Holding Opposites with Open Hands
There is a particular kind of stillness that lives here, in this corner where the land meets the water. It is the stillness of things that have been worn smooth by time, stones on the shore, driftwood, the edges of my own heart. And it is from this quiet that I have been learning one of the most surprising lessons of my life:
Two things can be true at the same time.
I have been a survivor of loss for longer than I care to count. And one of the quieter, less celebrated things that comes with that kind of grief, the slow, unglamorous kind, is that it teaches you something about the way you hold your life. Not the grand gestures. Not the dramatic turning points. But the small, daily way you grip, or release — the things you believe to be true.
What I have discovered, slowly and with a great deal of stumbling, is that there is a way to hold opposites. Not by resolving them. Not by choosing a side. But by opening the hands, literally, physically loosening the grip, and letting two truths exist side by side, without demanding that one of them disappear.
What does this look like in practice?
It looks like this: as I have grown into my healing, and rest has been the quiet, revolutionary thread running through all of it, I have watched myself begin to relax into my opinions. Into my beliefs. Into my judgments. Yes, my judgments. Because let us be honest with one another here, shall we? We are living, breathing humans. We all have them. We carry them like stones in our pockets, and most of the time, we do not even know they are there.
I think about my bicycle accident often when I sit with this. That moment of surrender, not the kind you choose, but the kind that chooses you, cracked something open in me that I am still gently exploring. It taught me that the body already knows how to let go. That the mind is the one who clings. And that is when we finally, finally stop gripping; something generous becomes possible.
Here is what I mean. Through my healing, specifically through rest, through the deep and revolutionary practice of allowing my nervous system to finally, truly settle, I have found a way to hold opposites more gently. To understand that something can be difficult and brilliant all at the same time.
That the lines do not have to be so fixed. So linear. So clean and decisive. They can be blurry and wobbly, and still be effective. They can be messy and uncertain, and still be magnificent.
And here is the part that I want you to sit with for a moment: this capacity, this ability to hold opposites without collapsing, it does not come from willpower. It does not come from being spiritually advanced or emotionally evolved or any of the other things we are told we should be working toward. It comes from having a generous reserve. From being rested. From having tended to the soil of yourself so that there is enough space inside to hold the complexity of being alive.
— Rest is not the reward for doing life well. —
It is the foundation.
When I watch the water from my corner here, I notice how it does not argue with the rocks. It does not insist on being only one thing. It is soft, and it is powerful. It is still and it is restless. It holds every contradiction with an ease that I am learning, slowly, to emulate.
So if you are someone who grips tightly, at life, at opinions, at the way things should be, I want you to know that grip is not a character flaw. It is a sign that you have not yet been given enough rest. Enough space. Enough permission to simply be without everything needing to be resolved.
Open the hands. Rest first. The opposites will find their way to each other, and you will be surprised by how beautifully they fit.
With warmth,
Sarah
