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.
I often ask my students to recall a time when they felt as if someone was really, truly listening to them. I ask them to assess the qualities of the encounter. Depth, peace, non-judgment, a clarity of being seen, a feeling of being cared for, and a sense of being valued are often lifted up as the qualities that accompany Presence.
When a person stands in a posture of Presence, they tend to be grounded, open, and connected. These three qualities correlate well within common teachings on the three centers of human knowing, popularly referred to as head, heart, and belly, and perhaps more formally distinguished as intellect, affect, and volition, or will. We are grounded through our belly, or root; we are open through our affect, or heart; we are connected through our intellect, or mind.
Traditional wisdom teaches that most of us have a natural preference for one of the three centers, which is to stay that we “start from” or “primarily inhabit” that particular center more than the others. Traditional teaching also reminds us that we are all fully capable of inhabiting all three centers, even if we tend to prefer one over the others.
My survey of folks who have, at some time, felt truly listened to by another suggests that when we are aligned and poised within all three centers, we are able to show up as fully present in our interactions and activities. To stick with just one center is to be stuck and stagnant, divided in our presence. To be fully present is to be poised to draw upon the collective power of all three centers of knowing, rather than to offer a partial presence from only one or another. Power to the Three!
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.
- Of the three centers of human knowing (head, heart, and belly), which do you naturally tend to prefer? Which do you struggle most to inhabit or connect with?
- Have you ever noticed yourself feeling stuck or stagnant in just one of the three? In these moments, how do you reconnect with the other two?
- When you’re fully Present, drawing on all three centers, how does that change your interactions with others? With yourself? With God?
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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