The Law of Opposites
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A few days ago, over at Paisley Goddess Home, I posted about using opposites (as in color-which would be complimentary colors) and with decor elements (tall & short, light & dark,etc) as a way to create clarity. Why does this create clarity? Because it helps to define elements, to zoom in on them and to create distinction vs. a monochromatic or analogous style where everything blends together. If you are seeking clarity, you need to be able to focus in on something and see it clearly defined.
Well, as it typically happens, when deciding on what to write about here at Paisley Goddess, I ask within and then one thing leads to another….
I started reading about the Law of Opposites, which is another fundamental universal law that affects us just as the Law of Attraction does.
Then I had to chuckle as I started seeing the relationship - I love how inner wisdom operates!
On to my discovery….
Last week, I got all excited about a direction I was taking on a matter and I knew, just knew without a shadow of a doubt that all would fall into place. Then, several days later, boom, wham, slap me in the face…it went completely in the opposite direction.
I was devastated, I was going to call it quits then and there, it seemed hopeless.
Can you relate to that scenerio any? I think we all have had that scene play out in our lives.
That is what the Law of Opposites is all about. We decide we want something, we get excited, we focus on it and then BAM! What the heck is this?..this is not what I wanted! NO!, it’s going all wrong!!
At that point, what we usually do is get snared by the negativity gremlin and think that we aren’t going to get what we want, we may buy into old programming that it wasn’t meant to be, not God’s will, I’m not worthy of it, I’m not good enough, the universe is conspiring against me…and right at that point, we KILL and SHUT the door on what we wanted.
But we were just going by how things seemed to be, right? We were going by what ‘reality’ presented to us…
Oh, grasshopper, life cannot be experienced in a vacuum…
OK, then, what is really going on and what should I have done?
When the opposite comes along, we see it as not getting what we wanted, because well, DUH, this is the opposite!
Then we fight it, get angry, get down on ourselves…we put a whole lot of energy into that opposite…..and what happens when you add energy to something? It grows. It increases in power and geez, we just “created” a big nasty negative ugly. One that sticks around, takes up residence and won’t leave and then we say, “see? this is real, this exists!”
What if, instead of seeing the opposite as a negative thing, we see it as a good thing? Heck, we jump for joy! Lookie, everyone, Santa is on his way!! We realize that the opposite is only there to give us “clarity” on what we were asking for.
That opposite was never “real”, we just had a perception of it as being negative….it was only an unreal negation of what we were wanting.
We labeled it as negative, we fixated on it, we gave it power.
With everything in life we have a choice as to how to view it. Everything can be seen as either negative or positive, it is up to us as to how we view it. As well, every negative has its positive! And that is what clarifies things for us.
In order to create anything, you first have to create a context within which it may be experienced. Another way to put it is you have to create a circumstance relevant to your desire so you can fully experience your desire.
Back to my Gemini home post at Paisley Goddess Home. I focused on the issue of clarity for Gemini’s because Gemini’s can get scattered, they are off looking at and wanting to experience so many different things that they can’t fully, truly know the experience of one thing. Interestingly enough, Gemini’s are also the energy of the twins, of opposites, of duality.
We all have within us, in certain areas, Gemini energy. I’m going to go as far as to say that Gemini energy has us going out and seeking all the things we want.
This reminds me of a story of a lady who spent years shopping each day, accumulating massive amounts of stuff, but she never even took the items out of the shopping bags. She would just find a spot to set the bag and after years of doing this daily, had a home in which her and her husband couldn’t even live. It was filled to the ceiling (literally) with stuff, bags and bags of stuff. How could she experience what the items had to offer if all she did was accumulate the items?
I can see why the energy of opposites/duality would go along with the Gemini energy of accumulating (ideas, experiences, relationships)- because how can you ‘know’ happiness if you have never had sorrow? How can you ‘know’ success if you have never had failure? How can you ‘know’ freedom if you have never experienced entrapment? How can you fully experience what material things can do for life if you have also never experienced being without? If you have never had the opposite, then life is just like the lady who shops and hoards, lots of stuff (ideas, experiences, relationships, etc) yet no growth….no knowledge gained….no fulfillment…no mastery….basically none of what we are all really here for!
The Law of Opposites provides us with an opportunity to fully experience our desires. And that ‘opposite’ is not real in the sense that it of itself is what is really going on…it is only there as a way to ‘clarify’ things for us.
There are a lot of ways that the opposite of what we are wanting shows up. We may decide to start focusing on better health and suddenly we find ourselves getting sick or enduring an injury. We might decide to start focusing on more money and have a catastrophy happen to our checking account that puts us in the hole.
We create a real problem when we look at the negative event, decide it is awful and allow it to manifest and become through our continued focus of it. And, while switching our focus to that negative, we cut off the desire we had wanted.
So, how does an “opposite” clarify, empower us and give us opportunities?
Take one of the examples above - and I have had this happen. Back when I was really focusing on getting things turned around financially, I had a catastrophy with my checking account (by means of nothing that I had done) and it put me 100’s in the hole. Talk about maddening! I did what is typical, I got mad, reeled and fought and complained and it turned into a really ugly situation. I had to close the account to begin to straighten it all out.
If I had responded differently, if I had seen it as just something that has no control over me, but is the opposite of what I was wanting….then I could have reacted differently.
What is this situation trying to show me?
A quote from Wes Hopper from, “The Astonishing Power of Gratitude” is very revealing in finding the answers.
“Every situation that looks bad has an equal amount of good, if you look for it. Everything that happens just “is”. Like two sides of a coin, it has a side that looks ‘bad’ and it has a side that looks ‘good’. You get to choose. Whatever you call it, it becomes for you.”
No matter what the situation is, we are the only ones who get to decide what it is to us. We are programmed to see the calamity with our acount as bad…but in truth, it “is” what we decide it “is”.
So, what if we decide to see the negative’s positive?
What if we decide to see the good in what happened?
What if we literally sat down and decided to list all the good things that happened because this event occurred?
What if we looked at it in the same way that we look at decorating with opposites…we focus in on something and see it clearly defined.
Maybe this event can show me how I view money, how I handle my money. Maybe it is allowing me to find a different type of bank, or switch to a Credit Union instead of a bank. Maybe it is letting me know that I was too trusting of something and I should use more discernment.
In order for me to manifest more money into my life, I need to see where my perceptions lie in regards to that subject. The event can show me.
That is empowering! Now, I am in control and can make some healthier decisions!
(To be con’t…)
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June 15th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
I am a Virgo and this whole monthly Gemini vortex is completely throwing me for a huge loop. Order I like. Chaos? Not so much. I feel uncomfortable at all the switcheroos when all I want to do is keep moving along the path I’ve decided to place in front of me. Not. It keeps wobbling and curving from obstacles (opportunities?). Thanks Ash for bringing up this timely topic. It’s all about change and how do we react to it? Because if there’s one thing we can count on in our daily life, it is change. So, I’ve brewed another cuppa green tea to soothe my system, rolled my neck to get some kinks loosened, put a silly smile on my face, I’m not sweating the small stuff and it’s all small stuff. Happy, happy, happy that’s what I want to be whether the path is straight or crooked. How to be happy, happy, happy is what’s important to me and back in the forefront of my brain. Thanks Ash for being another vehicle of opportunity for me and bringing a healthy perspective back into my life. Ciao bella.