The Tension

Don't try to solve the tensions in your life. It's futile. Life is tension.

Life is paradox and contradiction. The spiritual traditions call it duality. There is black and white, yin and yang. God separated the waters from seas. The skies from the earth. God created male and female.

Your inhale exists in relationship to your exhale. Beauty exists in tension with pain. Summer contrasts winter. Left only has meaning because of right.

In a dualistic world, there is always tension. A push and a pull. It is the force of life.

The Fantastical Balancing Act

Our head struggles to hold the tensions of life - it usually wants to eliminate the tension. It's always looking for the "Ah ha! I've solved the mystery!" Our head only knows how to think and see in dualistic terms - this or that, left or right, right or wrong.

But our heart - or maybe soul, spirit, True Self - can hold the tension. It can welcome all the paradox of mystery.

Sometimes we can believe the fantasy that, “If I just arrange all the pieces of life in the right way, then I won't have to manage these tensions anymore.”

I think the idea of "balance" can get wrapped up in this fantasy. "If I could just tweak the dials on each aspect of my life to find the right balance..."

There is no balance. There is only managing the tension.

I'm a great parent right now because I’m phoning-it-in at work.

I was able to push my business to the next level last year, but I feel like I've struggled to be present to the rest of my life.

There is no balance. Only managing the tension.

The question is: do I resist the tensions or embrace them?

Do I resist the tensions and try to create a fantasy future where I no longer feel the push/pull of life?

Or can I embrace that this is what it means to be alive? And ask, what tensions do I want to manage next?

Embracing the tensions of life does not mean resigning to your situation. It means acknowledging that tension is what gives energy and shape to things. In nature, another name for "no tension / stasis" is "death."

We think we want to be free from the tensions of life. What we really want is to be free to embrace the tension. That’s the place of presence, peace and joy.

The person always seeking to eliminate the tensions in life is not free - they are living under the tyranny of the fantasy that life can be solved. The truly free person is the one who can welcome mystery and contradiction, knowing that life arises from tension.

We falsely think, “Once I’m free of these tensions, then I’ll be able to really live!” But real life is found in embracing the tension fully.

From Solving to Dancing

Question: When it comes to the tensions you are currently managing, does it feel heavy when you think that you should be above these tension? You should solve them?

Does it feel lighter to accept and embrace them? To acknowledge that tension is inherent to life?

From the place of acceptance, often the tensions feel and look different. You may notice that you become more present because you’re not constantly lost in your mind, predicting, solving, fantasizing.

And from the lightness of acceptance, it becomes much more enjoyable (and possible) to decide what new tensions you might want to trade in for.

Maybe I'll trade the tension of doing these business tasks for the tension of managing an employee.

Maybe I'll trade the tensions of being a one-person operation for the tensions of scaling this business.

Maybe I'll trade the tension of wanting to get more done at work for the tension of missing my kids a few more hours a week.

But it's always a trade and never eliminating tension all together. After all, tension is the animating force of life. Peace and joy doesn’t come from eliminating it but from learning to dance with it.

When we embrace that truth, we can hold the tension more lightly. We can navigate them more gracefully. Because we aren't longing for a fantasy free of tension, but learning to embrace - and even enjoy - the mystery and tension of life.

In the language of False Self and True Self: Our False Self doesn’t know how to hold the paradox and mystery - it sees dualistically. Things are either this or that.

But our True Self has more than enough space to hold it all. Our True Self can hold grief alongside joy, pride alongside humility, the mundane and the sacred together.

Our True Self doesn’t need to solve the tension, but can joyfully ask, “What tensions do I want to let go of? And what new tensions do I want to welcome and dance with in this season of life?”

Don’t try to be free from managing the tension - that is death. Practice fully embracing it - that is the path to being fully alive.