"And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand."

-Gospel of Mark 3:25, quoting Jesus

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You are a civil war

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And there are not just two factions. There are four factions in your own personal civil war. Civil wars, unlike interstate wars, are more difficult to end and, even if there is a ceasefire, peace is more difficult to maintain.

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It's possible I may not be talking about you. Go to Quizzing for life and fun. Take the second and third quizzes to get your Now-Next Integrity EQ score and your Oneself-Others Integrity EQ score. If both scores are above 90%, your civil wars, to the extent that they exist, don't cause a lot of damage.

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To the degree that either or both of your scores are below 90%, you are a "house divided against itself."

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The four factions

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The four factions battling back and forth within you are Now, Next, Oneself, and Others. In their internecine conflicts, one will "take ground" against the other one day, then  the other will regain ground the next. 

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Your Now and Your Next do most of their fighting with each other, seeing the other as the primary enemy to subdue. Sometimes, your Now will be able to call upon support from your Oneself to try to win over Next. Your Next, in contrast, will get support from Others in order to try to dominate Now.

 

Your Oneself and Your Others see each other as the primary opponent to be overcome. On occasion, your Oneself will try to get help from Now as will your Others solicit support from your Next.

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It's possible, however, according to your mood and the circumstance for any one of your factions to either align with or fight with any of the other three.

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With so much damage inflicted back and forth, it's just a bloody mess. Most of us are resigned to thinking, "This is just how life is" and "It's this way for everybody."

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Sometimes it seems more peaceful

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But it's not. The underlying conflict has not ended. It's just that one or more of the four factions has gotten too tired to fight or too resigned about getting what they want.

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When your Now is suppressed and dominated by your Next

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When your Now feels this way, he or she just tolerates going through the motions of doing what your Next, often supported by Others, wants and thinks you need to do. 

 

Your Now is likely to think and feel,

 

"Life is just hard. All I can do is tolerate. If I can keep going, maybe I'll get some relief in the future. Next keeps promising life will be better for me later. But someday never comes. No matter what we get done, there's something else that Next or Others insist on doing. I would feel too frightened and too guilty if I didn't just keep tolerating what they think has to be done."

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When your Next has lost all his or her power to stand up to Now

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When your Next feels this way, your Next sees himself or herself completely dominated by the power of your Now, often reinforced by your Oneself. Your Now is always indulging in something: eating, sleeping, TV, computer games, drinking, gambling, drugs, sex, smoking, social media, avoiding anything and anyone who stimulates fear, whatever...all those things where your Now can do whatever he or she feels like doing, and feels like not doing, now. Your Next has become resigned about any chances of having a good future and can no longer imagine what that might be like. 

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Your Next is likely to think and feel,

 

"I have no power to make things better even for tomorrow. My Now has all the power, indulging in damn well doing or not doing whatever he or she wants. No matter how much I blame or try to scare my Now, it has no effect."

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When your Oneself has lost all his or her power against the pressure of taking care of others and looking good to others

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When Oneself feels this way, he or she has given into the domination of looking good and doing what others expect, as well as the demands of the future that Next is always pressing for. Your Oneself is even reluctant to think about what he or she might want because of the fear of being blamed and frightened by your Others if any of that was expressed, "How could you be so selfish!"

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Your Oneself is likely to think and feel,

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"Listening to my own heart. That's a joke. Others need me. Others are counting on me. My life doesn't really count except to do what others expect of me and to try to look good to others. I would feel too guilty and too afraid to even think of saying 'no' or setting boundaries to take care of myself."

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When your Others has been overpowered by your Oneself with the beliefs, "It's a dog-eat-dog world" and "The best defense is an offense"

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Your Others is likely to think and feel,

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"Caring about others. Trying to look good to others. Maybe that was me at one time. Maybe I can feel some of that sometimes. But my Oneself has so much power that I have little chance to show my concern for others when my Oneself so easily disregards what others need and what they think or feel about us."

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Creating peace and cooperation

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What if your Now and your Next were cooperating and supporting each other almost all the time? What if your Oneself and your Others rarely disagreed with each other and were both able to do their jobs without stepping on the other's toes?

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• Imagine how happy and excited you would be in the moment-by-moment dance and journey of your life, loving the process of it all.

• Imagine what you would accomplish with your Next having the ongoing support of your Now.

• Imagine how your life would be when you always knew that you were taking care of yourself and listening to your own heart.

• Imagine how you would feel to be in partnership and connection with others and to enjoy the best possible relationships with everyone else.

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All this will begin to happen as you strengthen the foundation of your life more and more, a foundation which has been chronically collapsing because on the ongoing civil wars within you.

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AskDwightHow is your go-to resource for making your foundation strong

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The entire design philosophy and approach of this site is to provide you with new ways of thinking as well as the more specific tools and techniques to end those civil wars within you. As you continue to use and apply the ideas in this site, your foundation will strengthen, collapsing less and less often, with your life almost magically getting better and better.

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The linchpin to make all this happen: 14:24

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These internal wars did not develop overnight. They began to develop most likely sometime after you were two years old and you had the challenges of trying to accommodate the developing Next inside of you with your already fully expressed Now. On top of that you had the additional challenges of trying to accommodate the developing Others inside of you in the face of your already fully expressed Oneself. Then the battles began.

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Just 14 minutes and 24 seconds a day, 1% of your day, as a minimum, is all you need to find and implement the ways to create peace and cooperation within you. A new world indeed!

 

Use a daily recurring mobile phone alarm, if needed, to remind you and support you in having fun with 14:24.