with fights, or passive aggressive behavior. I fought with carefully thought out words and careful actions and responses. And I feel better for those responses.

When you’re attacked, you can have automatic responses. I’ve done it dozens of times. But as I get older, the more I realize that automatic responses and fights are not the best action. Nobody ever really wins a fight. I haven’t felt good about getting into a fight since the Eighties. But I won’t shirk back from conflict. I just have better ways to handle them. I hope you find some too. Good night.