Shoutout to Nitya Chirravur for creating this beautiful artwork. You can check out the illustration here: https://medium.com/shareyournuance/on-the-duality-of-self-proprietorship-dee336847a16

This post also discusses domestic violence for any Indian women who read this post. If domestic violence or the topic is triggering, please please do not read this article or this post! But for those of who do read it, it explains some things I may not be ready to explain yet. Check it out.

Hi, guys! I hope you’re having a peaceful Sunday. I hope your weekend was filled with happiness, fireworks, and safety. I know that celebrating the 4th was a little different for everyone. If you chose not to celebrate the 4th, I hope that you did something nice this weekend that made you feel happy and loved.

The topic I wanted to discuss today is duality using the example of anger. This can be a rather uncomfortable topic to discuss and if anyone is aware of being aware of their anger or resentment, it’s even more unsettling. What’s even more disturbing is repressed emotions surrounding anger and resentment. What’s worse than that is the toll it takes on your mental, emotional, and physical health.

Recently, I’ve become more aware of anger and resentment I hold towards my parents and a little bit towards my grandparents and towards myself. This is my example, but feel free to apply it to your situation(s). I want to begin by saying everything and everyone in this world expresses duality. We are both good and bad. We possess good and bad qualities. What’s important is that we learn to embrace and love both aspects.

Like any other human being, my dad also has duality. For a majority of my life if you asked me what my dad was like the first word that would pop up into my mind would be angry. In fact, if I quickly try and remember my childhood or my relationship with him, my mind digs up a lot of memories describing how angry he is, how he was selfish, and rude, and possessed narcissistic traits. I mean, I want to make one thing clear, narcs are made not born, so I knew that the reason he was the way he is is because of the way that my grandmother raised him. If you ask me why my grandmother raised him the way she did, I’d have to tell you it’s because maybe her mom raised her that way. I mean, she was 18 when she had my dad, and was married when she was 16 and let’s be honest, can we think about what we were all like at 16? We were fucking idiots. What we were like when we were 18? A little better but still idiots. Context. That’s important. I would also like to point out that I do not hate him nor condone some of his behavior. I’ve gone to therapy, developed healthy habits, and know how to set boundaries. If you are in serious trouble or are experiencing life threatening or any kind of abuse to seek professional help. This is me writing this after I’ve done that, so don’t take this as a substitution for professional help, it is not.

So anyway, I found a lot of this repressed anger and resentment manifesting as thoughts of hurt. The thoughts of hurt I experienced included: Why didn’t someone stop this behavior? How could my grandma raise a monster? Why doesn’t anyone stand up to him? I should’ve lived with another family member. How can someone be this selfish? Why do I have to be the victim of this situation? Why didn’t my mom stand up for us? Why didn’t she leave him and provide for us on her own? Why didn’t I run away? Why didn’t I do this or that? These thoughts not only alarmed me but caused me enough distress to journal.

As I journaled I channeled a lot of inner messages from my soul. It called for me to be more compassionate and understanding towards myself. As much as I wanted to pin the blame on one thing or person for growing up in a less than ideal household (like many other people regardless of ethnicity around the globe), cultivating anger and resentment would not solve this problem. I began to understand a lot of my anger and resentment was because I felt like I was entitled to living a life filled with happy childhood memories like my friends. I envied those who had that, who have a healthy relationship with their family, and are loved and accepted by them unconditionally whereas I felt mine was not unconditional.

A lot of these emotions began to surface as a result of me temporarily staying with my uncle and experiencing what it was like to live in a bit more harmony than I was used to, and I began to learn more about my dad’s upbrining. It wasn’t anything I had not heard before but I began to feel bad for that little girl who endured all this arguing and yelling. I’m a sensitive person, so loud noises, arguing, etc, makes me feel sick. I wanted to blame someone for his behavior.

As I wrote more words on the page, I began to realize that everyone has duality. Nothing that happens is out of God’s control, and outward peace begins with inner peace. I do not like holding onto anger or resentment towards anyone. I also do understand many victims of domestic violence or abuse do not leave the abuser because their mind is powerful enough to convince them to stay. They may be bound by societal pressure or gaslighting techniques their partner uses on them. I realized that I needed to shift my mindset and focus on forgiving. Similar to my dad, I do not possess a perfect track record. There were plenty of times in my life that I may have embodied negative traits and hurt other people. It’s this cycle of hurt people hurting people.

But, the word duality kept popping up into my mind. Duality is an easy concept to understand but hard to practice. While some people may consider the bad qualities they possess–anger, resentment, envy, hatred, jealousy, moodiness, etc as negative, we have to love those aspects of ourselves. We have to embrace and love and nurture those parts of ourselves, too. Why? Those negative qualities are trying to get our attention like a wounded child who just wants to be loved. I released the anger and realized maybe he has hurt like I do, too. I may not be able to heal it, but by healing it within myself, I can break the cycle. I do not have to grow up to hate him or argue with him, but I can set boundaries and live in peace.

I peeled back those layers of anger and resentment to reveal hurt and pain. I lovingly open my arms to those feelings and allow them to be expressed and heard so that I can let myself heal. It does not make weak or crazy, it makes me human.

My loves, every experience we have in our life is a lesson. I read this in a book yesterday. The people who make our lives tough may be spiritual teachers sent from above in disguise. The greatest thing that I’ve taken away from this duality. God sees our good AND bad qualities. He does not judge us for our shortcomings rather He calls us to look at them and heal so we can be closer to Him. There is nothing that happens that is out of His control. If He allowed this to enter into my life, surely, there is a good reason.

Matthew 11:28-30 New International Version (NIV)

²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

It’s time I give up my burden of anger and resentment in exchange for healing, growth, compassion, and forgiveness. By no means was it or is it easy, but the peace that follows is absolutely blissful.

I encourage you all to look within your lives to notice a quality, a person, a memory, or a thought that brings out the worse in you. Identify why it does and what this pain is trying to reveal to you. I invite you to lovingly ask whichever higher power you believe in to help you to cultivate forgiveness and compassion towards it. I invite you to also ask them to help you embrace your duality.

I invite you to seek healing into your life as well. Seek accepting your duality. Don’t be ashamed of it. This is my story, and I hope it inspires you.

xoxo

Stephanie