The Power of Paradox - Guest Post from Author Debbianne DeRose

The Power of Paradox

Do you think spoon-bending is real… or is it a hoax? How about people being instantaneously healed from the invisible energy coming through another human’s hands… or communicating with those who have “died” and passed on? Do you believe it’s possible to visit your “past lives” and meet with alternate versions of yourself, or access “past” and “future” scenes of your current lifetime?

Many things that once seemed outrageous or magical have become commonplace to me. I once was skeptical, as you may currently be. I was, after all, trained in the Conservative Arts of Engineering and Economics. So what happened, then---did I lose my mind and get swept up in some New Age gobbledegook? Hardly.

I plodded through, scrutinizing each subject and situation, turning it upside down and inside out as I went, shaking it down for morsels of truth. What I found, ultimately, is that everything is entirely possible---and I do mean everything---but what any given person is able to experience, however, is quite personal. It’s a function of our individual belief systems. So if you’d like to experience more of what life has to offer, you must expand your beliefs to accommodate new things.

The ego-mind can be quite stubborn and resistant to such change. Things that don’t neatly conform to what we already know… well, we just toss them out, typically. But that doesn’t allow you to grow and expand.

So here’s what I recommend: the next time you come up against an idea that sets off your intellectual bullshit meter (Note: that’s entirely different from your emotional/intuitive bullshit meter, which you should always honor!), consciously decide that it’s okay to park your judgment in the side lot while forging ahead. There is power in embracing paradox---the ability to simultaneously hold two seemingly conflicting ideas. But they only seem to conflict until your beliefs expand to meet the new level of understanding. Many a seemingly unsolvable problem has been solved by a simple shift in perspective.

For example, a speaker is giving a talk and you think the guy is a total flake. You don’t like him, and you’re convinced he’s full of it. Well, you can allow your opinion to exist without running the show. Without discounting your opinion, you can still listening honestly to what he’s got to say. It’s that old adage, “don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.” Only... in this case, you don’t really know whether or not there’s a baby (something of value) in there. If you’re willing to find out, by temporarily suspending your disbelief, it may surprise you what kernels of wisdom appear. I’ve found that the more resistance a person has to a person or idea, the more likely that person or idea has something important to teach you.

The thing is, our reasoning minds are trained to sort things into buckets with labels. We want to know, quickly, “Is it this OR is it that?” because we’re uncomfortable with the in-between state of things---the shades of grey. Embracing paradox means becoming comfortable with the state of “It’s this AND it’s that.” For some, this represents a radical shift.

Let’s take spoon-bending, for example. If you believe it’s a hoax, then you won’t be inclined to listen to someone who claims they’ve bent a spoon or witnessed it firsthand (I mean really listen, respectfully, with an open mind---not just waiting to have your turn to debunk or deride the person). Yet, what is the harm of listening with an open mind? The ego-mind is threatened by this. Its motivation is fear, plain and simple.

At their core, hardcore cynics are either afraid of being taken for a ride (if they feel gullible and do not trust their own judgment), or afraid of being perceived as someone who gets taken for a ride and thus judged by others for being gullible or foolish. They value approval from the group who agrees that yes, it is indeed a hoax.

Incidentally, if science is your go-to authority, it’s hardly scientific to approach an experiment with an unstated bias. The Scientific Method requires the scientist to first gather data before forming the hypothesis, not the other way around.

At any rate, I’m not saying you should believe in spoon-bending or anything else, for that matter. But I am exposing you to some methods of working with a stubborn ego, because the more fear-based, limiting behavior you manage to leave behind, the happier you will become.

As a nice side effect of practicing a “This AND That” approach to things, your personal relationships are likely to improve. You start to realize that you can let people off the hook for whatever offenses they might be otherwise “charged” with in the court of your mind. They’ve done something (say, lying) that you don’t prefer AND you see it and accept it AND you still love them AND you may or may not want to hang out with the person. Your options are no longer confined to “you’re great and you’re my friend” versus “you suck and you’re no longer my friend.” I think you get the point.

Try it out for yourself. Observe the places in life where you dig your heels in and insist that things must be “This OR That” and notice how this limits you. Ultimately, if you follow this trail of expansive popcorn, you will discover that beyond “This AND That” lies the ultimate truth of Life: “This IS That.” We’re all connected and derived from the same source of animated stardust. Enjoy the journey into self-realization!

Meet Debbianne DeRose

Debbianne DeRose specializes in down-to-earth, humorous explorations of all things “woo-woo”---that is, metaphysical, mystical, spiritual, paranormal or New Age-y. She’s the author of several books, including: “What I Did On My Midlife Crisis Vacation” and “How I Met the Man of My Dreams: a Guide to MANifesting Yours.” Visit www.debbianne.com for more deep-thought inspiration and edutainment.

Connect with Debbianne DeRose

Debbianne.com

@PitchingTheWoo on Twitter

Amazon Author Page

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