When we are in it, it is difficult and near impossible to see the alternatives. When we don’t change, we can’t evolve into new forms. If we don’t question the current we cannot find the clarity in the contrast.
How do we begin to envision change within our own lives? Before jumping off the deep end and shocking our system, can we learn to lean into a new way of thinking? Small incremental changes in our daily life, beginning with noticing them. But how do we notice them if we are surrounded with the same we have always surrounded ourselves with. The same people, places and things. The same way of thinking echoing back to us.
Is it impossible to truly alter the way we live or the way we think about and fear change, without a catalyst of grand proportion? Does it take a total geographical move or becoming a mother or a life threatening experience or disease to begin the process of pivoting?
Do we even see the opportunities for growth in trying something different?
Can we pursue the pivot in small manageable ways to bring my depth to our understanding?
Can we intentionally use contrasting experience to help induce clarity within our bodies?
In my experience, I had been stuck as many of us have been for much of my life. Surrounded by the same and curated the same. Less change, less upset, comfort levels even. It’s safe to remain in our bubble. We like to be comfortable and as humans, we instinctively want to feel safe. But does it hold us back? It indeed held me back from truly growing. I stayed small and safe. Until I changed absolutely everything about my life in one big shock to my internal systems.
I do not recommend this whole change unless you are ready, aware of the unsettled in between and bolstered with proper support internal and external. I was not and it has taken me three years to come back to the ground. But in that whirlwind mess of emotions and struggle, I have come to find a new resting place. In an understanding that contrast is where life lives.
I have lived more in these last three years than I feel like I have in a lifetime. But maybe it is it because I am noticing it now. I am engaged with my inner world and how I want to interact with the external world around me. Everything is different and I can choose my own path, without any of the old holding me back. The paths forward are undefined and the backpack is no longer full with any of the same. The courage to step forward into the unknown and self respect nestled next to self awareness and boundaries, folded next to a notebook full of new tools and ideas. With room to fill unlimited pages.
What if we had a notebook that just kept adding new pages? Like Mary poppins bag, blank pages keep appearing. Like magic, our life can keep filling the pages. Unless we stop, keep our head down and ignore all the road signs. Unless we choose to stay small and not take a tiny first leap. Your choice.
My daily life in contrast and relationship to my humanness
I am a human being and I have never not been. The difference between how I saw myself even a year ago to now is a mirrored image. One side being a human who sees herself as broken and defective, attempting to ignore and numb our her humanity. The other side, the contrast, where I am now, is knowing I am a whole human with light and dark and all those contrast ways we as human behave, react, feel, embody are exactly what makes us whole. Accepting (letter about radical acceptance) my whole humanity, radically allowing myself to experience all of it is exactly what led me down the path to healing my disconnected soul system.
When we heal our intellectual selves to our soul selves, we can dance in the contrast of life. Knowing we will always be the one behind the curtain call. Go ahead and dance for the audience of one, you, and feel the movement between steps and the flow between gestures. The in-between breathes and inner talk improve style of being present with what is here right now.
Digging through the weeds of the old scripts, cutting out the dead and rotted roots, I began to boldly create my own clearing. Sure of the “not this” I took small leaps and then giant ones to build a true and honest relationship with my soul self. Something new to try here, a change to make there, and each one, in contrast creating clarity on the next. Intentional change to experience the difference. When understanding settled in response to the changes, the path becomes more and more true and clear.
In theory this all makes sense but just writing it out kinda sends a bit a fear into my belly. The idea of change is scary. We have a choice to look away. For me, with my two daughters looking up at me and the rest of my life staring down and sideways at me, I know what my answer is to the choice of change. Yes.
I used to be a stay at home mom. I used to put my artist self on a shelf for later. I used to give every ounce of myself to my children and the people around me and saved nothing for me. I used to not trust myself. I used to believe I was broken. I used to think I would always be depressed and anxious, pathologizing myself for being a human. I used to neglect and ignore the very calls that have led me here.
In contrast, I now prioritize change as a way of creating clarity. I prioritize myself, my needs and my boundaries. I prioritize my artist practice. I prioritize my inner wisdom. And when the wisdom is hard to hear, I lean into contrast to help bring myself back into ear range.
Contrast as a modality of healing, regulation and brain ease.
I used to force so many things. My art to be done within a certain time frame. My girls to do exactly what I needed them to do in that moment. To force connections where there wasn’t any sustainable common ground for fear of not having any connection. Force and will was a way I was living. And that force came straight back at me in the form of bitterness, exhaustion, self defeat, anger, depression and anxiety. The loop would have continued if it were not for starting a mindfulness practice back in October.
With mindfulness in tow, the repetitive dialogue and behaviors become clear. Once you see something, you cannot unsee it. Once you feel in your bones that something does not serve you, you begin to detangle from it. You begin to change. But without self awareness gained through daily mindfulness I would still be stuck. Change for me began with a daily agreement with myself to move towards mindfulness. In this day, I am dancing in rhythm with my current state, moving towards flow and away from force, moment to moment. It is a practice that I do not wish to lose and so, daily practice it is and grace when I inevitably have days where I loose my presence with self.
I am constantly returning to her. The one who knows. She is me and I am her and we will continue to work in unison. This relationship to your soul self is a love story of your very own. One that is not differing from relationships to others but a reflection of the same. Communication in integral and leaning into relationship issues allows us as friends and couples to become stronger. It goes the same for the relationship to self. We need to put in effort to make the relationship feel steady, mutually respected and growing together.
If we move towards change in our inner experience and move towards change in our external experience, we can use both together and an energetic medicine. In smaller moments, the idea of contrast can help us regulate and reground ourselves. If we are in a fog, we can go to the opposite of our current environment to change the state of brain. Using the 5 senses as a guide, we flip to the opposite of whatever we are currently experience that could be causing the disrupt in connectivity to self.
Is your environment currently making you feel less than clear? Are you inside? Go outside. Change rooms. Change the lighting. Change the environment.
Am I feeling low and drab in my current state? Change your clothing, change the texture of what you are feeling. Change the smell being invited into your nose.
Am I exhausted and sad, wavering in self aversion? Change what you are eating, or heck just remember to eat. Change your position and move to a new one. Stagnancy never help me in moving through the sadness but only put me deeper into depression. Feeling negativity toward self? Lather on the self love and gratitude.
If we act in agency and begin to doubt our own doubt we start to realize our thoughts are just that. Thoughts. Tired does not equal defective but adds up to a human who needs rest and play. If we begin a practice of opposite and contrast we can counter the felt senses created by old faulty beliefs and move towards the act of co creating with ones own life.
If I am feeling overwhelmed and uneasy I create a sensory experience of self love and calm. Taking away all the overwhelming bits and inviting in a sensory deprivation and cultivating care. The opposite of overwhelm and uncertainty for me lies within the basic elements. Simplifying to the simple elements that make us. Fully immersed in water, surrounding myself by trees, breath of self and life itself, and fire of the soul illustrated in my environment as burning candles and conscious reflection.
Sometimes, doing the opposite of what you think is helpful is the exact thing that will help. For example, I used to be too tired to create but it is in the creating I gain energy. It is not unlimited energy but it is fulfillment energy. Filling me up with the kind of energy that cannot be accessed by sleeping or resting. Perhaps this is the magic we are looking for, the way that doing something you love gives you love back. Is it the energy of your soul coming alive? I think so. And I want her to be alive and shouting to the rooftops in success.
Each time we notice a stall or a forcing mentality. Each time we notice our body feels off, we can use the power or the opposite to understand the previous felt sense. In the contrast we create more understanding.
In the studio - Contrasting use of mediums
In my creative practice now, I have no deadlines unless I create them. In the past these self created deadlines have actually stalled my progress, prompting to want to force the flow and hitting walls. So now, I have no written in stone deadlines but loose timeframes I am working with.
There has been a consistent returning to the understanding of divine timing. I will not pressure myself to produce as I have proven in contrast that it does not feel correct in my body. And if it does not feel good in my body, it is not aligned. And if I am not aligned, well then, the work will not speak in the way I intend it to.
So what do I do when I am unable to write clearly or paint with ease? I do something else entirely. Like gardening and digging in the dirt or heck organizing my closets. The puttering aimlessly, the contemplative time it allows and the space away is the medicine of contrast. Do the opposite so you can clear the stage of where you just left. So you can return in a new state and start again.
If I want to create but have hit a block with my current work, I choose to pivot to a different medium and/or a different subject entirely. Since my work now is quite heavy with concepts of spirituality and returning to self, I choose something simple and easy to digest. Something fun! Something messy. Something that brings simple joy. I move from painting specific imagery to painting in abstract. I shift from wet paint to soft felt. From using a paint brush to using my hands. I go back to the sketch book a document something small. Changing the sensation of physical touch makes a change in my energetic body. The wet brush strokes to the soft pencil lines. The short gestural and long sweeping lines feel different form that of a paint brush and the change is welcomed. Using your hands, especially with painting brings in the primal part of our brain, moving away from the left brain and into the right. Shifting mediums, even if I don’t make something beautiful or shareable still feels like I am being productive in some way. Maybe productive isn’t the right word here. It feels like I am taking what I know about me in that moment and taking action to continue in relationship to self in a way that serves me. That action of service to self is the best kind of productive I can be in my opinion. I am producing action that refills the wells of creativity and the wells of self. To me that is success.
Reflection
What small ways can you induce contrast of experience in your life?
Can you be courageous and bold and try the opposite of what you are used to?
Are you willing to begin to trust that you indeed know what you need next that will best serve you?
Can we tune out the old thinking long enough to break the loop and begin expanding and evolving?
I hope that we all can make small changes daily in the direction of our soul self. I hope that we gain the courage to make that first change. I hope that we see the beauty in the contrast.
Love,
Rae