Ups and Downs

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”.

“As I grew I knew you needed rainy days and sunshine to make the garden grow.”
-Sara Thomsen, “My Mother’s Garden”  

In the hard work of contemplative dialogue, one of the easiest places to see opposites at work is in the meaning we make out of our experience of being limited by time and space. Up and down, back and forth, and in and out: these three sets of opposites reveal some of the shadows hidden in our assumptions about spatiality—in other words, our experience of reality as limited by space. 

Symbolically, in our language, we regularly reference the “ups and downs” as a normal part of life. Everyone deals with both the ups and the downs. No one gets a pass to experience only one or the other.  

In the Christian discernment tradition, Ignatius of Loyola refers to consolation (movement toward God), and desolation (movement away from God) to describe this reality. He, too, insists that no one gets a “pass.” When in consolation, remember desolation will return. When in desolation, remember consolation will return. We tend to associate consolation, the good times, and positivity with a sense of “up,” and desolation, the hard times, and negativity, with a spatial sense of “down.” Joy uplifts. Sorrow is a downer.  

Most of us prefer the “ups,” but the truth is that both movements are essential to shaping us into who we become. In the days, sometimes weeks, when I feel crabby, agitated, and off-kilter, in the times when things just can’t seem to go right, it is then when I learn patience and trust, when I grow in strength. A return to days of ease and sunshine and joy reminds me of the lesson of gratitude and sparks of amazement. Both the ups and the downs are foundational for the journey. 

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.

• What have you learned in times of happiness, ease, consolation?
• What have you learned in times of difficulty, negativity, desolation?
• How have the ups and downs, together, taught you to remember wholeness?