Balancing your practice

There is an old saying, "The witch who can not hex, can not heal."  And I think it's such a great example of the balance that we need in our lives, and our practices.  I also think it's interesting to note that it doesn't say that you SHOULD hex anyone, just that if you don't know how that hinders your ability to heal.  

Look, I'm not saying that in order to have a healthy spiritual practice that you need to delve into all the horrible things that are out there in the world (because we know that people do horrible things, often in the name of spirituality), but I am saying that if you refuse to see the darkness that is present in yourself and in your practice that you are keeping the blinders on and you can't be fully formed if you refuse to see all that there is to see.

All things in life have two sides, and much like a coin, there is no line separating the two....it is one coin, all that changes is your perspective...both sides are a part of the whole.  In every horrible thing, there is some spark of light, and in every wonderful thing there is some potential for badness.  It is by recognizing and accepting that bit that we can truly embrace the whole.

For most of us, shadow practice fills this role in our path.  It is a way we can work with the darker parts of ourselves..in a way that allows us to maintain our boundaries and remain in control of our actions.  But I also feel that doing shadow work on ourselves helps us to see those broken bits in other people...and to have compassion and understanding when dealing with behavior that is less than ideal.

It sucks, but sometimes we have to be the bigger person, and part of that is recognizing when someone is acting from a place of hurt.  It doesn't mean we have to accept their actions, but it definitely helps us balance our own mental health when we can see that the behavior isn't always intended, but sometimes a reaction to something else.  If we never look inside and seek out those broken bits of ourselves, we can't see them in other people either.

One of the things I've always loved about Paganism is that there is a place for the dark and the light in it.  We work with the cycle of the year, and with nature, and both have a time for growth...and a time for death.  There is darkness, harshness and pain in the natural world, but there is also light and joy and wonder.  Even our deities often have both good and bad sides to them, embracing both the positive and negative aspects of themselves.  And having complicated deities like this allows us to better accept that complexity in ourselves...because if even the Gods have dark sides, then ours don't make us bad people....just people.

When it comes to working with both the light and dark in your practice, I definitely think that turning to nature is very helpful.  We can look at the world and see how the things that we might have turned away from initially just fit.  Death, violence, fear...these things all have a place in the natural world.  Death creates change, which combats stagnation, and makes room for new growth.  Violence can be used for aggression, but also for defense, and among animals can help maintain social order and weed out those who can't work with the group.  Fear can be a tool to avoid violence or a way to encourage survival (animals often fear dangerous things like fire).

On a more personal level, learning to be grateful for things that are sometimes seen as negatives can help bring a more balanced perspective to your path.  When I do gratitude work, I am not always grateful for only things that are traditionally 'good'.   I am grateful for the bright spots in my life, but I am also grateful for the darkness.  At the start, I was mostly grateful for the ways my negative traits could benefit me (like I am pretty stubborn, and that means that once I get my head set on a thing, I'll work until it's done), but I have learned to be grateful for even the most rough parts of myself...simply because they are part of me.  I have a lot of mental struggles, but even though my life would be much easier without them...I wouldn't be me, so I am grateful for those hard parts of my self, and how they fit with the rest of me.

One thing to remember, is that balance doesn't mean equal.  You can find balance in all kinds of ways.  Balance might mean working the whole of a cycle, releasing or banishing something, then building up something new.  It might mean doing work to fight back against people who are trying to take advantage of you (especially if they are counting on the fact that they think you won't fight back).  It might mean forgiving yourself for allowing bad behavior towards you while reinforcing your boundaries so that it doesn't happen in the future.  It might mean cutting out people who refuse to accept their own darkness (because we aren't responsible for other people's work, only our own boundaries).

The world is full of both darkness and light, and without either one it would be a much worse place.  Finding a place for both the good and the bad (and sometimes the ugly) in our practice is one more way to embrace all that life has to offer.  Accepting the easy and hard parts of ourselves gives us the room to grow and become the amazing, incredible person we are meant to be and it also grants us the ability to see the complexity in other people and to accept them without compromising ourselves.  It is well worth it to explore what balance means to you, and to work that into your practice.  Because if your practice doesn't reflect all of you, and if you aren't whole inside....how can it meet all your needs?