Balance
My mum would tell you that I was born with a sense of justice.
A “right-attude” that had me chirping out like a news broadcaster from the time I could form sentences.
It wasn’t until my 40’s when I began to understand fanaticism.
Extremes- in any form - have no balance.
Yet people are whole-
Full creatures of nature that are both great and terrible.
For what is great :is terrible-
And terribleness holds greatness.
Destruction- in any form - brings forth room for new growth.
Tribulation forms heros.
All great stories have that hero journey- which needs some sort of contrasting truth.
Some situationship develops to force the hero or anti-hero to do the do that tells the tale....facts...
....and since we are only able to recognize anything in our life through our own lens or perception...
Well, that means any extreme point of view has both:
Justice and injustice.
“Rightness” might be exactly that-
And in the same way I have accepted someone else’s “right to be right”-
Denied my own.
AND VICE VERSA!!
And through denying it-
Allowed it to define my entire reality as theirs also forms.
We are both burning witches in our own way.
And in the same way I believe that if you believe then you should do what you believe to be true:
Same same.
My rights end where yours begin and yours end with mine.
Brene Brown talks about “living into a value” in many of her books....
Which lead me down the path of trying to figure out what “values” I live into... if any.
It was in a MANDT training session that the instructor put up a list of values-
And asked the room full of learning ladies-
To take 3 that they could NOT live without.
Mine:
Integrity
Justice
Equity
Then she asked each of us to name 3 that we COULD live without.
Interestingly...each of us struggled with that one.
Who wants to reveal values that we perceive as disposable - out loud at that!?!
“No thank you” as the heat rises with eyes on you.
They could have all whispered “unbelievable” under their breath as the shame rises.
- Who wants to pick honesty, justice or integrity? Better yet, kindness, compassion or culture?
I paused to consider how each one actually understands the word they are saying.
Maybe the easiest ones to get rid of are the ones we don’t understand.
I studied Divinity while building a mannequin to embody what that word meant...
And I doubt many others have found any interest in an adventure such as that!
So, balance might be the understanding that you can’t have them all.
That your own perception is allowed to be questioned-
And the only way to get there, might be curiosity.
- If my lens of perception has been fixated on justice and integrity- then that means the extreme opposites have existed in that same world through it all.
Any thing denied, becomes the governing force.
...so ....
Balance would be the act of placing one foot in the polar opposite,
Giggling, I see a person in the full-split.
Perhaps shaped like those rolling barrels on their side.
Did you ever see a Kung Fu Master?
Jet Li doing that leg-split high kick in the air.
Which means I need to recognize and learn to understand what justice is not...in order to be fully curious about what justice is.
Paradox.
...I fully bet that Carl Jung would be impressed with Brene Brown.
So finding balance would be an unending re-evaluation of what is believed to be true.
Asking questions-
Perhaps endlessly.
“What can we do - to make this situation better for you?”
Take good care.