There is an important life rule that both limits and allows the Dream to express its infinite creativity.
During one meeting with my unorthodox doctor, he drew the following diagram:
He then used it to explain how the universe began.
In Stephen Hawking’s book A Brief History of Time, Hawking discusses the big bang theory – the currently accepted scientific explanation of the beginning of the universe. Even some religious communities, like the Catholic Church, now accept this explanation.
So, the ‘indifference’ line in the figure is the big bang, which occurred approximately 14 billion years ago. According to my doctor, a separation was created during the big bang which produced opposites. These positive and negative opposites – ‘dislike’ and ‘like’, and ‘hate’ and ‘love’ – can be seen in the diagram. These opposites do not work together harmoniously, even though they all come from the ‘indifference’ point in the centre. Each opposite contradicts the other.
Let’s take a look at a few more examples.
| OPPOSITES | ||
|---|---|---|
| absent abundant man to be blame bless bitter heaven heavy help happy polite possible |
..................... ..................... ..................... ..................... ..................... ..................... ..................... ..................... ..................... ..................... ..................... ..................... ..................... |
present scarce woman not to be praise curse sweet hell light hinder sad rude, impolite impossible |
My question to you is: can you have one opposite without the other? Can there be ‘being’ without ‘not being’? Can something be deemed heavy without there being lighter things to compare it to? No. Opposites can’t exist without each other, even though they’re opposites. This means, even though it may be difficult to accept, that a world with love is also a world that has hate.
Derm Barrett’s 1998 book The Paradox Process: creative business solutions…where you least expect to find them explains the creative process behind this phenomenon. It’s a must-read for its insight into paradoxes and the different thought processes behind pairs of opposites.
In life, we sometimes experience the kind of hardship that can bring us to the brink of despair. We may suffer from many different types of illnesses over our lifetimes, and at some point we all die. When we receive difficult news, our first reaction is shock, then we attempt to find meaning in it. This response may then turn into anger and sometimes violence.
Just look at the world around you and notice how many negative mental processes have manifested into negative behaviour. It’s everywhere! Now, what if I told you that such negative reactions could be avoided? Do you think it’s possible to react positively in every situation and ensure that negative behaviours don’t eventually come to the fore?
Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani activist who was seriously injured by a Taliban gunman, held on to her life, overcame unconsciousness and intensive care to become the co-recipient of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. Ms Yousafzai has also co-authored her own book I am Malala, an international bestseller, founded her own non-profit organisation, the Malala Fund, and in Time magazine (2013-15) was voted one of the most influentical people globally.
It is possible to overcome hardship and turn negatives into positives. Through our creative minds, we can transform ALL destructive experiences and create positive outcomes for ourselves and others.
In 2015, I was informed by the German government that I had breached my visa requirements, and that if I didn’t respond to their visa termination letter within ten days I’d be sent back to Australia and unable to enter Germany again for a year.
Initially, this news was heartbreaking for us. After all the work we’d put into creating a life together in Germany, it might now come to an end! We consulted our immigration lawyer, however, and discovered that there was a way I could stay in the country: Magdalena and I could marry. Now we had to face the facts: we either got married or we separated.
I found myself at a crossroads, confronted by a man inside of me. I knew who he was, but had never acknowledged him before. He was the ‘single man’ part of me, a part that didn’t want to commit to anything or anyone and was always keeping his eyes open for the next possibility. It dawned on me that this ‘single man’ was the only reason I hadn’t yet asked Magdalena to marry me. It wasn’t the German immigration department dictating terms to us – it was the ‘single man’!
The following day was a day from the gods, with the sun shining and everything sharp and clear. As we hiked up the mountain, Magdalena was fifteen metres ahead of me, and reached the top first. As I approached her, I just went for it – I got down on one knee and asked, ‘Will you marry me?’ Luckily, she said ‘Yes’!
The next week my visa deadline arrived, but something very interesting happened: Magdalena and I were handed a lifeline from the German immigration department. I was advised to fly to the UK for twenty-four hours, then return to Germany as a visitor and apply for a new visa. I was told that I wouldn’t have a problem with my new visa application.
This was a 180-degree turnaround from the letter I had received ten days before! The following week Magdalena and I flew to the UK for a day. During my new visa registration meeting in Germany, I was told in no uncertain terms that I wouldn’t be able to work while the application was being processed.
‘But I have a business,’ I pleaded.
‘No. You cannot work, Mr Kitchen, or you will be sent back to Australia.’
Now, let’s look at this situation in terms of opposites:
The negative: I received difficult news that could have jeopardised my relationship with Magdalena.
On the other hand, positives sprang from this initial negative news – I confronted and overcame the ‘single man’ inside of me, Magdalena and I would marry and hence commit to spending the rest of our lives together, and we could continue in Germany under a new visa.
The second negative: I wouldn’t be able to work while the application was being processed.
The positive: Not being able to work meant that I had time to write this book!
From one ‘negative’ letter and an unreasonable immigration officer, I had made several positive, life-changing decisions.
In every situation, opposites exist. Your task is to recognise each opposite in a situation and allow the ‘positive opposite’ to manifest.
Wayne Bennett, the most successful rugby league coach in Australian history, once said, ‘If you create a positive culture within the team, then that’s what you will have, a positive culture.’ The opposites feed off themselves: one negative thought turns into a bigger negative thought, which turns into an even bigger negative thought. Bennett tells a cherokee story about the battle between two wolves, who represent the battles inside of us. One wolf is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf is joy, peace, love, hope, sincerity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. Which wolf wins? The one you feed. ‘Which wolf are you feeding?’ Wayne Bennett asks.
Negatives can only continue to exist when they’re fuelled by negative thoughts.
Try to remember this the next time you are complaining about a situation or a person that habitually bothers you. Instead, focus on better self-care and stop giving that situation or person your precious energy. The more you complain, the further you move away from your objective – to resolve the unpleasant feelings inside of you.
The two opposites reconcile through contradictions, or paradoxes. For example:
I wanted to marry Magdalena on my own terms.
We ended up deciding to marry because of the immigration department’s visa termination letter.
I was told I could work in Germany without marrying Magdalena, but we decided to get married anyway.
In order to turn a disaster into a triumph, you must try to reconcile the opposites.
How do you do that? Well, it’s not an easy process, especially when the negatives can be so overwhelming, but let’s try.
The first logical step is to look for the positive in each and every situation where you feel only negatives exist. Please don’t allow yourself to say, ‘There’s no positive in this situation!’ There’s a positive and a negative in every situation, and you have a choice. You can either:
1.Focus on the pain and disappointment from the ‘negative opposite’, or
2.Focus on the positive and negative opposites, and allow the two opposites to reconcile and find a solution.
Remember, the opposites feed off themselves – off negative or positive thoughts. So, in order to manifest a positive solution, you must be positive, while at the same time trying to understand the reason for the negative.
When you choose to focus on and react to the positive opposite, it will grow and build its own momentum.
The Dream will not be easy at times – it may even break you. But if you can identify every positive in each situation, you are closer to achieving your dreams. Try it now in the following exercise.
EXERCISE 10: RECONCILING OPPOSITES IN YOUR PERSONAL LIFE
Describe a current personal situation that seems to be getting worse.
What’s your current opinion of the situation? Please write down your negative and positive thoughts overleaf. Be honest with yourself.
| NEGATIVE THOUGHTS | POSITIVE THOUGHTS |
|---|---|
| ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... |
...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... ...................................... |
Now, re-read every thought you wrote in the negative column. If you haven’t written a positive thought to counter every negative thought, re-evaluate that. Dig deep within yourself to find at least one positive thought and write it down in the table.
It’s time to go a step further and seek to understand the reason for your particular experience. The exercise is simple but complex (a paradox in itself!) and allows you to extract the deeper purpose of an experience.
Let’s say that currently, your relationship with your partner is in danger because both of you must work enough hours in order to pay your monthly rent. You only spend one afternoon together per month, and it’s not enough to sustain the relationship. You’re growing apart.
Here are the opposites:
| POSITIVE THOUGHTS | NEGATIVE THOUGHTS |
| You’re earning enough money to pay the rent. | Because you’re working so much, you can’t provide your partner with emotional support. |
To find the paradox solution, you must reconcile the opposites: ‘money’ must be reconciled with ‘the absence of emotional support to your partner’.
The paradox: The reason you work so hard is to create a happy life for your partner, but in doing so, you’re creating the opposite.
The middle path: Is there a way to create a middle path where a possible positive solution can be found? The middle path can be discovered by compromising the positive (earning money), and leveraging the negative (the absence of emotional support to your partner). The opposites fuse together and create a middle path.
Some middle path solutions: Is it possible to reduce the amount of work you do or the time you spend working – (a) perhaps by starting your own business with your partner – so you can emotionally support each other and make money at the same time? (b) to move to a city where rents are cheaper so that you can work less hours, or (c) if you have a spare bedroom, to sub-let it (if your contract allows) and raise the extra revenue that way?
Not only does it resolve the negative (the absence of emotional support), but it initiates a new business opportunity to achieve the positive (earning money by starting your own business). This solution has the potential to give you greater freedom in the future.
More examples could be:
EXAMPLE 2:
| POSITIVE THOUGHTS | NEGATIVE THOUGHTS |
| You dearly love your children and you want to bring them up in a loving and harmonious environment. | You are hurting your children because of your increasingly challenging relationship with your partner. |
The paradox: Through the pressures of raising children you have fallen out of love with your partner – which is negatively impacting on your children.
SOME MIDDLE PATH SOLUTIONS:
(a) could you create a childcare roster with family and friends? Thus giving you more quality time with your partner and increasing your own knowledge of how other parents raise their children.
(b) could you go for counselling with your partner and actively look for ways to improve your self-care?
(c) if you have no option but to separate, could you develop a great co-parenting relationship with your ex-partner and still have a regular family day in a neutral place together? Could this positive interaction reignite your good feeling for your ex and continue to reassure your children that they are supported and protected from negative outside influences?
EXAMPLE 3:
| POSITIVE THOUGHTS | NEGATIVE THOUGHTS |
| You would like your son to make more independent decisions for himself. | Your son is being bullied at school. |
The paradox: Because you gave your son permission to make more independent decisions, he has made some friendship choices that you don’t agree with, and now he is being bullied at school. Currently, he needs your support more than ever.
SOME MIDDLE PATH SOLUTIONS:
(a) could you speak to your son’s teacher and ask him or her to meet with your son? Maybe the teacher and your son can brainstorm different solutions together; still giving your son a sense of autonomy.
(b) could you create a coach/coachee relationship with you and your son, and ask him to resolve the problem by himself, while you stay abreast of the situation at all times? Perhaps, your son’s creativity could resolve the bullying, give him more resilience as an independent problem solver, and create a less interdependent relationship between the two of you. This will require you to take a step back and trust in your son.
(c) could you speak tactfully with the parents of the child who is bullying your son, and organise a problem-solving meeting that only the two boys attend? In the meeting, your son learns how to make positive independent decisions without his parents.
Every challenge or problem that you face is infused with an extraordinary message which has the potential to make you stronger for future challenges. In the earlier example:
The husband and wife wanted to spend more time together. Now they are business partners.
Since Malala Yousafzai has founded her own non-profit organisation, she has become an adovcate for female education all over the world, giving underprivileged women the opportunity to achieve their dreams. Not only is Ms Yousafzai stronger for her future challenges with the skills she has learnt as the head of a non-profit organisation, but the women she has helped to educate are stronger as well. Here the paradox meaning for Ms Yousafzai could be:
Malala Yousafzai wanted to help underprivileged women and childen to reach their fullest potential. But it was only after she was shot and hospitalised by those who opposed her views that she was able to elevate her objectives to a world stage.
The paradox meaning is designed to enlighten the recipient of the paradox, so they can understand why they had that particular experience, and use this valuable information for future challenges. Let’s take a look at another example. In chapter 1, I highlighted Nelson Mandela’s Original Dream Intention: to abolish apartheid in South Africa forever. He wanted to overthrow apartheid but instead he was imprisoned for twenty-seven years. However, while powerless in prison he became the best-known symbol of apartheid’s injustice, thereby hastening its downfall. The paradox meaning for Mr Mandela could be:
Nelson Mandela helped to overthrow apartheid by experiencing tremendous personal self-sacrifice. After years of isolation he became the country’s new leader, the highest profile South African in the world.
In the following exercise, try to reconcile one of the high-priority opposites you listed in the table in exercise 10, using a middle path solution. Maybe you can find your own beautiful, personal paradox meaning, and turn your negative situation into a more positive one. Perhaps you are struggling with tragedy and loss right now and it may seem impossible to find meaning in what is happening in your life. Just hold on to your hopes, and remember, as Mr Mandela experienced, some great things take a long time to happen.
EXERCISE 11: FINDING YOUR MIDDLE PATH SOLUTION AND PARADOX MEANING
What’s a middle path solution to your biggest challenge?
Can you find the paradox meaning?
If you can meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same … you’ll be a Man, my son!
Rudyard Kipling
When I ask people what they would like to achieve from life, the standard answer is: ‘I would like to be happy.’ I completely understand this goal. To finally overcome pain and suffering is a very worthwhile and honourable pursuit, but what does being happy actually mean? Does happiness mean only experiencing wonderful serene moments of peace and fulfilment?
I have already highlighted that you cannot have one opposite without the other. Two opposites that seem disconnected can actually be fused together to create a paradoxical meaning. If we follow this theory, we cannot have happiness without sadness. Therefore, in order to experience serene moments of peace and fulfilment, we must also endure moments of sorrow and grief. These two opposites are interdependent on each other. Hence, if your Dream is to achieve happiness, you must be willing and committed to experience, understand, and overcome sorrow and grief. All opposite qualities are interdependent on each other.
For instance, you would like to become the manager of your department at work, because you will receive more respect from your colleagues and customers, possibly have a greater sense of purpose with your career, and perhaps you may even get the corner office with the great view. All these objectives are fantastic, but what do you need to commit to, in order to accomplish it? Perhaps you must take on extra-curricular activities where you study at night after work for six months, or you must work in a company subsidiary for a year in Mexico. What pressure will you and your family experience when you work all day and then study for three hours a night, five days a week? How much will you miss your family and friends when you live in Mexico for a year? Yes, you will become manager of your department, but through what sacrifices?
We can reverse this process. Even though you will put strain on yourself with your extra studies, how much new information will you learn, how many new skills will you acquire, and how will you feel, when you become an expert in your field of expertise? Or when you live in Mexico for one year, while it will be hard on your family, you will also learn a language and develop a new network of friends/ colleagues/customers that you didn’t have before. This may lead to a new set of opportunities.
Can you see the interdependence of the opposities? You cannot experience happiness without its partner, sadness. They are like siamese twins, inseparable.
If you would like to find your soulmate and all the benefits that accompany having a soulmate, be prepared for moments of loneliness.
The Pursuit of Happyness is an American biographical drama starring Will Smith based on entrepreneur Chris Gardner’s struggle with homelessness, and his rise to success as a stockbroker. Chris was working as a low-paid medical equipment salesman when his wife abandoned him, leaving him to pay the family’s expenses. Although he had limited education and business experience, Chris applied for a training programme in a prestigious San Francisco stock brokerage firm. Only through using his ingenuity in impressing a partner at the firm in the back seat of a taxi by solving a Rubik’s Cube puzzle was he offered an interview, and eventually accepted in the training programme. The programme would pay very little, but he didn’t withdraw. He had a dream! He wanted to be a stockbroker, and create a financially secure life for his son and himself – something they had never had. So he began a double life. During the day he would train, and at night he would desperately sell medical equipment – even though he and his son were now homeless. After a year of stretching himself to breaking point, Chris Gardner came first in his class and was offered a stockbroker position within the firm.
Now he is the founder & CEO of Gardner Rich & Co, a private stock brokerage firm with offices in Chicago, New York City, and San Francisco. In Chris Gardner’s situation, the emotional stress of his wife abandoning the family, participating in a highly competitive training programme, and living in tremendously difficult conditions led to him becoming the founder and CEO of his own company, and creating a prosperous life for his son and himself. The facts speak for themselves. The interdependent nature of the opposites in our lives can be extremely challenging, but also incredibly powerful and life-changing.
Let’s say you have just finalised a contract for your company with a new customer. Your manager is ecstatic with your achievement, and offers you a company director position within the firm.
Is it only a positive outcome for you?
The opposites are the framework in which we live. When you are aware of the potential opposites before you enter a new situation you have the advantage of foresight to embrace the optimal decisions you can make, and avoid suffering.
Try the paradox exercise too by brainstorming and identifying middle path solutions, and thinking about the paradox meaning. This will help you to resolve any unforseeable problems.
1.Negatives are fuelled by negative thoughts. Can you find the paradox meaning?
2.You can eventually turn a disaster into a triumph by reconciling the opposites. Can you find the paradox meaning?
3.There is always a positive – and it grows and builds momentum when you focus on and react to it. Can you find the paradox meaning?
4.In a middle path solution, the positive is compromised by looking at the situation from a different perspective in order to deal with the negative. Can you find the paradox meaning?
5.Every paradox is infused with an extraordinary meaning that makes you stronger and more aware. Can you find the paradox meaning?
6.The opposites are interdependent on each other. For example, would Chris Gardner have achieved so much without the incredible pressures he had experienced?
Understanding the opposites is the most effective problem-solving technique I possess. The opposites are everywhere, waiting to disclose the hidden truths of our experiences. I don’t know why opposites are the framework of our existence, but I do know that if you utilise the opposites with as much vision as you can, no problem is beyond your creative capacity.
You have the power to make every experience not only positive, but an enlightened evolution into the future!
Step 1: Make a list of all the high-priority negatives in your life, and find their opposites (see exercise 10: Reconciling opposites in your personal life).
Step 2: Now choose one situation you have listed that you feel you have the strength and creative capacity to practically achieve its middle path.
Step 3: Fuse your opposites together, create a measurable honest action plan – with dates, results, people to engage etc – and allow your extraordinary paradox meaning to evolve by itself.
Special note: Opposites are everywhere. Become a disciplined student and look for opposites in all situations with the intention of building your awareness, and therefore create a higher positive solutions success rate in your life.