Dual To The Death

Are you thinking I should have titled this article "Duel" instead of Dual? Maybe you're right. Or, perhaps both are true. I'm dedicating this piece to my dear friend, Beth, who called me after I published last month's newsletter saying, "I read your post, and it sounds like you're saying 'Don't trust yourself,' and I know that's not you, so explain!"

Last month, in long, evolving prose, I included a phrase that I have been living and teaching for several years: "You don't know what someone else is thinking or feeling, unless they tell you." Ironically, I didn't say you have to believe what they tell you, although, I suggest starting there, and then see what unfolds.

Beth took issue with the fact that people lie. People withhold their truth. And sometimes you just KNOW that something is off. "Are you saying don't listen to your intuition?" she asked. Knowing me well enough to understand that I would NEVER encourage a squashing of one's intuition, this simply became an entree into what she describes as "Part Two" of last month's sharing.

Rule #1: Always, always trust your intuition.

Caveat to Rule #1: Take great care when you seek to meld the story your mind makes up with the intuitive wisdom coming through for you. It's like that bumper sticker: "Don't believe everything you think."

It gets tricky. When experiencing a situation where things are out of alignment, I can sense it. My internal antennae register the discord. How this manifests for me morphs, depending upon my state of being. However, learning to trust the different ways my inner guidance system shows itself, and leaning into that relationship, comprises a good portion of my personal growth work now, and over the past year.

Here's a recent example, that may help to explain this dualism. Over Memorial Day weekend, my husband and I visited with long-time friends at their beautiful new home on the water. A week before, Mark and I had been to the deCordova museum, and saw some beautiful art glass for sale in the gift shop. Knowing our friends were big art glass fans, I thought they might enjoy a piece for their new home...maybe for a window that doesn't face the water.

Neither had the response I'd hoped for. I can't say why this art spoke to me, but I realized I might have misjudged the style match. Notice how quickly I went from an inner knowing that things weren't lining up to, "oh, that response is different from what I expected - that must mean they didn't like it? That's the tricky part in action.

It could be true. They may hate the piece, and were horrified by the need to seem appreciative, while simultaneously wondering why on earth we'd think they'd like it. Or, it could be that one of them is so completely stressed from a new job, a new house, another move in progress, serious family matters to attend to...oh, and his husband just had a complete knee replacement the week before...that something else might have taken priority in his mind in that moment. And the other friend...well, as I mentioned, he'd just had a complete knee replacement, was in unbearable pain, and this typically super-active man must both, be still and ask for help many times a day, all while having a fuzzy brain from prescribed pain pills. So, perhaps art glass doesn't rate in the moment.

Here's what I trust to be real. Something was off in the moment. That's it. That's all I know. I don't know what it was, and it may have had nothing to do with me or the gift offered. And pretending to believe that I KNOW what happened in that moment, only sets me up for a disruption of trust within myself. I could torture myself for not getting the gift right - not a great use of my time or energy. Or I could keep making up more stories about what occurred in that moment...such as...maybe they'd just bought a boat load of glass, and can't fit one more piece! See what I'm saying, it's easy to spin into oblivion. If I seek to trust myself, I must be willing to hang out in the unknown. Something seemed out of alignment. I have no idea what it was. If I stay in my lane, I both honor that intuitive knowing within me, AND hear the gratitude they expressed - listening to what they say and feel, and going with that, until/unless another truth is revealed.

Can you hear the duality? On one hand, it may seem that these two things are at cross purposes. Untrue. Rather, they are both part of a whole.

This kind of dualism conversation has long been in my consciousness; however, only recently have I truly appreciated how it plays out everywhere. Friends who are fans of OSHO will be familiar with his style of saying one thing as a truth in one moment, and seemingly the opposite as a creed to live by in the next - because BOTH are true. We are complex beings playing in a multidimensional world, why would we ever believe that things are only black and white, good or bad, one way or another. I'm not just talking about shades of grey here, I'm speaking of the wholeness of the spectrum of color - the balance that comes from seeing the wholeness of it all - not just the part that fits the mental construct we like.

(click the image above to watch the video)

Many voices shout out "God is the answer" or "Science is based on facts." Yet, science and spirituality need not be at cross purposes. Why is there not room for spirituality and scientific evidence of evolution, and climate change, and medical advancement? Physicists, other scientists, and even the Pope (theoretical opposite ends of the spectrum) have chimed in that the wholeness of this picture is possible. When we seek easily digestible answer, we miss the duality of our own nature, and attempt to dumb down the complexities of the universe.

It is possible to learn how to stay in your own lane, by realizing you do not know what someone else is thinking or feeling unless they tell you, AND trust your intuition when it tells you that something doesn't add up. As a human, your words and actions have an impact, so it matters what you put into the pool we all share; however, you are NOT responsible for how someone reacts to what you offer. Whatever happened for my friends in that moment was about them, not me, and simultaneously, I am impacted by fissure, because we share space, and connection, and our humanity.

This duality often causes duels of the other sort. Fights to the death about one way being right, and any other way being wrong. Perhaps not always the dramatic death of a human life, but maybe the ending of possibilities or a relationship, because those involved hold so tightly to their limited beliefs - unable or unwilling to realize it is all part of a whole.

Please don't believe that I'm inviting a game of mental dueling, simply to prove that there's another side. As one of my friend's said last weekend, fighting the opposing position is a way to learn. Totally fine, as long as we recognize it as the, perhaps amusing, head game it is, rather than a vulnerable moment of opening to the wholeness. In the dualism, there are no sides - there is only the wholeness, and the threads that weave it together. We cannot escape this truth. We can attempt to deny it (and often do, by trying to make sense of things that are simply beyond our comprehension). We often strive to control it (because we may fear what we do not understand), and yet, only gentle acceptance of the duality, and the discomfort that accompanies such a brave act, allow for a true shift and integration of all parts of you. Until death do you part.

With love and duality,
Joanne Lutz