For many years I lived a one-sided Life—pointedly going full-throttle in one direction, or the exact opposite
Something I still catch myself doing from time-to-time 😊
For a while I didn’t take care of my body
And once I decided to put my attention on it,
I went way in the opposite direction, at one point removing most carbs and sugars from my diet and doing power yoga like a fiend
When I went too far into drinking, I subsequently entered a period of being a full-on teetotaler
For a long time after persisting through a lengthy, painful divorce, I shunned dating and having fun
And then for a short time thereafter I went headlong into Feminine-essence-pleasure of all kinds instead
Until I eventually swung in the other direction and started living in a structured, scheduled, Masculine-essence way
When I was in serious relationships, I would lose myself in them, not balancing them by cultivating my own interests or making time to be with friends
And I spent many years feeling resentment after enduring a catholic education, so I avoided all things religious and even values that I judged were related to religion
Until I was opened to my inborn spirituality
And then I lived it to the hilt and tried to reject my humanity 😊
The message I took in from our culture is that it can only be one way
And that one way is the “right” way
And once we label the way that’s “right”
We pursue it with abandon
Yet as I’ve swung from going intensely to one extreme or the other
I’ve been blessed to learn something vastly different—
There’s a middle way or place
Robert A. Johnson, a phenomenal Jungian analyst, likened this to the intersection of two overlapping circles
We can think of each circle as representing a pair of opposites
And the area where they overlap,
(Which is called the mandorla)
~Is the sacred middle place~
A place of healing
And that healing comes from this overlap of what is labeled “good” and “bad”, “right” and wrong”, “light” and “dark”
As Johnson taught, it’s not that the light element alone does the healing
The place where light and dark begin to touch is where miracles arise
In this place
We hold all the opposites
Leaving space for the increasing of their sacred overlap
And possible future synthesis
Which happens in Life’s own time and way ✨
And that’s what my coaching and Life’s work have grown into
It’s the divinely human work of honoring and holding the opposites in Life
Refraining from labeling them right or wrong
Good or bad
But honoring them all
And even seeing them as a whole spectrum, not lumping them together at the ends of several different spectrums
In the realm of coaching and living an awakened, vulnerable and emboldened Life
I call this honoring of the opposites and the middle place Holding It All
The root of this work is to discover, hold and live our intentions, in our desired directions
And the other crucial piece is to also hold the pain that those intentions trigger, that are related to woundings from the past—whether it’s divorce, breakups, job transitions, disappointments, deaths of all kinds
The work is to honor them both—the intentions and the pain that they evoke —another pair of opposites 😊
Because so often one is wrapped up within the other
Just like light and dark, day and night, yin and yang
Because if we want to be one-sided and only live our inspiring intentions without pain
This journey that is our Life would eventually stop ✨
Desired intentions that have emerged over the years for me and those I coach with is
~Deep Intimacy with a Partner, a Purpose and Our Selves~
And this is done by honoring the opposites—within and without
We do this with our Selves by holding our masculine and feminine, shadow and light, sacredness and sexuality
With a partner by balancing our desire for relatedness with autonomy
And with a purpose by honoring play and fun and ecstasy too
We do all of this while becoming empowered to hold ourselves in the pain that surfaces as we live and move in a vital, bold direction ⚡️💖
A foundational first step is to home in on our intentions, while also beginning to learn to hold ourselves in the midst of everything that gets stirred up on this journey
To help us learn these abilities, I’ve re-created the ebook that I released over a year ago (which was called Having It All)
It’s now called ✨Holding It All—Creating Deep Intimacy with a Partner, a Purpose and Your Self✨
To receive this ebook (in exchange for signing up for my newsletter) click here
May you continue to grow in boldness, open-heartedness, groundedness and willingness to meet Life in all Its primal waves and weather ⚡️🌊
Much love to you,
Lauren
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In this video below, I share more about my journey to Holding It All ✨
Until next time ✨
Much love,
Lauren