Awakening to Wholeness is a series of prompts, reflections, and teachings about how holding the tension of opposites can help us to heal division and experience wholeness. If you feel moved to share your own reflections, we invite you to email us with the subject line “Wisdom of Opposites” or tag us on social media with #EHoPWisdomOfOpposites.
This exercise is adapted from Into Your Heart: A Creative Path to Healing and Wholeness, a workbook by EHoP Artist in Residence Julie Ann Stevens. To experience the exercise most fully, you’ll need colored pens or pencils, and to print, trace, or copy the drawing of a heart below. Or, you may simply read and reflect.
Quiet yourself and take a few breaths in and out.
Bring to mind someone who has disturbed you. In one half of the heart below, list aspects of this person’s behavior, character & personality qualities that you find unsettling.
Pause. Breathe.
Now, bring your attention to someone who inspires you. In the other half of the heart, list aspects of this person’s behavior, character & personality qualities that you delight in.
Pause. Breathe.
Take colored pens or pencils and connect the divided lobes to create a whole heart.
Record any feelings or insights that come to you.
Contemplative Questions
We offer the following questions as prompts to help you reflect on the presence of opposites in your spiritual practice and your life.
- Are you aware of ways you attack yourself from within? Be present to them, let them surface here.
- Do you notice places in your inner landscape that are divided? Places where you hold yourself in contempt? Name them.
- Can you make contact with ways you are projecting your divided self on others?
- What changes as you begin to hold the tension of opposites and experience your own wholeness?
If you completed the exercise above, we invite you to share your completed heart drawing!
Join the conversation!
If you feel moved to share your reflections, we invite you to email us with the subject line “Wisdom of Opposites” or tag us on social media with #EHoPWisdomOfOpposites.
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