Combination of Contradictions

Transcript

Welcome, beautiful thinkers!

Let’s talk about the combination of contradictions.

So, sometimes when I’m talking to a friend or a client, they come up with some difficult problem of this, this problem where they see these two things as opposites. And I asked them, “Ah, what would it look like, if those two things went together?”

And the other day had commented on some video on Tik Tok. Somebody was pressuring me, he took offense or took resistance to the idea of God. And then I mentioned in one of my videos, even though he actually kind of agreed with what I was saying, in the video, he took exception to this one word.

And I said, “What would it look like if the person was both rational, and spiritual?” Which is an interesting question.

Sometimes we see these things as opposites, but they’re not really opposites.

They’re not contradictory at all.

And it goes that way, with many things, in fact that we find many things because of our limited mind, because we’re so used to seeing things in this dualistic form.

We believe that things are opposites, when they are actually entirely congruent. I remember I had a client, and he was experiencing this Anhedonia.

I think that’s what he called it.

It is like this experience when I say, for example, you’re eating some food and all of a sudden, you start to realize that it has no enjoyment. The enjoyment of the food is gone.

Even though you’re feeling the physical sensations, you’re feeling that the texture, the taste, which sometimes can be pleasin, in this moment, all of it lacks pleasure. It just becomes kind of achy.

And, I said, “Well, what would happen if you could actually enjoy Anhedonia?”

And of course, he said, “Well, that’s a contradiction in terms, you know, this couldn’t happen.”

And he had some resistance with that.

And so I didn’t go further. I didn’t push the point.

Some months later, I was in the kitchen, eating something, an avocado, I think it was an avocado. And I’m not going to describe it in detail, because if I describe it in too much detail, some people are going to say, “Oh, now I can enjoy avocados.”

But there is.. Okay, in that moment, there was something displeasing about the avocado. And I started to experience that Anhedonia. And I said to myself, “Okay, well, it’s time to practice what I preach.” I said, “What is pleasurable about this”.

Now, it is an extremely unusual experience, because the regular form of pleasure is gone from this eating. But I’m still finding a way to enjoy what seems to be inherently joyless.

And I found that it was possible. It wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t my favorite, it was an unusual experience. But it worked.

So many times we think that these things are contradictory, but they’re not ,there is a certain way they can go together.

For example, so many people have that problem with auto exigence. And I ask them, “What if there were a way to be both productive and full of joy?”

And this blows some people’s minds. It’s like the short circuit.

They can’t think that something would be both productive and enjoyable.

They can’t think that there’s another way to get something done other than forcing yourself, pushing yourself, putting a great effort on yourself and this great pressure and believing that “it must be done, otherwise you’re a complete failure”, or something like this.

Doesn’t have to be so.

And your productivity doesn’t rely on your joylessness, is not so, it’s not so at all.

That’s the question, though. That’s the element that relies on our imagination and creativity.

How can we find a bridge between these opposites?

When you think maybe you notice something in your life, you’re saying, “I can’t do this because it’s also this.” Well, maybe.

Maybe those things go together perfectly well, maybe using your own mind.

Your own personal inner resources, you can find a solution that will reveal a greater truth.