We live in a world of opposites.
Good /bad
Happy/sad
Light/dark
Healthy/Ill
The thing about opposites is…they define one another. You really cannot have one without the other.
When we define different aspects of ourselves…then we must look closely at the all sides of each aspect.
You gotta have a little bit of yin and ya gotta have a little bit of yang.
Embracing all sides of ourselves is imperative to live fully and in the present. If there is an aspect of ourselves that we deny or ignore…it doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t there….it simply means that it is lying there unattended and developing on its own…like a mischievous kid locked away in a candy store…it is going to thrive on the sugary delight of being left unattended and it is going to get fat….and it’s little teeth are going to get rotten ….and before too long one of those teeth are going to start to hurt and that little fat rotten toothed kid is going to come to the surface…and you won’t know that it’s coming…because you haven’t acknowledged that kid in a long time. You didn’t want to embrace that mischief maker in the beginning, and now he won’t be ignored because he never went away.
A good example is….those terrible stories of televangelists with their secret affairs with their secretary’s or the genius that goes completely mad….and we don’t want to talk about Catholic Priests…
Even when Anne Rice was delving deeply into the dark side she was suddenly overtaken by the light.
It is all about the balance. We have all these different aspects of ourselves within us…it is very important to acknowledge them and balance them.
The positive qualities that we possess…they are terrific. Really
The negative qualities that we possess, really equally as terrific.
I know you are scrunching your eyebrows together at that…but here is why:
The negative qualities define the good qualities….when they pop up, they make us look at ourselves and make adjustments to a more positive way….they define the good in us…sometimes our negative aspects shock us into making quick changes to our way of acting and thinking. So you see, you gotta love that little negative aspect. It is really there as a barometer for you to measure where you really are and make behavior changes accordingly.
I always say, “You know your poison, you know your antidote.”
Let’s talk about my particular brand of poison….just as an honest example.
I have an incredibly sharp and dangerously toxic wit. I got it honestly from my Mother. I am a little ashamed of it, but I have to tell you right now that I enjoy it too. Many a poisonous banter sessions with like witted friends and family have resulted in gales of mean girl laughter that lighten our spirits and leave us panting and gasping at how bad we are.
This brand of caustic humor is hurtful if used randomly and without care. It is mean spirited, and I hate to think of myself as mean spirited. After all, I am all about the love. If I think about it, I really don’t mean those ugly things I say. But they can be….well, funny. I do really come from a place of love in most every instance of my life…I just can’t seem to stop this delightfully wicked behavior.
I saw how detrimental this behavior is. It was bad for my friends, it was really bad for me and it was just leading me down a pathway to negativity and bitterness. Not what I wanted to be. Once I realized its power, it shocked me for awhile. I tried to stop. I couldn’t, it just kept creeping back in. I struggled and so I did what I always do when something or someone is causing me grief. I embraced it. Yep, I gave that mean girl a big old hug and told her that I loved her creativity and flair. That creativity was apparent in many of the positive things that I do…and I figured it was connected in some way.
These days, I only do this activity with one friend who is very much like minded. She is very spiritually grounded and has an even quicker wit than I do. We get together, rip things apart and we laugh heartily the whole time. The thing is this….we don’t really mean what we say….we say that we are sorry and we move on.
So, I never use this banter in everyday life…I don’t. To hurt someone’s feelings in reality would send me into a pearl clutching fit. I realize that I have this quality about me. I let that mean girl free a little bit in controlled situations and I let her help me define the good communication qualities that I possess and also define the ones that I can work on to better myself and stay in love in all situations.
I embrace both sides of my personality….I am aware of the bad. I am aware of the good. Hooray…no more duality. It is singularity all the way.
So what does this Duality and Singularity mean?
Well, we just talked about it a little.
To live in Duality means that you have two sides of yourself…two opposing factors. Good/Bad, Happy/Sad…and all of the ones that don’t rhyme too…and you live in each one separately.
Living in singularity means that you recognize all sides and incorporate them all appropriately into your life…loving and learning from them all.
We need to love all sides of ourselves. They are all a part of that Divine You, how can you not love it?
Don’t stop at the “good and bad”…no no…Move on to sanity/insanity, male/female, truth/dishonesty, and silliness/seriousness.
It is appreciation of self in totality. It is a picnic on a cliff in Mindfulness Park. Open up the picnic basket and see what it inside. Just remember, it is all about the love.
Fabulous Book Suggestion: THE DANCE OF THE OPPOSITES- by Dr. Rudy Scarfallato
Love Yourself Through It! 