Living a full-spectrum life.

Ooh, friend. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on this one...

One of our son’s (homeschool) projects this year was to write the history of his life so far. It was a BIG project --- part photo-book, part autobiography. He spent months working on it —hours choosing photos, writing about moments of his life, and designing the entire (150-page) book through Canva. His book is beautiful, and I will forever treasure it.

But as we sat together to proofread it one day before sending it to print, and I noticed myself flinch a little every now and then.

You see, it wasn’t just a happy highlight reel.

It showed the full spectrum of his life. The joys and the sorrows.

It definitely included the especially good times —the vacations, the legos, the bike rides, the new house, the love, the family, the fun with friends. But it also the hard times — the broken bones, our house getting broken into, the sadness of moving from the home you’ve always known. The grief, fear, loneliness, and loss.

And I just kept thinking to myself: wow.

What struck me was how real it was.

How honest.

How whole.

How all-encompassing.

So why was I flinching at it? As his mother, there were parts that (at first glance) I had wished he hadn’t included. There’s a part of me that wants to erase (within him) any of his childhood memories that aren't happy.

But of course our life is so much more than just the good stuff.

Our life stories are filled with ups and downs. The full spectrum is what makes life all that it is.

It’s what makes us all that we are.

And I'm so grateful for how he and his book reminded me of that.

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This has had me contemplating the Chinese concept of yin-yang lately.

My understanding of it is that yin and yang represent complementary, interdependent opposites (e.g., dark/light, feminine/masculine, passive/active, cold/hot), and we can’t have one without the other.

The good times. The bad times.

The joys. The sorrows.

The ups. The downs.

They are not so much in conflict, but in dynamic balance —and the interplay drives change and harmony in the self and the universe. They are an indivisible whole.

We can’t know one without the other.

And, according to Alan Watts, we wouldn’t want to. :)

Jon and I love to listen to old Alan Watts lectures. In them he talks about Taoist concepts a lot. On the topic of experiencing both good times and bad, he’d often say something like: we’d never want to just be sitting around, eternally blissed out in heaven —- it would simply be too boring! Without change, challenge, or the “bad” to define the “good,” nothing would stand out or feel meaningful. The up and down nature of life is the game we play. The dance we dance. Accepting the whole dance brings freedom.

In his talk Meditation and Flow, Alan says: “You simply cannot have a continuous experience of life in which everything is completely bad, or an experience of life in which everything is completely good. But we are under the illusion that that could be arranged, and it gives us a great deal of trouble being under that illusion… When you stop trying to force only the “good,” you begin to flow with the natural vibration/rhythm of existence.”

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Every time I’d hear him say something along those lines, I would feel myself relax a bit more. It would remind me to hold space for the full-spectrum. To relax, soften, and surf the waves.

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So… full-spectrum living.

That’s what we’re exploring together this week, friend. Sensing, be present with, and surfing the waves of life. The ups and downs, highs and lows. We’ll feel whatever we feel, and dance through it all.

Thoughts, friend?

• Does any of it resonate?

• Do you ever finding you wish you could erase unpleasant memories?

• What do you think about the idea of we can’t have one end of the spectrum without the other?

• Do you think back about your past, and how it has shaped who you are today?

• Do you ever hold back feeling not-so-pleasant feelings? Or, alternatively, hold back feeling pleasant feelings? Do you allow yourself to experience the full-spectrum of your life?

• Do you allow yourself to share your full-spectrum life with others? Are there times when you stick to sharing the highlight reel? Or, alternatively, the lowlight reel?

As always, I can’t wait to see what we discover. See you soon

Much love,

💛 Dani