Integrating Polarities
I found this item not too long ago. It seems to belong to something bigger, something more. It’s also complete just as it is.
I hold the polarities of brokenness and wholeness.
“My virtue is Darth Vador,” my then 5-year-old said on stage. He did not elaborate to the audience that sat mostly silent, waiting for more. A few people chuckled as he stepped away from the microphone.
After the performance, I asked him what he meant.
“Sometimes I do bad things. But I am also good.”
I was glad to see this young boy, who often played out battles of good vs. evil with his toys, recognize this within himself.
I save most random items I find in the garden, hoping I’ll discover more pieces of the stories to which they belong.
For now, I sometimes fill this found object with mealworms, giving it a use (doing), even though it doesn’t need one. Its worth is in the joy it invites when I see it (being). It reminds me of all the stories the garden holds: The ones I’ve discovered and the ones still hidden.
Maybe I’ll find the “something bigger, something more” to which it belongs. Until then, I am reminded of the wholeness of broken things.
I hold the polarities.
Holding polarities, such as light and shadow, requires emotional regulation. The greater our capacity to emotionally regulate, the greater our capacity to hold, observe, and sit with the polarities within ourselves.
When this capacity is undeveloped, emotional regulation takes priority. We split the polarities. We often choose to hold one and project the other out into the world or onto a person or group of people.
We all do this to some extent.
We can also recognize this and then do what we need to increase our tolerance for emotional dysregulation. Without emotional regulation skills, we will continue to live in this world of make-believe, where good and evil are separate, and they battle one another.
Good vs. evil is a play theme. It belongs in the liminal space where the inner worlds of children overlap with their outer worlds as they make sense of themselves, the world, and the often bigger and powerful inhabitants. We still enjoy stories with this theme even as adults. The stories help us continue to do the work of integration throughout our lives. Eventually, ideally, children begin to integrate polarities and make space for seeing accepting both aspects within themselves.
“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.”
― Rachel Carson
Developing emotional regulation skills begins in a relationship. The process is dependent on having an adult available to help them—to sit with them in acceptance as they explore their thinking and feeling. As children grow, they become less reliant on relationally based emotional regulation. Through modeling, they internalize and develop an aspect of self that is a wise companion. They sit with themselves. And hold the polarities.
And to Carson’s quote above, this capacity leads to an emotional availability to see and experience the world as it is. It results in wonder—in who I am, who you are, and in the world around us.
We’ve lost our sense of wonder.
Much of what we are experiencing in the world instead is a result of splitting due to poor emotional regulation. Rather than holding polarities, we roam the land of play, in search of and creating enemies to battle. That feels safe. And powerful.
Yet, this leads to powerlessness. Many of our leaders, for instance, are actually losing power because we can’t solve problems that don’t exist. I’ll say that again: We can’t solve problems that don’t exist. Therefore, we stay locked in battle. Imaginary problems exist to avoid the (emotional) discomfort of looking at what’s really wrong and acknowledging our role in it.
Right now, I am sitting with the awareness of how splitting is at the heart of the problems that are squeezing us. So many of us are feeling the squeeze right now. Many of them are my therapist friends who are hoping to maintain the capacity to be emotionally available to accompany others on their healing journeys. They are also my parent friends. Did I mention my women friends and their heroine journies? We’re all feeling the squeeze.
The problems and battles that are getting in the way of problem-solving are not real, but the results are: they hurt and destroy. They kill.
We have the knowledge we need to solve the problems at hand, we don’t have the emotional regulation we need to see the real problems for what they are.
Emotional regulation skills will invite us out of the imaginary world of childhood and into the adult world of using knowledge to solve our real problems. We will want to solve problems not just to benefit ourselves, but to benefit all of us. We will do so because we will know—through our own experience—that despite the polarities of good vs. evil within us (expressed through doing), we all have worth and value (in our being).
Despite our brokenness, we have wholeness.
I hold the polarities.
Thank you for reading my work. I appreciate your time and support as I find ways to share hope and inspiration for healing and creating the world we want … and, truthfully, need.