Imbalance

by Linda

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... whatever you say or do is "wrong", never enough, never right, appropriate, or what is expected.

As it acts in the world, the Tao is like the bending of a bow. The top is bent downward; the bottom is bent up. It adjusts excess and deficiency so that there is perfect balance. It takes from what is too much and gives to what isn't enough.

What does it mean I wondered when whatever you say or do is "wrong", never enough, never right, appropriate, or what is expected. When what is inside must be hidden because to reveal it would invite ridicule or cause relationship problems with others. When a role is learned, acted, copied, to fit in, never natural because the natural is hidden, atrophied, unborn, area and faculties unused - this is my "self" a narrow social construct that must be defended from within and without in a self-perpetuating cycle of repression and neurosis.

Everything I said or did couldn't logically be "wrong" or unacceptable but my idea of "self" was not congruent with the social reality around it, consequently the range of expression was stultified. Logically I had to change. Although I've used the word "logically" this is only after reflection and the whole process seemed anything but that. I had to let myself change - to let this false "self" that caused so much anguish disappear - a difficult process when contradictory impulses were to preserve and defend my own narrow insecurities. I'd always thought ahead wondering how "I", this male persona, should behave in a given situation because all I knew was I'd never felt like one - (whatever that feels like!) I could never let anyone surprise me or catch me off guard otherwise my mental "female" closet might come tumbling open. How to exist like that? It was impossible without profound imbalance that ruined every social relationship, created endless worry and made the world a hell. I had to shift my shape to one that had one thing above all others - "balance".

What did balance mean? It meant initially giving things up. Giving up old forms of behaviour and patterns of thought. It felt like a weight lifting off my mind. I knew there would be consequences, social ramifications, embarrassments, problems, but what has to be will be - sigh. Emotional change, getting used to myself, admitting who I was and accepting it, meant that intellectually all my received ideas on gender, sexual preferences, role, gesture, style of dress and so on became less fixed. I could use these more freely to express the natural "real" person/s I had always been that had been bound hand and foot by these discourses.

Gradually, but with increasing strength, just being not trying to be, reflecting, breaking old habits, something new appeared in my life. I was at ease with myself, "I" liked this "self" and so other people found they could get along with me. Something that had been there all the time making me angry and frustrated manifested itself now in a positive manner. It wouldn't be denied but softly insists on its basic right to exist and act in the world, because with balance comes - harmony.

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