Realization Within Contrast

Every day we experience many things and in different ways which give us an opportunity to learn something about ourselves, to have realizations. These realizations are shown to us using contrast, which I will explain more momentarily; however, I believe it is best to first provide some substance to this topic.

You may be asking, “why do I want to learn about myself?” By our very nature, we are curious about ourselves, and we like to talk about ourselves. Take a moment and think about how many self-help books you have read (or partially read), how many of those online quizzes have you taken (i.e. love language, personality test, etc.), or how many workshops/courses you have attended to understand yourself better, and maybe even validate what you already know about yourself.

Now think about how many books, blogs, websites, forums, social media group pages you have read or participated in to have a better understanding of something you perceived that was outside of you. These are ways you are trying to understand your world; your reality is also a way you are learning about yourself. You learn what ‘outside of you’ you are buying into and what you are not, and these pieces of information tell you something about yourself. They can tell you things such as, “I prefer coffee or tea,” or “I am religious, spiritual or something entirely different,” or “I prefer a steady paycheck or I want to be an entrepreneur,” or “I am an introvert, extrovert or ambivert.” You can see where I am going with this, right?

You experience the outside world, and it teaches you something about the truth within you. You did not know you like classical violin until you heard that one violinist who plays in such a way that makes your heart sing. You did not know you liked sushi until you had it prepared just a certain way. Yum..I prefer my sushi crunchy and spicy, but enough about me. You did not realize how much you like your time freedom until you chose to put less of other people’s things on your agenda. See realizations within contrast.

Still not so sure what I mean or slightly starting to get where I am going with this? That is okay, I promise I will not leave you hanging here.

Contrast, what is it exactly and more importantly what do I mean when I say contrast? Contrast is the variations within with the scale of potentials. 

For example, some people understand a word better by reading that word’s antonym, so by understanding the opposite of a word they gain a better understanding of the definition of that word. Another way to use your mind, is noticing when you are spiraling in your mind and can’t seem to get a clear direction because you are stuck in analysis-paralysis, compared to being so aloof about a topic you make no decisions at all, compared to being completely neutral and having objectivity and noticing how clear direction (guidance) presents itself. See the difference between them and what they teach you?

Another example is, some may have started with a specific religious/spiritual path, then leave that path to go to something completely different such as atheism or agnostic, only to find their truth was somewhere in the middle. This did not make any of them better than the other, but they had to experience absolute unquestionable faith in a belief system, to no system at all, to finding their truth of believing in Source/God without an unquestionable system.

Now let’s consider a time when you never had a care in the world with what you ate or did because, well you stayed young, firm, and healthy no matter how many sodas your drank. Then you go to the complete opposite where you track every calorie, every workout, your sleep and more in the efforts to be as healthy as you perceived you needed to be, and within this routine you found that you still had metabolic, insulin and other issues. So, then you decide to intuitively move your body and eat the food and amounts your body informed you that it needed. This information would change too, where today you might eat the burger and tomorrow the salad. I am not saying any of these are wrong or right, what I am saying is you find YOUR TRUTH and these experiences bring realization about yourself, your why, and for whom you are really doing all these things.

In case you have not noticed it yet, I have given you examples for mind, spirit, and body so far, so last but not least, let us look at an emotional example. Emotions can be tricky because oftentimes it is our mind that is creating emotion, but I will do my best to give you an example of contrast with emotion. Think about a time you had a heated discussion – and I mean heated. There was no filter, you said everything you felt and thought. You did not care how your words might make the other person feel, only later to find yourself feeling empty, maybe some regret because you know you caused a situation to become so much worse than it had to be. Now think about a time you felt that pit in your stomach, dreading having what you perceived was going to be a tough conversation, so you avoid having the conversation at all. This left you feeling uncomfortable, sad, resentment eventually started creeping in, and regret for not being forthright and honest. Now imagine if you stepped back from the building emotions, looked at the potential conversation from an objective point of view, and realized there is nothing wrong with you speaking up about that thing. Imagine yourself speaking from a place of love, truth, diplomacy, and gentleness, being completely aware of YOUR truth in this matter. See the difference between the three?

I have just presented to you examples of mind contrast, spirit contrast, body contrast and emotion contrast. Within each of these a realization presented to you, you realized something about yourself within each of these contrasts and started thinking about other examples you have experienced in your life. Yep…keep nodding yes, because you are right every experience you had you were having some realization within the contrast of those experiences. Some of those experiences of realization within contrast were not so fun, some not so obvious, and some were quite extraordinary.

Now if you choose to look back at those experiences, I invite you to do so from the perspective of, 'I am visiting them to learn, not to stay and wallow.’ View them with grace, empathy, and compassion. Take note of what you have learned so far and how those new realizations are already showing up in your behavior patterns in your life. If you are anything like me, you are having a ton of ‘ah ha’ moments right now – is that not incredible?

You have been gaining realizations within contrast without even having the awareness of it before – BUT now you will have so much more awareness around your realizations within contrast so, you will now have the capacity to learn from your experiences so much faster and from a neutral perspective. Just imagine all you will learn about YOU.

Life is curiosity, wonder and adventure, so go experience it, and enjoy YOUR REALIZATIONS WITHIN CONTRAST.