The Law of Opposites...

Unique Perspectives: The Law of Opposites...

By Kim Stevens

Maybe This Is Exactly What I Asked For.

I've noticed something.

Every time I got serious about being a certain kind of person, life seemed to present me with the exact opposite.

I decided I want to be more peaceful. Here comes someone who irritates the hell out of me. I decided I'm not going to try to control everything. Suddenly, everything feels out of control. I choose trust. Perfect. Here's some uncertainty. I decide I'm going to have better boundaries. And wouldn't you know it? Someone shows up who doesn't particularly care for my boundaries.

There was a time when I would have seen these things as evidence that something wasn't working. Today I know better.

Now, when the opposite shows up, I actually try to recognize it for what it may be:

My opportunity to experience myself as the person I've decided to be! I just love this and it is far more life altering than it may appear to be on the surface.

Neale Donald Walsch writes about something called the Law of Opposites. It's based on a fascinating idea: In order to experience something, there has to be a context in which that experience can exist.

I can decide I'm patient. Wonderful. But patience means absolutely nothing when everyone is behaving exactly as I'd like them to.

Give me a person who won't stop talking (THE WORST) or someone doing something I've already asked them three times not to do… Now we've got ourselves a contextual field!

This understanding has genuinely changed the way I move through my life.

When I choose peace, I don't expect life to become more peaceful. When I choose trust, I don't require certainty. When I choose acceptance, I don't require everything to be acceptable to me. When I choose to let go, I don't expect people to suddenly stop doing things I'd really like to control.

In fact, quite the opposite. I expect opportunities to practice. And there's something incredibly freeing about that.

Because the difficult person is no longer necessarily standing between me and my peace. They’re actually giving me an opportunity to experience it. To be it.

The uncertainty gives me somewhere to practice trust. The disappointment gives me somewhere to practice acceptance. The person making choices I wouldn't make gives me somewhere to practice letting go. The person pushing against my boundary gives me somewhere to have one.

That's the benefit I've experienced from living this way. I spend a lot less energy trying to arrange the outside world so that I can feel the way I want to feel on the inside. And I spend a lot more time asking: Who do I want to be here?

If I want to be someone who doesn't need to be right, eventually I'm going to have to let someone be wrong about me. If I want to be self-possessed, I'm going to need opportunities not to hand possession of myself over to someone else's behavior.

And if I want peace? Well. Apparently I'm going to need a little disturbance. And these days, when the opposite of what I've chosen appears, I can recognize it and think: Ah. Here it is. Here's my chance.

Because the appearance of the opposite isn't evidence that I’m moving away from what I’ve chosen… but the arrival of the very circumstances that allows me to become it. I don't need life to give me peace. I need life to give me somewhere to practice being peaceful.

And apparently, life is very willing to help.