Circles and Paradoxes – Tension of the Opposites

​“There’s no coming to consciousness without pain.” –  Carl Gustav Jung

As so many of the outer planets are changing signs, we are reminded of earlier times and the circularity of life.   

The conflict that we are witnessing shines a light on the inherent duality embedded in the world  – black and white, good and bad, yes and no. It is a perspective that is embedded in the current paradigm.

Yet, Jung had a philosophical and wise perspective when he wrote, “We might as well put our casual philosophy in our pocket. . . . reason and the will that is grounded in reason are valid only up to a point” (CW7 para72)

“Life is born only of the spark of opposites”. (Jung CW para 78)

“The value of one is the negation of value for the other.” (CW 7 para 80)

Experiencing the Tension of the Opposites

Experiencing the tension of the opposites or holding the inner conflict consciously can be challenging.   We likely want to push it away and send the pesky unconscious material packing back to where it came from. The tendency is to avoid, deny, or repress again. We don’t want to think about it, we say to ourselves. The unconscious challenges the status quo of the ego. We don’t like change; we don’t like having our sacred cows challenged. It is unnerving and threatening.

Jung’s wisdom holds that these conflicts are a fundamental principle of the psyche and the very source of psychic energy and life. He argued that every psychological assertion or general statement about the psyche immediately requires its opposite, highlighting its contradictory or contrapuntal structure.

Thus, the psyche has a polaristic structure that it shares with all natural processes. Every energetic phenomenon consists of pairs of opposites, such as beginning and end, above and below, hot and cold.   This contradictory nature is essential for it to live and to move.

Thus, if there were no tension, no inner conflict that forces us to look at what we don’t want to look at,  then there would be no growth and no individuation.  

The tension of opposites is necessary for psychological progression and adaptation. If this tension is missing, psychic processes become one-sided and unreasonable.  This tension activates the light and dark forces of human nature and all psychological opposites, leading to self-knowledge.      It leads to conflict, which, if unresolved, can result in mutual repression and dissociation of the personality, forming the root of neuroses.

What is in the Way is the WAY

I first heard this phrase from inter-spiritual teacher Miranda McPherson. It pushed past my resistances and oriented my approach to the parts of myself and life that I found troubling. I saw for myself the possibility of transformation if I could accept it, and that if we go against the inclination to reject that which we don’t like and don’t want, we have the opportunity to transform and to become stronger in our sense of self. We feel anger and frustration as we wrestle and struggle with two opposing forces in our psyche.

These others that create the tension of the opposites come from many sources: physical ailments, accidental challenges, or even irrational emotional eruptions. Old mechanisms of fight or flight defenses from early childhood kick in and want action. 

We can fight the truth of our hearts and true feelings with rationalizations of why we need to do something else. Such rationalizations usually arise from fears of hurt and betrayal that we would do anything not to feel again. Or, perhaps we are afraid of what others will think. Or, maybe it’s that we can feel a strong societal or community pressure to conform to the standards.  Our conscious mind knows that there is another perspective that action is not necessary in our best interests.

If we can hold the paradox and hold together in the tension of opposites, we have the opportunity to open our hearts towards integration, totality, and liberation. We can experience compassion for the parts of our personality that need to be more refined.

So, the next time you experience internal or external conflict, try being curious about it. Invite it in for tea and try to understand what you need to protect.

We live in a universe where everything is connected to everything else through energy. It also means that we are connected to everything else and everybody else. The current scientific paradigm has, for a long time, shown that there is no subject-object distinction. There is “no you out there and a me in here,”  and that each entity is discrete.

Hence the paradox. There is no either/or; we/them; inside/outside. It is altogether. If what we seek is already present, then there is no “there”, only “here”.  

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