The Lowest Common Denominator

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This is a very important practice. Live your daily life in a way that you never lose yourself. When you are carried away with your worries, fears, cravings, anger, and desire, you run away from yourself and you lose yourself. The practice is always to go back to oneself. Thich Nhat Hanh

    I remember when I first learned about fractions and how you have to find a common denominator before adding or subtracting them.  It seems like a pretty basic concept – maybe Grade 6 Math - but unfortunately I have seen this concept at play with Ex-man and me. 
    It’s easy to have integrity when the people you’re interacting with have integrity as well.  It’s a matching game where everyone acts from their highest possible good.  Sometimes, however, there are situations that strike at my fears and I find myself interacting in ways that debase me.  As George Bernard Shaw wrote, “The test of a man or woman’s breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.”  With Ex-man, I’m ashamed to say, our quarrels were often like meeting at the level of the lowest common denominator. 
    The above quote from the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh is so true.  There were countless times when Ex-man and I were together that I left my connection with myself in order to grasp at a connection with him.  When we got into quarrels my inner voice would often say quietly, “Leave it” but my loud and obnoxious voice would say, “No, he’s going to hear me” and I would proceed to engage him, usually in conflict.  In this process, I lost the ability to have any real connection with him because he was not in a receptive place.  More importantly, I lost myself.  The underlying query is, why would I think that a connection with another was more important than my connection with myself? 
    The people whom I admire in life are those that are able to hold their integrity when others do not – Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, etc.  The trick is, how do I do this with Ex-man who seems to have a knack for sniffing out my fears, pressing my hot buttons, and triggering me?  How do I interact with Ex-man (or anyone else for that matter) when he is coming from a less-than-optimal place?  I know when I am able to answer this question, I will feel less like a fraction and more like a whole.

I wish I had some answers here, but clearly, this is something that I am still learning.  The good news is that a breakup is the perfect classroom. How can you not lose yourself when feelings of anger, isolation, abandonment, and scarcity are being triggered?  How can you hold the space of integrity if you are constantly brushing up against your ex?