Up and Down
At a family dinner a few years ago, my oldest and my youngest sons engaged in a debate about the nature of life. My youngest believed (at the time) like many, many others, that in order to appreciate the good things of life, we have to experience the bad ones. That we can only experience good in contrast to the unpleasant, painful, or upsetting.
My oldest son countered with, “No, I don’t have to have experienced broccoli in order to appreciate chocolate.”
In many ways, this point of discussion is as useless as trying to understand how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. But it offers an interesting window into the idea of our different Inner Operating Systems.
This came to mind this week because I had a conversation about up and down with one of the spiritual leaders who works with me occasionally. “But there is up and down,” she said.
Yes. There is up and down in ordinary reality. It is so clear that we experience contrast and polarity in our lives. It would be foolish to deny the reality of the contrasts our world offers us.
And yet…
Do we really need opposites in order to fully experience the pole of the contrast that we prefer? Do we really need broccoli in order to appreciate chocolate?
Only from the perspective and context of our Success Operating Systems. This is our Inner Operating System that is concerned with succeeding and with achieving. It is the part of us that takes ordinary reality at face value. Since it observes opposites in life, it makes sense of them by believing that they are necessary and useful. Our insistence that polarities are necessary and useful is held deeply within our subconscious minds. We are probably unaware of how perceiving contrasts shapes our thinking about everything.
Either/or thinking and the judgments that arise from it is so much a part of our normal awareness, we almost never question it. The entire world of the Success Operating System relies on us making distinctions and holding preferences.
The world of the Fulfillment Operating System is different. Our FOS doesn’t bother itself with judging one thing better than another. It sits present with what is. It embraces all of life. The paradox that is hard to understand is that in holding that space of acceptance and presence, we aren’t reduced to enduring all kinds of things that we don’t like with equanimity—forcing ourselves to find a way to like broccoli, for example. Some of this may happen. But if we can refrain from judging, we will find that our world shifts, offering us all manner of good—events and experiences that match the energy of acceptance and presence.
This idea makes no sense and poses a grave threat to the Success Operating System which has learned to try to create a pleasing life by pushing back at things not preferred and clinging tightly to the experiences it deems better. Many times, this strategy works in our ordinary reality world. But there are limits to it as our challenges get bigger and when we are no longer satisfied with the limitations to love and peace that arise from this pushing and clinging.
The solution is not to run away to a land where there is only chocolate and never broccoli.
The solution is to understand our Inner Operating Systems, how they work and communicate, what they are optimized for, and when their strategies are appropriate. And then, appropriately activating the OS that is best for the job at hand.
It is helpful to have some tools for switching between our OS’s. Mindfulness practices, breathing techniques, and repeating affirmations are three commonly known tools that increase our awareness. It’s also helpful to get familiar with the ways each of our OS’s think, feel and communicate.
We are energy beings who are also firmly grounded in a physical world. We are both. We want to build businesses and bridges. We like to paint and garden. We like the feeling when our bodies and minds connect with other bodies and minds. And, we are made of love and light. We understand our Oneness and interconnectivity. We like feeling our limitlessness and our ability to love unconditionally.
We are both. We can do both. It is one of the glories of being here in bodies on this planet.
Let’s celebrate.