The magic of expanding and collapsing - honouring both

What are your thoughts on "expanding and collapsing"? 

What experiences or pictures do you associate with those words? 

Well, about seven years ago my own life as I had known it literally collapsed. I was taken by surprise and not prepared for the many exhausting experiences that followed. 

Today I understand the need for collapsing and the magic that it holds. Infinity exists and there is infinite expansion, with points of collapse.

Throughout my Tamalpa life arts training we practiced those sequences through movement: expand and collapse. It is part of life and natural cycles. Have we forgotten to honour those?

Recently, I learned a qi gong exercise where I was reminded of how collapsing leads to a period of rest, transformation and gathering energy. It is a crucial point for the expansion that follows. When we allow that natural process, an effortless expansion unfolds. 

Every time we let go and "collapse" we repeat that cycle. Rest, gather energy and naturally expand.

The beautiful aspect lies in the "effortless and natural expansion". 

It feels like we don't have to do anything as the energy will move us into the expansion. 

I realised how important it had been for my own transformational process to experience many collapses in my life.  

It turned out to be an inner and outer battle. My inside impulse was to create space for myself to heal and go inwards. The impulses coming from the outside were  attempts to continue to control my life.

It was a journey to discover who I am rather than who people wanted me to be and who I had been programmed to become by our society (family, school, TV etc.).

The balance of Yin and Yang allows us to honour different aspects of existence, energy and life. 

Yang is the busy, doing and active male energy. Our world runs on that. Yin gathers the energy, is restful and I would say wise. The female aspect. Our world gives no space to rest and recover or tap into our wisdom. 

However, both energies are equally needed and none is more or less valuable than the other. 

I recently understood how important it was for me to go through that "Yin period" over the past years in order to learn to honour it. Any attempt to go into expansion while body, mind and soul were still in need of resting and processing, was a fruitless attempt. 

Yet, once I had learned to honour expansion and collapse and the necessity to balance Yin and Yang, that "natural and effortless expansion" started to unfold. 

Throughout that transformational process, I let go of many people in my life. A lot of relationships "collapsed" and others expanded in a natural way. 

We seem to have been programmed to believe that we have to keep expanding: economies, businesses, bank accounts, cars, homes etc.

I am sure we all still remember the collapse and absolute standstill that our world experienced in 2020.

Certain political figures talked and still talk about a "re-set", with an attempt to maybe dictate the expansion.

However, any expansion that is not unfolding in a natural way but forced upon us in whatever way will not last. There are many recent examples where we saw the collapse of really big businesses and enterprises.

Maybe you have also heard about Google's Gemini AI project. It seems clear that it was not expanding in a natural and healthy way.

Could we say, that there was a "collapse"? Will we see a slowing down in that area? Unlikely, at least for the moment. Will there be more collapsing? I am sensing that there will be.

Where in your life do you feel things might have been or are collapsing? Have you given yourself time to grief, heal, rest and go inwards? Can you honour the magic that such an experience can bring if you give it time and space and a certain level of consciousness and awareness?

Are you in an expansion phase? Is it unfolding naturally and effortlessly or are you trying to force the expansion? 

Coming up next: The magic of letting go. So, stay tuned...

Have a magical week!

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