Tweet

Play with Your Dark Side

Written by: Jing Jin

Article Overview: It is the unity of the light and the dark, the positive and the negative charges that underline the brilliant intelligence of the universe. This is true in our business life as well. How can we unify these apposing energies that hold our infinite capacity for creativity and joy? Reflecting on my own experience, I find it helpful to incorporate several paradoxical ideas into my life.

Play with Your Dark Side

We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. -- Tao Te Ching

2009 rushed into 2010. After a fun trip to Boston for the holidays, I found myself exhausted and a bit depressed. “Why?” I asked. I had a phenomenal 2009: accomplished most of my goals, in a wonderful relationship, living a purposeful life, yet I was not feeling it completely. “What is going on?”

Over the years, I have learned to ride the tide of my rhythms. So I let myself crash, sleep, slow down, and feel... I let myself go. When I finally come out the other side, I feel an incredible surge of creativity and see a much wider and refreshing horizon. “Wow!” I say to myself. “This is amazing!”

I always believe my body is pretty intelligent. It often tells me things that my mind has missed. This time it was telling me that there is a “forest” beyond the “tree” if I only allow myself the time and space to feel it and see it.

In business, we are trained to set goals and achieve them. And that was what I had been focusing on. I focused on making the pot, but I forgot it is the emptiness inside that holds what I want. Yes, I achieved my goals, but I forgot to play and have fun with the creative process. No wonder I was not feeling complete and whole.

In yoga, I am taught to unify the ying and yang – the feminine and the masculine energies. It is the unity of the light and the dark, the positive and the negative charges that underline the brilliant intelligence of the universe. This is true in our business life as well. How can we unify these apposing energies that hold our infinite capacity for creativity and joy? Reflecting on my own experience, I find it helpful to incorporate several paradoxical ideas into my life:

The dark: We all have a dark side. Freud called it the unconscious. It contains a deep reservoir of intelligence and creativity way beyond the grasp of our conscious mind. Highly creative people usually are well versed with the languages of their dark sides. Most of us tap into only a tiny portion of it. Often we are afraid of letting those unconscious thoughts surface into our conscious mind, for the fear of believing them to be our reality. So they remain in the basement. If we learn to relax our gatekeeper a bit, we may get comfortable with the idea of inviting them out for a couple of tea, and having an interesting conversation. Given practice, you’ll be amazed how much creativity and insights flow from that deep well.

The lazy: There is a natural rhythm to everything in the universe. When we get too caught up in achieving our goals, we may ignore it and fight it, which may lead to stress and frustration. Sometimes it is healthy to simply be. Do nothing, and let our well be replenished and rejuvenated.

The different: Most of time we are on autopilot. We form habits for mundane tasks so that we can have freedom to focus on the more complex problems we want to solve. This is extremely helpful, especially when our habits are healthy ones. Another paradox: I find it useful to deliberately break my patterns from time to time. Try something new, go to a new place, or do the same thing a different way. It may give you new perspectives and stimulate new muscles you have not yet developed.

The whole: Navigating in life is like sailing on the ocean. If we only stare at the view 20 feet in front of us, we may completely miss our horizon. It is important to focus on our immediate goals and activities. And it is also very important to look up and around once a while. What we see and how we see it is often a result of where we stand. When we change our angle of perspective, we may see a quite different picture.

In his book “A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age,” Daniel Pink predicts that the Conceptual Age (led by people who use both sides of their brains) will be the next revolution following the Industrial Age (led by people who use primarily their left brains). I agree with his theory. Our world is undergoing some major changes, which demand that we change and adapt as well. According to Darwin, it is not the strongest, nor the most intelligent species that survive, it is the most adaptable.

Surely we can consciously adapt and prepare ourselves for the changes ahead.

Related Articles
  The Dark Side
  Check Out the “Dark Side” or Personality when Hiring or Promoting
  The bright side of coupons: How coupons can get customers buying more with you.
  The Search for Perfection - How it Can Ruin Your Sales Efforts
  The Philosophy of Responsibilities in Workplace Relationship Building

Article Tags: balance, Business, creativity, harmony, spirituality



Related Forum Posts
Willing to Fail Your Way to Success - Entrepreneurs in my opinion, must be willing to fail. (This is that risk-taking factor quoted in the other post). If you aren't willing to fail then you don't take risks and if you don't take risks you do I like to call (I am qouting an awesome book called Play to Win!) 'Playing Not to Lose' instead of 'Playing to Win'. When you Play to Win you must risks. Risks are how you build a business and innovate.
Re: Did you reach your goal this year? - I finally realized the subconcious mind achieves LARGE goals just as easily as small goals. All the RIGHT people are now showing up to manifest my BIG GOALS now. It's been interesting and worth sharing. [Side Note: Be prepared for them when they come. Some ppl think it's too good to be true.] Take it anyway....
Entrepreneur TV Shows - Thanks JWGM - I love Venture - it's a great program as well! I've been watching it for years! Is Squeeze Play on at any other time? I'm not usualy by a TV at 5pm. I'd love to learn more about this show.
Re: Which movie will make the most money this summer? - I would be inclined to say The Dark Knight expecially here in Australia, it has received alot of positive feedback and with the recent misshap, this has added extra publicity and critical reviews, i would say this would be the winner. Steven Hayes SEMRAY Pty Ltd
How does one suggest improvements to inventions - and get paid for them? I'm sure people write in and complain and suggest new features for various things they buy... and if those changes are implemented that's all well and good, but the person who made the suggestion for the improvment isn't going to get paid for it. How does one suggest these improvements - and get paid for them? ----long story One of the best things the PC did (at least, Dell) was to color code all their little plugs, so you know that the green plug goes into the green hole, the pink into the pink, etc. Makes setting up those things a heckuva lot easier! I was thinking that the same thing should be done for today's TVs! I've had a new TV for a few weeks, set up next to my computer because I like to work and watch TV at the same time. But I've got it set up in such a way that I can't see all the little buttons on the top of the screen, which are the buttons for Stop, Play, Eject (for the internal DVD) , the Volume up and down, and the Channel up and down. Of course, that wasn't a problem when my remote control worked, but for some reason it stopped working a couple of weeks ago. (Yes, I replaced the battery - no good). Since I have the TV so close to my computer it's no problem, I can reach out and touch the buttons... But because they're all the same color, I had to actually get up and look at them to make sure I was pressing the right button. I've solved that problem by attaching a bit of yellow paper to the Play button, and a bit of orange paper to the Volume Up button. Makes things a lot easier...


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Selling On Ebay The Good The Bad And The Ugly

Executive Blind Spots

Top Ten Home-Based Businesses

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.