Without denial and avoidance, I want to understand and unify my selves.
I don’t want to repress the negative, unpleasant or unlovely thoughts and feelings I have. I don’t want to deny them. Nor do I want to perseverate and stubbornly repeat them obscuring the positive.
l don’t know if you have done this, but I surely have. I have a negative emotion (resentment, fear, even excess concern) and I roll it over in my mind like a favorite hard candy, savoring it and exploring it – nearly hoping it will not dissolve and disappear. I am all about the suffering. Not purposely to suffer, but to be sure I am getting it all. I may hold on to it long beyond its informative value.
On the other hand, I don’t want to crunch and swallow (to continue the image) barely understanding the flavor of my difficulty. Hurt feelings, fears about change, remorse over past actions- these do require examination so I can mine the lesson, the purpose, the usefulness of the negativity. Then I have to let it go. I need to let go of the division between pleasant and unpleasant; the separation between “me” and my experiences, good and bad.
By focussing exclusively on one part of me, one experience rather than the whole, I cut myself into pieces and focus on better or worse parts of myself.
I am both, I am all. I am complete. I am difficulty and I am ease. I am challenge and I am simplicity. I am hurt and I am peace. It is the separation and the denial of any part that causes or enhances discomfort.
Just for today, I will accept it all, in and out, “bad” and “good”, easy and difficult. I will practice being whole; integrated and varied.
(Republished from January 2017 post.)
Ending the Internal Divide
Most human beings spend their lives battling with opposing inner forces: what they think they should do versus what they are doing; how they feel about themselves versus how they are; whether they think they’re right and worthy or wrong and unworthy. The separate self is just the conglomeration of these opposing forces. When the self drops away, inner division drops away with it.- Adyashanti “The Taboo of Enlightenment”
