I mentioned last week that I had a special bonus lined up for this series on unleashing your inner GenX power.  This bonus is a principle that I believe is the pretty red bow on all of the work we’ve been doing the last few weeks around shadows.  A total game changer.  

When we can get really comfy with this principle, we step into a level of consciousness that makes us . . . well . . . unfuckwithable.  

It’s a level of consciousness that very few, if any, humans attain 100%, 365 days a year, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day - which is totally okay.  There’s no reason to strive for that kind of “always on” consciousness.  Believe it or not, that would make our human existence rather mundane.  We’re meant to experience life as a series of ups and downs, good and bad, joy and pain.  

But, when we know that this level of consciousness is possible, even for a few fleeting moments, it changes the whole game.  

The last few years, I have absolutely fallen in love with paradoxes.  I actually keep a list of them on my iPhone notes app as they occur to me.  

What is a paradox and why is it the gateway to next-level consciousness?  Let me answer that by putting paradox side-by-side with irony and contradiction. 

Contradiction and irony are filled with tension - a tension of opposites.  They require us to choose between polar opposites.  They often fill us with inner conflict in trying to make that choice between what looks like “opposites.”  

Take a conflict in values, for example.  I work with my clients and myself around seeming “values conflicts.”  And what I observe is that trying to “choose” between two conflicting values gets us wrapped around the axle.  We spend a lot of energy trying to make what seems like an impossible choice.  

What if we could free up this energy?  Feel like we weren’t stuck between a rock and a hard place?  

What if, for example, instead of seeing a conflict between two values and believing that we have to choose one, we can be willing to sit with the conflicting impulses?  Be willing to see what each of them may reveal, what insights may come that would serve both.  I’m not talking about compromise.  I’m talking about seeing past the illusion of conflict to see that there is a greater meaning.  

This is the power that paradox holds.  Paradox is the antidote to contradiction and irony.  But let me focus mainly on contradiction because this is the world in which most of us live - a world of polar opposites.  (In my experience, irony often is held with a little more levity and doesn’t cause the same heaviness as contradiction does.)  

We humans often live in a state of contradiction. Remember:  this is why we end up with shadows in the first place. We’re trying to ignore, repress, or deny one side of the opposites - the side that we, our families, cultures, or societies have deemed “bad,” “evil,” or “inappropriate.”  

“Most of the time, we support two warring points of view and evade the confrontation.  This is the character of many modern lives.  In an ordinary day we have endless examples of this divided opinion.  I need to go to work but I don’t want to; I don’t like my neighbor but I have to be civil with him . . . . We cannot simply blot out one side of the balance.  But we can change our way of looking at the problem.  If we accept these opposing elements and endure the collision of them in full consciousness, we embrace the paradox.”  (Johnson at 77).  

By embracing the paradox, we release the energy that we spend warring with the contradictions.  And we can put that energy into living more fully, more whole, more alive.  

This is what happens when we integrate out shadows, like I taught you last week.  We can begin to see, feel, and know that those shadows we have held in contradiction to our light, actually are just as true and valid as our light.  One can’t exist without the other.  Light can’t exist without the dark.  

Think of it like a coin:  a coin can only ever have two sides.  There’s no such thing as a one-sided coin. You can spend a shit ton of energy trying to erase, remove, or obliterate one side of that coin; but, all of that energy will be for nothing.  A total waste.  Because you can never remove that side of the coin.  

All of the energy we spend trying to obliterate or ignore our shadows - as well as the collective shadows of the world - also is a waste.  Instead of spending all the precious energy on something impossible, we can embrace the juxtaposition of the light and dark and find the hidden truth . . . the truth that allows us to be fully human. 

“Light would mean nothing without the dark, masculine without feminine, care without abandon.  Truths always come in pairs and one has to endure this to accord with reality.”  (Johnson at 82).

As Johnson says,

“[p]aradox is that artesian well of meaning we need so badly in our modern world.”  (p. 74).  “While contradiction is static and unproductive, paradox makes room for grace and mystery.”

I don’t know about you, but “grace and mystery” sounds a whole helluva lot more freeing than being locked into the illusion of conflict.  

So, let’s put the pretty red bow on all of this and bring it back around to the shadow work.  The invitation of shadow work and the integration that can take place, provides an on-ramp to paradox. 

“[F]or there can be no paradox–that sublime place of reconciliation–until one has owned one's own shadow and drawn it up to a place of dignity and worth.  To own one’s own shadow is to prepare the ground for spiritual experience.”  (Johnson at 90-91).  

There’s an illusion of conflict because I believe that only one value can be true or honored at a time.  And that illusion of conflict is sucking away a lot of my energy, causing me discomfort . . . causing me suffering. 

But if I sink into that discomfort, get really curious about it, and do the 7-Step Basic Shadow Work Process, I can learn what’s really going on underneath that seeming conflict.  There’s something bigger at play here.  A deeper fear or fears - like my fear of being trapped or stagnant or going broke.  And underneath all of those fears, is the deep root of all of my fears - my Not Enoughness.  “I’ll never be free enough.” “I’ll never have enough money.” And, consequently, I will die broke and trapped, having never lived up to my potential.  So, in the end, my life will not have been enough.  I will die with my life having meant nothing.  

That’s some deep shit right there.  And let me pause to remind you of the cautionary notes from my last post.  I know that I can go to that deep dark place because I’ve been doing this process for a long time.  And, if I feel a significant trauma being triggered in that process, I know how to support myself.  That may not all be true for you, so I’m not inviting you to go that deep (at least not without some support).  

When I can allow grace and space for those seemingly conflicting values, I actually realize that there’s no true conflict and that there is a deeper fear at play.  As Carl Jung said: 

“Find out what a person fears most and that is where he will develop next.”  (Johnson at 92).  

This is the power of shadow work and paradox.  This is why it’s a game changer.  

We can learn to remove ourselves from conflict - both inner and outer conflict.  To find a place of integrated wholeness.  A place of holiness.  Wholeness and holiness.  Grace and mystery.  

If you want to learn this process of shadow integration, my Shadow Work Intensive may be for you. Shoot me an email if you want to learn more: Michele@lifefromthesummit.com

What is something in your life that you view as a conflict that you could try to move into seeing as a paradox? Leave you reflections below.