Finding balance

You might recall that my intention for this year is to experience balance, ease and joy.

I’ve been reading Dr. John Demartini’s book, The Breakthrough Experience, and it’s been really shifting my views on what balance really means. I read it four years ago and found it to be an interesting read at the time, but now as I’m reading through it again, I’m finding that I’m hearing his teachings on a deeper level.

He teaches that in every moment, our lives are always in balance. We’ve all heard it before… “in every crisis, there is a hidden opportunity and a blessing”, yadda yadda yadda….  Sounds like such a simple teaching, but somehow, this teaching is going in deeper for me.

Through his process, the Breakthrough Experience, he leads you through an exercise of “collapsing” charged experiences and through the experience, you can find the blessings, the divinity, the balance and the perfection of it all. The process essentially involves listing all of the “negative aspects” of a person or event (say at least 50 of them), and then an equal number of “positive aspects” of a person or event, and then you need to acknowledge and find all of the ways in which you embody these same negative and positive aspects. The objective of the exercise is to acknowledge that every person and every experience in our lives are actually neutral events (neither fully positive nor fully negative) and that we are all the same in that we all embody, in some way, shape or form, the same qualities that we dislike and the same qualities that we admire in others. The people who trigger us the most, generally offer the greatest gifts for us because it helps us to acknowledge and accept our own shadow and disowned pieces of ourselves since those that trigger us tend to be those that mirror our own shadow pieces.

I haven’t fully gone through the exercise exactly as he’s described how to do it (yet), but I have often attempted to find the blessings in each challenge (like here and here for example).

What I find different about John Demartini’s theory is that not only is there a hidden blessing in each crisis, but he believes that the blessing occurs in the exact moment as the crisis.

All positive and negative particles in the universe come in complementary pairs; at every level of creation they come into existence simultaneously. Everything has two sides. (p. 42)

Have you ever been cocky and elated about some part of your life, your finances, your career or your relationship, and had something happen right at that moment to humble yet? That’s not mistake or error; it’s exactly the way the universe makes sue you learn to love. The second you see more positives than negatives, you attract a situation where you see more negatives than positives to get them back to balance. (p. 30)

All phenomena are universally full-quantum. Looking at that law, I thought, “That implies there must be no such thing as happiness without sadness, or sadness without happiness. (p. 30)

I’ve been pondering that notion and can see that it is true on lots of levels. But, he also challenges his readers to apply these same concepts to terrible situations like rape, murder, domestic violence, etc. Challenging to say the least.

In my own family of origin, traumatic events that have occurred, and I have looked for the blessings and have found them, so I know that it is possible to find the blessings, yet I’m not convinced that the blessings also occur in the exact same moment as the crisis occurs. I’m still trying to make sense of it. It’s comforting to think that they do. I think to find the blessings in extreme situations, you need to be able expand your view and acknowledge all of the spiritual support that is available to individuals at all times.

Anyway, I’m still sitting with some of this information, but I have still found great comfort in this overall message.

Throughout this week, I’ve been looking for the balance in all things, and in so doing have also had a greater appreciation for some things that I’ve struggled with. For example, it has helped me to appreciate the divine balance that my husband brings to our relationship and to our parenting style (e.g., his skepticism is a balance to my openness).

I see how my mother is a balance of my biological father. And when I take the two of them together, there is wholeness and divinity. Perfection.

This theory may also explain why healing reactions occur (i.e., why symptoms may get worst when true healing is occurring). In my experience, the healing modalities that create true healing tend to be the ones that cause discomfort in the short-term (like homeopathy, shamanic healing, detoxing).

This also helps me to know why I don’t believe in “positive thinking” (I believe in the importance of gratitude, which is different from “positive thinking”). I feel that it’s important to acknowledge the truth of how one feels moment to moment, and when we are able to acknowledge the truth in the moment, we can let go and be open to what the next moment may bring.

People who try to be positive to everybody, at home and in the world, end up negating themselves. You cannot get rid of the positive and negative balance. If you try to put on a facade for the world about how positive and upbeat you are, there will be chaos in your private life or your personal health. (p. 76)

You are not here to be a one-sided being; you’re here to embrace both sides of yourself… We’re here to be whole beings, and positive and negative are two sides to teach us that. (p. 77)

This idea is helping me to appreciate more fully everything that encompasses the human experience. The highs and the lows. To fully experience the highs, you need to be able to fully experience the lows. In the meantime, I’m trying to find and walk the middle road, the road of balance and moderation.  And, it’s comforting to know if that when I fall off that road (as I inevitably will), the universe will be there to help me find the middle road as the universe is constantly bringing us back to balance.

Not too hard and not too soft. Just right.

More reading:

• Beyond Sadness – a post by someone who is trained to facilitate The Breakthrough Experience and his reflections on this process.