{"id":3616,"date":"2023-08-15T19:53:29","date_gmt":"2023-08-15T19:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/?p=3616"},"modified":"2023-08-15T20:10:41","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T20:10:41","slug":"paradoxical-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/2023\/08\/15\/paradoxical-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Paradoxical Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul>\n<li>The Principle of Paradoxical Change states that the more we try to change ourselves the more <strong><em>stuck <\/em><\/strong>we will be as a result, and that when we stop fighting against the way that we are then change will happen <em>all by itself.<\/em>&nbsp;That\u2019s the only way genuine change <em>can <\/em>happen.<br><br><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>When we try to make change happen then this is of course <em>control<\/em>&nbsp;and any change that happens as a result of control (or \u2018forcing\u2019) isn\u2019t real change at all. It\u2019s only the <em>appearance<\/em>&nbsp;of change, like an act that we are putting on. It takes a lot of energy to maintain this act and because we\u2019re putting all our energy and attention into it <em>no genuine healing can take place. <\/em>We\u2019ve \u2018jinxed ourselves\u2019, in other words.<em>&nbsp;<\/em><br><br><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>What more, when we force change this creates an unstable artificial situation which is always going to rebound on us at some future point in time. It may rebound straightaway or it may not rebound for days or weeks or even longer.<br><br><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Forcing (or \u2018denying\u2019) locks us into a very demoralizing cycle \u2013 the cycle of \u2018up\u2019 and \u2018down\u2019. When the emotional pain is pushed away then we allow ourselves to believe that we\u2019re free from it and so we feel euphoric; when it resurfaces however then not only is there the same old emotional pain to deal with, we are also plunged into <em>despair.<\/em>&nbsp;<br><br><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>We create the \u2018up and down cycle\u2019 by not working with our emotional pain, therefore. Dealing with our pain doesn\u2019t mean \u2018doing something to it\u2019 (or \u2018with it\u2019) \u2013 that\u2019s just <em>resistance<\/em>&nbsp;and \u2018resistance\u2019 is the <strong><em>opposite <\/em><\/strong>of working with it. Usually we react to our emotional pain by pushing it away (or distracting ourselves in some way from it) which is \u2013 as we have just said \u2013 how we get <em>locked into the euphoria \/ dysphoria cycle<\/em>.<br><br><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>The way we <em>work<\/em>&nbsp;with emotional pain is by gaining insight into this cycle, along with insight into how resistance perpetuates our situation. <em>\u201cWhat we resist persists\u2019,<\/em>&nbsp;says Carl Jung. We learn to spot our automatic resistance and as soon as we spot ourselves \u2018resisting\u2019 this awareness in itself brings us out of Purposeful (or \u2018controlling\u2019) Mode and into Reflective Mode. &nbsp;When we <em>see <\/em>that we\u2019re forcing this takes the steam out of our forcing, in other words. We spontaneously become more peaceful \u2013 we become more peaceful without any need for counterproductive forcing.<br><br><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>When our emotional pain is acknowledged \u2013 without any judging or blaming \u2013 then it naturally expends itself. By allowing the pain to express itself we take away the conflict and the sensation of being blocked\u2019. This doesn\u2019t mean that the pain goes away straightaway (because whatever pain is there needs to be felt, and there could be a lot of it) but what it <em>does<\/em>&nbsp;mean is that the natural healing process is allowed to take place.<br><br><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Normally, our \u2018allegiance\u2019 is to \u2018How we think things should be\u2019 (or \u2018How we think <em>we<\/em> should be\u2019); when we gain psychological insight however this orientation changes and \u2013 instead \u2013 our allegiance is to <em>\u2018How things actually are\u2019<\/em>. Our orientation is now towards the truth, in other words, rather than towards some kind of goal or desired outcome. \u2018Goals\u2019 have no place here, therefore; goals have no place because goals = <strong><em>controlling<\/em><\/strong>, which is our normal way of responding to difficulty.<br><br><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Normally, we are \u2018addicted to controlling\u2019 and addictions \u2013 of whatever sort \u2013 <em>always take us to a bad place.<\/em>&nbsp;When our allegiance is to \u2018the way things are\u2019 then this is not an addiction (it\u2019s not an addiction because there is no need involved). Our allegiance is simply to the truth, whatever that might turn out to be. This is a much simpler situation \u2013 no methods, no cleverness, no \u2018forcing\u2019 is needed. We don\u2019t have any goal here \u2013 <em>whatever the truth turns out to be, we will acknowledge it. <\/em><br><br><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><em>\u2018It is the truth that liberates, not your effort to be free\u2019,<\/em>&nbsp;says Krishnamurti. Our struggling against the truth of our situation is what imprisons us \u2013 we\u2019re trapped by our own struggling and the logic of our struggling tells us never to back down, never to give up. The \u2018logic of our struggling\u2019 tells us that if we struggle hard enough then we will eventually be free. This is seeing things completely <strong><em>backwards <\/em><\/strong>however; it is seeing things backwards since it is the struggling (or the \u2018resisting\u2019) that is actually trapping us\u2026<br><br><br><br><br><br>Image &#8211;<a href=\"https:\/\/wallpaperaccess.com\/paradox#google_vignette\"> <strong>wallpaperaccess.com<\/strong><\/a><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[266,131,265],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/20504091.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3616"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3616"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3623,"href":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3616\/revisions\/3623"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}