duality in healing

When it comes to healing, duality can show up a lot.

I think if you can respect the paradoxes that present themselves then you can learn to open your own portals to healing.

[duality: an instance of opposition or contrast between two concepts or two aspects of something; a dualism.]

Let me explain with one of our favorite topics: emotion.

I use emotions because I feel like deconditioning your relationship with emotions is a massive step you can take in your healing, one that can sustain other parts of the journey to come, and a common start point or returning point for a lot of folks.

You can be in relationship with your emotions in a disempowered or an empowered way.

If we look at anger for example, there are ways you can be in relationship to anger where it manifests in a way that disempowers self.  

This looks like the typical way anger looks when we think about anger, the explosive way where one projects and spews their anger at another person.  

Most of us get this mental image because we grew up with this type of anger and/or this is how anger is portrayed in media and entertainment.  

Someone blowing a fuse and obliterating everyone in their path.  

On the opposite end of this spectrum, some have learned to shove their anger deep down, so far it never surfaces.  

They are numb and fearful to this emotion and have suppressed their ability to feel it at all

Since healthy anger is how we know where we need a boundary or when we are being mistreated, and that suppression of emotions is not precise, the suppression of anger also means the suppression of joy, this is not ideal.

Both these examples are disempowering ways to relate to anger.

Both these states are also processes done through the mind (fight or freeze fear responses that are unconsciously activated).  

No one is choosing these behaviours as their ideal and appropriate responses.

So what can you do about it?

The way you can experience anger in an empowering way, while simultaneously creating  the paradox portal, is to experience through the body.

We do this at Bliss + Void retreats when we practice OSHO dynamic meditation.  

Blind folded, we allow the expression of anger, frustration and rage to come over us (you are given about 6 different embodiment techniques before we begin)

Why do we do this?

So that all the anger that you learned to store or weren’t taught to regulate in a healthy way needs a channel so that it can finally be released from your tissues and psyche. 

👉🏼 When you consciously choose to embody the density of all the stored anger and rage, giving it a channel to be released, you are in a place of empowerment.  

👉🏼 When you can move into that expression without the need to have a loved one or a stranger their to spew your vile at but you choose to feel the frequency of anger in your body, you are in a place of empowerment

👉🏼 When you can consciously and intentionally have a tantrum without telling yourself you aren’t allowed and attempt to shove it down, you are in a place of empowerment.

And the paradox portal is: those that are disempowered have the most blockages when it comes to moving into healthy expression.

Because you feel so exhausted from unconscious, unintentional explosive episodes, the last thing that feels like a solution is more emotional expression.

Or, because over time you have learned to "manage" your emotions and now you don't trust yourself to go there, you aren't allowed.

Or, because your mind has learned that suppression is safest, you feel like there is no way to access the anger.  

Regardless of the situation it is up to you to become aware of the context of your nuanced situation and lean into the discomfort of healthy expression of each emotion. 

We talked about anger specifically here but there are empowerment opportunities in how you allow yourself to fully express each emotion, the "good", the "bad" and the "ugly".

The discomfort you feel in approaching a practice like this is valid but you aren’t in any pain or danger.

What is really going on is that the mind doesn't know it is safe to explore healthy emotional expression.

It has never been given the space or the tools to move through anger in a healthy and empowering way.  

Your parents didn’t teach you this and neither did their parents.

We have simply come to a time where brave spaces exist and we understand (scientifically) the value in moving energy and emotion in this way.  

So it’s up to you and me.