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“Life is nothing but a delicate act of balance.” ~ Damini Grover

 

We spend the majority of our time thinking, wishing, and hoping that things on the outside would change and become better suited to us.

Yes, sometimes we’re lucky and that does happen.

Does that happen every time? Unfortunately, no.

And that’s where the whole act of balance comes into play. No matter which psychological or spiritual literature we pick up, everything ultimately boils down to just one person: you.

We are the creators of our universe, which exists within a larger, uncontrollable universe.

Here, we are can choose to play different roles, and we switch from one role to another—consciously and unconsciously.

We’re always involved in a drama triangle where we’re constantly juggling between different roles. On one hand, we have the choice to play:

>> The victim that says, “Why me?!”
>> The persecutor that says, “It’s all your fault!”
>> The rescuer that says, “Let me help you!”

And on the other, we have the chance to play the role of:

>> The coach that asks, “How will I/you do it?”
>> The creator that says, “I will do it!”
>> The challenger that says, “You can do it!”

And the entirety of our life then becomes a delicate act of balancing all the roles within us.

Can we pick just one role for ourselves and let that govern us? No, and that’s because we need to play these different parts, depending on the situations we find ourselves in and the lessons we need to learn.

No state or role is permanent. There are no absolutes.

We have the yin and the yang within us, and we need to keep balancing both.

The Chinese philosophy of the yin and yang beautifully captures the duality of everything that exists in this universe. It states that all things exist as inseparable and contradictory forces. Everything has an opposite.

Yin represents the feminine energy that stands for transformation, spirit, passivity, and absorption while the yang represents masculinity, fire, and activity.

It’s only when the two come together that a complete whole is formed. Neither is complete without the other. Neither is superior to the other. They are both equal and important.

In the same way, we need to accept and understand that we, too, have many dualities within us, and the more we embrace them, the easier our journey gets.

We need to embrace that:

1. We are both consistent and inconsistent in our growth and evolution. There are times when we grow at lightning speed, and then there are those times when we simply crawl.

2. Pain and protective factors always coexist. When life throws pain at us from different directions, it also gives us some pleasurable moments along with certain supportive factors. They may seem small, inconsequential, or trivial in the larger scheme of things, but they are there.

3. There is duality in our emotional world. Our emotions also exist in pairs—opposites that coexist. For joy there is sadness, anger needs fear, anticipation needs surprise, anxiety is balanced by calm and relaxation. We cannot appreciate the value of one without the other.

4. We are made of our light and shadow. There are parts of us that shine bright, and then there are the shadows—the baggage that we carry, the parts of us that we struggle to accept—so we deny, suppress, and reject. Hence, constantly shuffling between rejecting and embracing our own selves. We all have a black to our white.

5. We constantly struggle with acceptance and nonacceptance. Just like acceptance is crucial for growth and evolution, so is nonacceptance. Nonacceptance of people, things, or situations also enables us to come closer to our intentions, values, and desires. The path to acceptance is paved through the pain and discomfort that we experience through nonacceptance.

6. We have the masculine and feminine in us. We have both of these energies within us, and we need to embrace and align both to become a unified whole. Embracing these energies isn’t about becoming more like a man or woman. It’s about uniting the active with the passive, the cold with the warm, intuition with logic, and providing with nurturance.

Therefore, in order to make sense of this ever changing, chaotic world, we must strive to create a balance. Balancing ourselves with the world and within our own self by understanding, accepting, and embracing the ever-present duality of the existence of everything—including our own self.

After all, we need two halves to form a whole.

“When we put our joys in the accept basket and our sorrows in the reject pile, we are cutting our life into two; never allowing ourselves to be whole. To be whole requires all of us—the good, bad, and the ugly.” ~ Chandra Alexander

 

 

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