The Waltz of Duality
Are the dirty, ugly, messy parts of the human experience just as worthy of love as the tidy, shiny, fresh parts?
A powerful scene cinematic expression of “mental illness” , judgement, human duality and the impact self-acceptance and forgiveness can have on a healing journey. (If profanity bothers you then better to skip this clip.)
A seminal work by Dr. Richard Schwartz on using The Internal Family Systems Model to heal trauma and restore wholeness through gaining understand of the dualistic nature of parts of our personality and how they are functioning to protect or care for us in some way.
This piece is a follow up to my last reflective share, Paradoxical Musings. If you haven’t already, it may be beneficial to read this piece first as I will be building on the ideas which incepted there.
As I have shared before, I have been in graduate school to become a mental health counselor for the last two years. During this time, I have been exposed to many therapeutic theories and modalities for “treating mental illness”. (I put this in air quotes, purposefully as pathologizing certain aspects of the human experience as a sickness to be eradicated or fixed is an ethos I hold skeptically as a clinician in training). Some modalities of therapy feel very aligned while others feel cold and sterile, forcing a binary way of addressing the most multifaceted part of the human experience, our mind.
I’ve shared here a clip from one of my favorite films, Silver Linings Playbook. If you haven’t seen it, I’d highly recommend it. It is filled with dark humor, loving connection, heartbreak, and a rawness around mental. health that drew me into wanting to explore more about mental health care. This specific scene offers an interaction between the two main characters, Tiffany and Pat. During a heated argument between them about judgement and “socially appropriate ways of being and behaving”, Tiffany states,
“There’s always going to be a dirty and sloppy part of me, and I like that. Along with all the other parts of myself. Can you say the same about yourself, f*ker? Can you forgive? Are you any good at that?”
Thirteen years later since this film first came out, I still think about these words. Asking myself the very questions, Tiffany asks Pat. Do I like all the parts of myself?
Can I forgive the parts of me that are messy and dirty?
Am I any good at self-acceptance of these parts of myself?
During my studies the last two years, I have been introduced to Dr. Richard Schwartz’s work Internal Family Systems model or more commonly known as IFS parts work. When I began reading about IFS, I immediately heard Tiffany’s words about her dirty and sloppy parts rising hot and true through my ears.
The basic framework of IFS is that we all have internal parts which have arose to play a functional role in our mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, and relational lives. These parts are not the authentic Self as Schwartz calls it. They are like personality software that was installed in our mind throughout our life to protect the Self and help us survive.
These parts often present themselves in maladaptive behaviors and patterns functioning to help suppress, manage, and protect the wounded parts of ourselves, called exiles. These exile parts are often very young and frightened parts of ourselves which are starving for love, compassion, care, and acceptance they may have desperately needed but never received earlier in life.
I have found great resonance with IFS for exploring my own inner landscape and beginning to address the dualities within myself. What I find most empowering about parts work is the goal is not to get rid of a seemingly “maladaptive part” but to be curious and open to getting to know this part and how it has and is serving to provide care and support for you. Then in getting to know the part we are able to accept it and show love to this part of ourselves.
This duality of a part being capable of both providing care and harm to me is fascinatingly challenging. When an addictive, angry part of myself comes up and makes me have a compulsion to be harmful to myself in some way physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually, my initial reaction to this part is to label it as “bad” and want to reject it. But IFS can facilitate a curiosity for when this part first came into awareness and why? This is a dance of duality to gain understanding and integration of all the parts of myself as worthy of love and my caring attention.
*Disclaimer* IFS is a therapeutic modality that should be facilitated by trained mental health clinicians to assist clients with processing parts work within a therapy environment. This blog is not an endorsement that IFS is a mental intervention which meets the needs of all individual’s mental health conditions. If you are interested in IFS, please consult with your mental health provider especially if you have experienced any form of trauma as intentional trauma-informed care should be taken to support your healing journey.
The spirit-spoken poem below is inspired by my own internal journey with duality as well as observing it in the world around me. Accompanying the poem are photos and artistic responses from the natural world of how duality is waltzing with me and around me, everywhere I go.
The WALTZ OF DUALITY
Duality of the Human: The image above is a card based in IFS’ parts work from The Inner Active Cards by Tom Holmes, PhD and illustrated by Sharon Sargent Eckstein. These cards were introduced to me by a professor during grad school and I have found them a powerful tool to highlight the duality of my inner world.
Traveling East
Setting sun at my back
Engulfed in last embers of a Western fire sinking into the night
The canopy of trees above me
Embracing a careful delight
Homeward bound
Dreaming of a future painted with light
Hoping the words will come
Envisioning the days unfolding just so
Practicing a concise and clear way of life
Recognizing the way of stewardship guided by the Divine
Hearing the call again and again
Inspired by artistry that flows through me not of me
A freedom I could have only dreamed of
Lifetimes of desiring to soar
Knowing the wings were just underneath the surface of a brittle humanity.
Bounds unseen but felt for generations
Seven behind
Seven to come
Firmly in the middle of a chain meant to be broken
Flow through me each step
So cleanly illuminated
As I may be the conduit for change which has propelled generations
Here and now a shift felt rippling through all lines
Awakening this moment and the next
Each a choice to move forward
Towards a dream which feels more like reality than any other day on Earth
Will you beckon the call?
Duality of Art: Nature blossoming, growing, and feeding while entangled in the barbs of human creation. Art credit: Erica Peto entitled Beauty and the Beast, 2019.
It’s simply Divine out here
In the open waters of possibilities
Swimming in the blackness
Knowing there is no way but through each moment woven together with precision and limitless span
Will you come along?
Inevitably laughter comes through
Of course, I will
One way or another
In one being or the next
Obsessing about now
A funny human way of pedaling a wheel less bicycle of existence.
Come on,
Let’s keep going.
Won’t that be fun?
Yes, And
Duality has it’s place, always
Two sides to the same coin
Duality of the Senses: The 2019 film, the Sound of Metal explores the interplay between grief and loss of love and meaning when the physical and mental body experience unexpected change. This clip specifically holds the energy of duality observing how the main character, Ruben, who just chose to have cochlear implant surgery to try and restore his hearing, is simultaneously experiencing pain and hope from his decision to have the surgery. When life deals great pain, doing and running from the pain is natural. But to sit with the pain, what can be found on the other side of the stillness?
So there will be pain
But my VTA is the only differentiator
So I won’t bother trying to figure out each experience so in depth
Or I probably still will but the suffering will cease when I return to her arms
A warm embrace of the setting sun once more
Knowing this step and the next can be the same and oh so different
This is the beautiful dance of paradox I will learn in this life and the next.
Round and round,
Again and again.
A stone being polished by the hands of time,
A pearl being created through grits of experience,
A canyon being formed by storms of destruction and creation,
An orchestral cacophony of ways merging under lightning and sun rays.
Duality of Nature: A card entitled, A String of Support from the Wild & Well-being card deck by Vanessa Bear. This card features an image of elderberries. The elderberry tree holds duality as its’ berries provide nutrients and immunity benefits while its’ branches can be easily hollowed of its’ white pith. The dichotomy of simultaneous emptiness and fullness of the Elderberry plant in its’ different parts, mirrors the experience I often have of prioritizing holding space to support others with nourishment while hollowing myself out when I don’t pour that same nourishment back in.
Melting and making an existence forged from fire and time
It’s enough for One
While simultaneously being required for all
The tumbling of timing will take us all to the same end
But from there the paths will diverge again
Not completely sure why
But that’s the not the point
The limits of logic do not govern this space,
Love does.
And for sentient beings most can agree logic and Love do not dance to the same tune.
The octaves higher,
The cadence faster,
The rhythm smoother,
Love hums in a realm of its’ own.
A visceral connection felt,
Never meant to be explained.
Logic and love do dance in duality, of course.
This is the human way.
Let’s go,
Board the train of trying to figure it out
Again and again, it’ll be one hell of a ride,
That’s guaranteed
If you made it this far, I appreciate the time and energy you took to engage with this piece. May you find gentleness in holding space for the multitudes of dualities which exist within yourself and the world at large.
With gratitude and love,
Erica