Duality Tension - Journaling Tool

Too often we go out of our way to kill or stifle the tension in our lives. Yet tension is necessary for change and it sparks our mental, creative process.

“Life is the coexistence of all opposite values. Joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, up and down, hot and cold, here and there, light and darkness, birth and death. All experience is by contrast, and one would be meaningless without the other.” – Deepak Chopra

"Unity cannot be expressed until separatism and duality are known." – Andrew Schneider

Our rational left brain has a challenge with dichotomies, paradoxes, oxymorons, contradictions, absurdities, etc. because there is no logic to them. Dualities and opposites are based on mental concepts of separation and so challenge our higher knowing of wholeness.

The right brain is capable of stepping back to process dualities from a more inclusive perspective. So allow your mind to play with dualities more deeply. Allow the right brain to engage and search for the higher truth or meaning of the statement or word pairs.

EXERCISES

Getting started:

• Observe and then write down how your mind works as you read these oxymorons: alone together, living dead, sanitary landfill, genuine imitation, definite maybe, exact estimate.

Go deeper:

Here are some paradoxes to think about and then write a short paragraph about what comes to your mind. Observe your thinking process.

• “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed." – Francis Bacon
• We have fancier houses but broken homes.
• Only when I accept myself as I am can I change.

Reach higher:

Relax and focus on these words (from a Taoist Meditation) and allow your mind to go. Then write about your thoughts.

“Close your eyes and you will see clearly,
cease to listen and you will hear the truth,
be silent and your heart will sing.”

“Living with contradiction, holding together polarities, making room for divergence leads to vitality and enables us to see opposites not as dead ends but as a series of open doors. When we come to know ourselves as gifted and conflicted, we become more tolerant of the differences we encounter in others and can relinquish the illusion that we are the center of a harmonious universe.” – Elizabeth J. Canham

Go back and check out our other 50 Journaling Tools.