Turning Conflict into New Potential with the Law of Three

How to leverage your obstacles to turn compromise into inspired co-creation

Note - this is a repost from my Medium a couple years ago - I decided it to bring it here because with increasing polarity comes increasing potential when we reconcile.

Many issues in our world today continue to get worse because of a perceived conflict in how they’ll be solved. A lot of proposed solutions to systemic issues feel watered-down, generic, and based on compromise where everyone around an issue feels like they have to limit the expression of their desires to make any progress. Or, the solution feels dominated by one perspective, without balance and consideration of others.

As social innovators bringing a new approach to generate transformative results in a specific industry or community, it can feel like we’re severely restricted by people’s attachment to the status quo. Our vision for a better future can seem like the only way, and when people don’t agree or push back, it can feel discouraging.

We don’t need to operate in a constant battle with the status quo. The Law of Three provides an approach influenced by timeless wisdom of acceptance and deep caring so we can integrate the current situation within our place to make our approach even more transformative.

Introducing the Law of Three

The Law of Three is a powerful and foundational framework in regenerative practice, Rooted in living systems thinking, originally articulated by J.G. Bennet, and popularized by Regenesis. It has the potential to help us move past polarization into reconciliation, where people who previously were in conflict bring their unique perspectives to a space of co-creation.

The Law of Three states that in any interaction or creative process, there’s three forces at play:

• An activating force — the force, backed specific motivations that drives a specific course of action.

• A restricting force, a force, backed by specific motivations, that seems to resist or prevent the activating force from fully manifesting.

• Reconciling force - the creative space that’s opened up when one is able to equally value the activating and restricting forces and the motivations behind them.

art by Jodie Harburt — sourced from Regenerative Resourcing: The Power of Inviting in Disagreement

The magic in the Law of Three comes to life through not just intellectually valuing the restricting force and it’s underlying motivations, but through emotionally sensing the potential that opens up once the restricting force is equally valued.

You know you’re really practicing the Law of Three when you sense an emotional space of potential open up within you in response to the restricting force - opposed to a contracted reaction of defensiveness.

The Law of Three In Practice

To illustrate what this looks like in real life, we can examine some student projects I had the pleasure of learning about while guest teaching for the Green MBA.

Beach Cleanup Initiative:

One of the students lives near a beautiful beach that attracts tourists from around the world. However, he’s noticed that visitors leave a lot of trash around the beach, compromising it’s role as a beautiful space of rejuvenation for the village and tourists. After digging into why the tourists might be leaving trash, we realized it might come from a feeling of not fully belonging to the place. We realized that through addressing this need to belong for tourists through the clean up efforts, we can transform the relationship between this place and visitors.

Activating Force: The desire for a clean beach and a sense of community drives the student, friends, and other locals to organize cleanups.

Restricting Force: Tourists often lack a sense of belonging and responsibility towards the beach, leading to littering and neglect.

Reconciling Force: By engaging tourists in cleanup efforts and fostering a sense of community between locals and tourists, they aim to transform their perception, realizing they do belong to the community even as visitors. This could then grow motivation to take care of the beach and enlist other visitors to do so as well.

Wetland Restoration Project:

One of the students is at the nexus of three communities - Almoloya del Río, Santa Cruz, and San Mateo - that surround the wetland, the genesis point for the river Lema. Almoloya del Río, is actively seeking to restore the health of the wetland. Santa Cruz and San Mateo have expressed desires to dry out the wetland for agricultural development or construction projects.

The project is particularly significant because it addresses the historical context of the three communities surrounding the wetland: Almoloya del Río, Santa Cruz, and San Mateo.

Historically, these communities were once part of a larger cultural group. However, due to the impacts of colonization and subsequent conflicts, they became divided. Over time, this division has led to differing perspectives and interests regarding the use of the wetland.

Activating Force: Gonzalo is working with a community that wants to restore the wetland, recognizing its ecological importance and potential for tourism.

Restricting Force: Other communities surrounding the wetland have different agendas, such as drying the wetland for agriculture or development, which poses a threat to restoration efforts.

Reconciling Force: Gonzalo aims to find common ground by highlighting the economic benefits of a healthy wetland, such as ecotourism and sustainable harvesting practices, which can appeal to all stakeholders involved.

As we spoke through the different forces, I could see Gonzalo’s passion for making sure the ecology of the wetland is stewarded responsibly. However, I could also see this same force leading to the dismissal of the other two options - agriculture and land development.

We tried to search for an approach that could accomplish the ongoing stewardship of the wetland while also honoring the desires of the other two towns to benefit economically from the productivity of the wetland.

For this to actually work, both parties have to value each other and the core needs that drive one another. There has to be mutual respect to activate the will to practice this framework. If you’re in conflict with someone and not respecting them equally as a human being with valid desires, it will be almost impossible to equally value the force that’s activating them and integrate it into the process of creation or reconciliation.

Pause - Applying The Law of Three in Your Context

Try this out in your own life. Think of a situation where you were in conflict with someone. This could be a work situation, a personal relationship, anything that holds meaning for you.

What was your activating force?

What was the restricting force from the other person?

What was the source of these forces? Why were they expressing themselves?

Sit with this for a moment to create a mental/emotional image within. Once you are holding the activating and restricting forces in the situation, you can ask the reconciling question:

How can I fulfill my activating force in a way that equally values their restricting force?

How does asking that question feel? Do you feel tension in your body at the thought of valuing the others’ perspective equally?

It will take time of consciously sitting with the energies and reconciling question for the right approach to emerge. Don’t expect it to happen right away and expect some uncertainty in the process.

De-centering Your Self

If you’re finding it difficult to equally value the force that’s restricting you, you might want to practice de-centering your self, putting your awareness fully in the shoes of another. You are not the center of the universe. Other people with unique desires are just as valid as you are. As long as you hold yourself in superiority or separation from others, you won’t be able to value the forces that activate their will and move towards reconciliation.

How is the law of three showing up in your work or life? Does it give you a better sense of how you might turn a conflict-ridden situation into a co-creative one?

Come Practice this in Community!

Do you want to join a community of social innovators to apply this and other frameworks to make your work more joyful, effective, and prosperous?

Join the Evolution Space!

It’s a free community where we do check-ins every two weeks to connect, apply living systems thinking to make our work more effective, and practice rejuvenating exercises incorporating breath and movement to raise our energy.