One of the advantages of flying solo is quiet alone time. When you are in a space void of distractions and comfortable with your own company, the mind becomes free to process your inner world.
I found myself in such a place today while working on some customer's projects. I am deeply focussed on the job at hand and with my thoughts wandering peacefully though my mind. One train of thought was "Why do we often find it so difficult to feel whole?"
It occurred to me that our language about how we describe ourselves or others or experiences is generally geared towards a confrontational duality: good and bad; light and shadow; love and hate; us and them; wise and foolish.
When I stumbled upon yin and yang, a symbol of wholeness and synergy, I tried a little experiment to see how something would feel. "Yin and Yang" gives distinction, a sense of opposites, although in my mind's eye I instinctively imagine a complementary wholeness. I then started to say to myself "Yin with Yang" . "With" is a softer word than "and"; and with it brings a greater sense of the relationship between the two, an appreciation that one cannot be understood without an appreciation for the other.
When we are given a coin, we accept both sides of the coin. We are not asked to choose one side of the coin over the other and only take one side. It would be impossible to do so. We set ourselves up for inner conflict and psychological warfare when we only give attention to the things that bring us pleasure and not deal with our pain; or accept our strengths and not our vulnerabilities and vice versa. It is impossible to take the light without bringing the shadow. To bring balance to our lives, we must be prepared to embrace our light and delve into our shadows. We can safely explore our shadows while holding onto our light. The brighter the light, the darker the shadow ...
(written morning of 14.07.16) It was at this point in the early hours this morning that I could no longer write and finish this post. In seeking wellness, I am often reminded in extraordinary ways to simply allow my life's path to reveal it's mysteries rather than reacting in egotistical ways to force an instantly gratifying outcome. This morning, after a few hours sleep, I can now complete this post with a twist.
Our emotional life is in a symbiotic relationship with our mental and physical states. That relationship may be mutualistic where our emotions, mental and physical states benefit from each other in a context of ease. The relationship between the different parts of ourselves may be a parasitic one, where our emotions, mental or physical state are given free reign at the expense of the others and we find ourselves in contextual dis-ease. Whatever the case one state does not exist in isolation from any of the others and will feed each other. Similarly our external relationships are in a symbiotic relationship with the relationship we have with our selves. Our outer world is a reflection of our inner world. When we have inner conflict, we desperately seek resolution. Our eternal capacity to heal and desire for wellness gears us to find relief in whatever ways we allow. As we resolve our inner conflicts, our life experiences will change to match that inner state.
We all enter into relationships mutually. So to, both parties have to mutually accept to exit from the relationship. Independently both parties have to take personal responsibility to disentangle. It is only at that point when both parties have consciously acted to end the relationship that a truly freeing space can be afforded to both to move forward with the potential to heal. That space suddenly allows other external and internal experiences to enter into our lives, almost magically or mystically or fatefully. That space gives us access to time, energy and different resources to invest in other relationships, or a fuller more satisfying relationship with our own self, or to pursue opportunities with renewed energy and vigour. We find ourselves in a position where what may have been perceived as unlikely or as an insurmountable obstacle become possible or achievable. We find ourselves amazed at how quickly our needs are being attended to by different relationships, encounters or opportunities. We may feel a burst of tremendous energy, we are rejuvenated, we feel the force of life pulsing inside, we want to embrace all that we had been denying ourselves under the guise of a unhealthy relationship. In letting go, we give ourselves a gift but we also give to the other.
Some break ups just transform to a different understanding of engagement; some are quick and heal just as quickly; some can be protracted and painful taking months or years. In a protracted breakup we have to be patient. We have to trust that at some point the process will find a mutually satisfying resolution. Neither party can truly be free of the other until that occurs. We have to be careful not to inadvertently disempower or maliciously interfere with the other from being able to reach their own point of conscious resolution while we seek our own path to move forward. When that point is reached, whether we are the initiator or not of the breakup, our egos may be unprepared and taken aback at how quickly things change. The ego is always the last one to know. Ego is a fickle beast and it's distress is readily soothed - the ego has no care whether the antidote is healthy or not, it is single minded about getting a sense of relief.
If a function of love is to to respect the path of another and to take actions that support their journey from dis-ease to ease, then ironically we can still act from a place of love and open heart when breaking up, while protecting ourselves from harm. When we make that conscious decision to part we may feel as though we have taken a knife and stabbed it into our own heart or stabbed the other; yet all we have done is allowed an inner hurt to be healed, a dis-ease to be eased, an untenable situation to find relief.
The feeling of equilibrium and space that I found myself in yesterday while pondering wholeness was a precursor to the feeling I find myself this morning. As is often the case for me, my dreamworld had already revealed to me that I would wake this morning and discover that I have been gifted by the conscious resolution taken by another. Years ago we had found each other at an intersection in what seemed to be an unlikely set of circumstances and chose to travel a shared path. Today, we have both arrived at a different intersection. By both taking conscious decisions, a space has been cleared. A moment in time has been clearly and resolutely defined for me to walk in one direction while they walk another. The only small words that count this morning are "thank you". Thank you for meeting me at this intersection and choosing to walk away. We are now both freed from our perceived obligations to each other.
Flying Solo Tip 013365 : Zen is a little word with big impact.