We find this type of dilemma playing out in many settings where we have to defer gratification. We save for our child’s education rather than purchasing a home that will please us as a couple. We have decided to offer employee bonuses rather than increase payment into an employee retirement plan. These are not matters of polarities, per se, they concern sequencing and deferment. They also concern a powerful motivating force that I will consider shortly. This motivator is Regret. We are likely to find guidance in our attention to that which is the Essence of the system in which we are operating. It is in our ongoing consideration of Greater Purpose (which Johnson emphasizes) that we are likely to find the courage and guidance for addressing an inevitably painful dilemma.
Mysteries: I turn finally to the most challenging issue of all. Mysteries “leapfrog” over polarities with regard to elusiveness and deeply felt challenge. Mysteries are never “solved.” They are not even “managed.” Rather, we sit back and observe mysteries playing out in our life. This can be the mystery of a self-centered teenage grandson turning into a thoughtful and caring young adult. It could be the remarkable Esprit-de-Corps that suddenly emerges when our company is faced with a major crisis (such as the COVID-19 virus). It can also be the sight of women and men leaping from a fire-engulfed office building on 9/11. We try to make sense of what has occurred and wonder how we might have made a difference—but come up with no satisfactory answer.
What we can do is focus on how we manage our own emotions (and cognition) in reaction to the mystery. While the mystery is founded in an external locus of control, our own feelings and thoughts reside in our internal locus of control. We can apply processes that I identified and described in previous essays in this series. These processes are Allostasis (Sterling, 2020) (which concerns the way our body operates) and, more broadly, Polystasis (which concerns how we relate to our world) when addressing the challenge inherent in a mystery. We can modify our baselines and our predictions about what is about to occur inside our own body and outside in the world where the mystery is taking place. Our subsequent actions can then be engaged in an appropriate manner—based on enduring values (Essence). We can share our appreciative appraisal with a maturing grandson or with our Esprit-de-Corps colleagues. We can find ways to assist those who are grieving the loss of loved ones after 9/11. We adjust yet also endure in our fundamental commitments (Essence).
Polarities: we might now ask what a polarity looks like if we wish to differentiate this type of issue from the other types I have identified. Johnson (2020, pp. 217-222) offers a list of six ways in which polarities “show up”:
- Polarities emerge as a value or set of values . . .
- 2.Polarities show up as resistance based on a fear of something that could happen . . .
- Polarities show up as one or more action steps. . . .
- Polarities show up as a complaint or a complaint combined with a solution. . . .
- Polarities show up as a vision or cream for a preferred future. . . .
- Polarities show up as a conflict.
This list illustrates the breadth and rich insights associated with Johnson’s model of polarities. Several features of this list stand out (at least for me). First, we find polarities showing up out of both a very positive perspective (values, preferred future) and a negative perspective (fear, complaint, conflict). It also shows up when actions are being taken. Given these diverse ways in which polarities show up, I wish to focus briefly on the nature of these ways as related to the matter of contradiction as it is transformed to an integrated whole via the Lens of Essence.
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