When I was about six years old, my parents took my sister and me to the North Carolina State Fair. I begged my dad to take me into the Haunted House, a run-down, single-wide trailer filled with actors covered in fake blood and props designed to startle unsuspecting little kids.
Just a few seconds into the dark, shadowy hall of horrors, I became terrified. The visceral sensations in my body went from zero to a hundred in an instant. Everything seemed absolutely real and dangerous, and I screamed out for my dad to pick me up and hold me.
As he cradled me on his chest, my eyes squeezed shut and my head nestled into his shoulder. With my dad's arms wrapped around me, those visceral sensations in my body, along with the wild stories of terror in my mind, began to settle. I relaxed, knowing I was safe in his arms.
As we strolled past the various screaming monsters and chainsaw-wielding demons, I could hear my dad chuckling lightheartedly. His shoulders and chest bounced up and down with each little burst of laughter.
My dad, of course, was able to laugh his way through that sketchy Haunted House because he knew it was all made-up. He understood the concept of costumes, props, and noise machines. He knew that in no time, we'd walk through the exit door and back out into the glorious North Carolina sunshine. His experience of the Haunted House was a simple product of clarity.
Similarly, my experience of that same Haunted House was the simple product of confusion. My visceral sensations of terror reflected my innocent belief that I was unsafe; that something awful was about to happen.
I was in confusion and my dad was in clarity.
Nothing was going wrong in either case.
Both clarity and confusion were simply experiences arising in the moment. They were equally trustworthy and equally transient.
That's how this amazing dance of life tends to work for all of us.
In one moment, we are lost in the world of thoughts, stories, and beliefs. We are mesmerized and hypnotized by labels, judgments, and concepts. We buy into the movies our minds play, and we notice our bodies tense-up in tight contractions of insecurity and fear. Everywhere we look, our insecurity is confirmed.
And in another moment, for no reason at all, we find ourselves in clarity. Suddenly, Life feels lighter, freer. The sky looks blue again and there is a sense of "all is well." The body feels a bit more relaxed and expansive. There is a glimmer of sunshine within. Possibilities we could not have imagined before are abundant now.
It's the perfect Dance: Life gracefully arising as a contraction and then, with a simple curtsy or bow, morphing into a moment of expansion. Confusion, clarity, contraction, expansion.
Perfection.
Our only suffering in this majestic Dance is that we misunderstand it. We take it personally. We revel in the moments of clarity and expansion, imagining (hoping!) they will last. And then we wrestle with the moments of confusion and contraction, trying desperately to figure out where we went wrong. Why did they "come back?"
We humans have innocently learned to expect that somehow, once we experience clarity and expansion, we will never fall back into confusion and contraction.
We hope and pray that, this time, the clarity and expansion will somehow "stick." We try to reverse-engineer its arrival. Was it something we read? Was it a podcast, a song, a particular food? Was it the good night's rest or the walk on the beach?
And why wouldn't we do this? The experience of clarity feels so good. We feel closer to the truth of who we really are. Life seems so much freer.
Then, when the contracted experience of confusion arises, we, in our innocent misunderstanding, try to figure out why it returned. We berate ourselves for allowing such a thing to happen. We hide our contracted, confused state from others, as if it was personal; as if it meant something about us. We feel defeated. Lost. Dejected.
But, what if we could consider that BOTH the experiences of confusion AND clarity are essential?
What if BOTH the experiences of contraction AND expansion are equally trustworthy and intelligent?
I like to imagine a bow and arrow. When the arrow is pulled back as far as it can go in the bow, there is great tension in the bow. It is tight and, in a sense, contracted. Then, in the perfect moment, the arrow is released. The potential energy in the bow's tension is what allows the arrow to go soaring forward and upward.
When we understand the perfect rhythm—the trustworthy Dance—between contraction and expansion, confusion and clarity, we tend to soften and relax around all of it.
Confusion is no longer a problem. It's simply how Life happens to be arising in the moment. It's temporary, fleeting, and trustworthy. We don’t make confusion or contraction arise any more than we make clarity or expansion arise. Life simply arises as one. And then the other. Again and again. A perfect rhythm.
These days, when I am caught in a mountain of thought, lost in confusion about what is true, stable, and real, I no longer panic. There is a deep and abiding trust for the experience of confusion now. There is a respect for its essential part in the Dance.
Tension and fear in the body are no longer seen as villains to be fought or kept at bay. They are as integral to expansion as the bow is to the arrow.
The next time I find myself in a real or metaphorical Haunted House, I will have whatever experience I have. I will be terrified or lighthearted. I will be full of tension or pleasantly relaxed. I will scramble to secure myself or I will find myself in a state of utter peace. I will feel contracted or I will feel expansive. It won't be up to me.
What a releif. Nothing to secure. Nothing to fight for or against. Nothing to hold in place or keep at bay. Nothing to figure out or solve.
Just Life, lovingly arising as clarity. And then as confusion. As contraction. And then as expansion.
What a breathtaking Dance.
“Life is amazing. And then it's awful. And then it's amazing again. And in between the amazing and awful it's ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That's just living. Heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary Life. And it's breathtakingly beautiful.” --L.R. Knost