Both/And: The Freeing Power of Paradox
Something I've been noticing coming up a lot in my coaching sessions and my own life recently is the theme of paradox.
Which makes sense, because this path of spiritual/personal growth is rife with paradox.
Things that appear on the surface to be contradictory but upon deeper exploration reveal themselves as deep Truth (capital T).
Universal Truths like...
The more fully we let ourselves feel difficult feelings the faster we're freed from them.
We're inherently whole and perfect beings who could also use a little work in this human form.
The more willing we are to fail the more likely we are to succeed.
Fully facing what we most fear is the only thing that can free us from our fear.
The more our awareness grows, the more confusing and painful things often feel at first.
The more we try to let something go the more ensnared we become. The more we relax, allow and let be, the more things effortlessly loosen their grip on us.
The more vulnerable we're willing to be, the stronger we become.
The (only) path to beautiful next phases of evolution is through mess and struggle.
The more sadness, loneliness, and despair we're willing to truly feel, the more joy, love, and peace we start to effortlessly experience.
The less perfectly we worry about doing things, the better/more efficiently we're able to do things.
The more we bring the shame we most fear sharing out into the daylight the less shame we feel.
The less personally we take things the more personal growth we experience.
The more we accept our flaws, the less control they have over our lives.
Our level of resistance is proportional to the level of power and freedom available to us on the other side.
The less we think, the more wisdom grows.
Positive thinking is no longer positive if it's being used to avoid reality.
The less we grasp after what we want the more effortlessly it flows to us.
The less we fixate on how to be happy, the more joy we effortlessly start to connect to.
The more we accept that the heart naturally opens and closes the more open we become.
The way to build faith is to start taking action before we have much.
The breakdowns are the breakthroughs.
The path to greatest productivity often involves less doing, not more.
The more we focus on traits we want to cultivate more of the more their opposite shows up at first.
When we feel like we have the least time for grounding and self-care practices is when we need them the most.
The less we worry about whether we deserve love, the more lovable we remember we inherently are.
The more we surrender to what’s here right now, the more freedom we have to change moving forward.
The closer we step toward owning our power the more our Inner Critic tries to convince us we can't.
The less we worry about controlling life the more control we take over our lives.
We have to acknowledge our suffering before we can transcend/integrate it.
The less we grasp after peace and happiness the more peace and happiness we feel.
All our spiritual/personal growth work ultimately does is return us to our essentially whole, loving and lovable Self that we've been all along.
So as you likely have a sense from personal experience or maybe from having some Huh??'s come up as you read through the list above…
Most of the deepest, most universal Truths don't make sense to the logical mind.
This is so much the power of our mindfulness practice. It helps us drop out of conceptual understanding in the head into embodied wisdom in the body/being.
The more comfortable we can get with paradox; with uncertainty; with hanging in the hammock between "over" and "next"; with accepting that life isn't black and white but every shade on the spectrum, the more peace starts to open up to us.
So here are a few questions around this theme to get curious about with yourself:
* What would you need to let go of or accept in order to feel more at peace when things feel confusing or uncertain?
* What beliefs would you need to adopt in order to be able to stay more grounded and centered even as waves of change wash over you?
* How could you see your life potentially opening up on the other side of embracing "I don't know mind" more fully?
* How could you challenge yourself to start to get more comfortable with those uncertain in-between spots this week/month?
Wishing you some nice insight and inspiration through the exploration.
With Love,