The both/and of life

This past week has been a masterclass in both/and. I fully believe that the universe hands us exactly what we need with divine timing when we are open to it. I started a book a week before I left for this trip and then set it aside for whatever reason. I picked it back up on Wednesday and opened it to the next chapter. I wish I was kidding but I can’t make this shit up, the chapter was titled, Grief and Trauma. On the day after the election, when so many people in our country were processing both of these incredibly challenging experiences, I was meant to read this book and this exact chapter.

I cannot begin to tell you about all of the times I have experienced synchronicities like this over the past few years. t have arrived at a point in my life where I do not believe in coincidence any longer. I know that when I walk through life with an open heart, it knows exactly where I am meant to be at all times. My only job is to listen to the whispers as much as I can.

This entire book gutted me. I laughed and cried in nearly every chapter in the best of ways. Go read it if you need a little dose of hope. The book is, I am not a mourning person by Kris Carr. There was one line that struck a deep cord with me, especially while walking through this week.

“Joy isn’t exclusive to the good times; it can exist in the hard times, too.”

We are collectively going through a hard time, but that doesn’t negate the beauty that exists along side it. This entire year has been about comprehending contrast in new ways. I have been been constantly challenged to question the polarity of life and whether dichotomous thinking really serves me any longer. Over and over, I have been gently shoved in the direction of doubting the dichotomy even exists.

The world often tells us that opposites cannot coexist. That it is not okay to be happy and sad at once. The polarity between the two negate each other. But the more I understand life, the more I know they do not negate each other, they amplify. Where I used to visualize opposites being separated by a straight line, I now see it as a circle.

The spectrum of life is not rigid, it is fluid. The dichotomy doesn’t exist on a straight line, it is an endless circle. It is as if the weight of the extremes of the so called line were so heavy, they bent the line, eventually bringing the ends together. If joy and sadness stood at the ends of this line, the weight of these hefty sensations forced a curve in the line until they met, completing the circle. Rather than space separating these two extremes, they became the connection point.

I suppose what I am trying to say is that often the extremes fall closer together than we imagine. It is impossible to experience one without the other. Rather than considering them enemies or opposites, it may benefit us in seeing the interconnectedness of it all. It is impossible to feel joy without sadness. If you don’t believe me, go watch Inside Out and tell me otherwise!

Being able to walk my way towards this different way of seeing the world has been a journey to say the least. I have had to learn over and over that life is far more complex while also being more simple than we can fully comprehend. I believe that we often choose to believe that opposites cannot coexist because it feels easier. Life gets a whole lot stickier and messier when we allow more to be true.

A simple example of this is the fact that part of me still always hopes that the weather would always match my internal world. When I am sad, I want gloomy and stormy weather. When I am happy, I wish for blue skies. It can feel challenging to feel the weight of heavy emotions while existing in an undeniably beautiful world.

This has been so true for me many times this year. I experienced crippling grief and sadness while watching the sunrise from a beach in Sri Lanka. I cried for what felt like 24 hours straight while in the most idyllic countryside in Lithuania. And this week, I felt my heart break while soaking in the surreal landscape of Guatemala. This is why the single line above, speaking about how life can be both/and, resonated so deeply.

I found myself walking around the city, in awe of the beauty, reminding myself that I am capable of holding two truths at once. I can hold the joy and the sadness in the same moment and I will not explode. Or at least that is what I kept repeating to myself in hopes that it would be true.

As I was repeating this to myself I stumbled into a realization. I don’t need to hold two emotions at once. I don’t need to even hold one emotion at once. Emotions and feelings are not designed to be held. They are slippery and flexible little things that want to flow, not be contained. Rather than say, I can hold two truths, I switched it to, I can allow two truths.

Language is powerful. The way we speak to ourselves matters. Every single word has strength to alter our being on a cellular level. (That’s science, not just my opinion!) Moving from holding to allowing sat so differently within my body.

Holding onto emotions and feelings truly does not serve us well. Allowing them to flow through us, as they were designed to do, is how our body operates best. The root of the word emotion is emovere, Latin for move out or move through. This is what they must do; move and flow. As messy as it looks and feels, the catharsis is undeniable when we allow this to happen.

Many times this year, and frankly this week, I have felt as if I were manic. Swinging from elation to despair in an uncomfortably short amount of time. I now believe that this is how life is designed to be lived. Allowing anything that wants to come to the surface, to arrive and move through me. Rather than suppress and save it all for later, letting it go in real time. Perhaps this is why I cry so easily these days. But it is also why I laugh and smile as often.

Again, the opposites are so near in reality. I must allow sadness to flow so joy can follow. I must experience fear to understand the full depth of love. I must allow it all to come and go, not restricting or attempting to hold anything. Again, life is complex and simple at the same time. Opposites amplify rather than polarize.

I am still heartbroken but I am also being healed. I have loved every second of Guatemala while also wishing in moments I wasn’t even here. All I know is that I will not hold onto these feelings in hopes of understanding, I will allow them to flow.