“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” —Henry Ward Beecher
In art the negative and positive spaces do not exist individually in a vacuum. They work together to create a whole picture. The same is true in life. Our positive and negative experiences do not exist alone. You cannot know one without having experienced the other. Together, these experiences, if we use them to create the scene, shape who we become. They also teach us how to respond to situations in our lives. We learn from a negative experience to find a positive, and from a positive experience how to use it to work through the next negative experience.
This does not necessarily mean all is black and white. When we take a step or two back in order to see the entire scene, we notice there are nuances, softness at some of the edges, the negative and positive blending from one into the other. This allows us to see how these opposites work together to complete the scene. Like Yin and Yang completing the circle.
By only recognizing the negative I will always react and respond in a negative manner. When only recognizing the positive, I am not allowing myself to understand that disappointments in life occur, and may not know how to appropriately respond to the situation.
When seeing the whole picture as such, we are able to weigh the pros and cons in our decision making processes more objectively, at the same time reflecting on our experiences so that we can make the best decision for ourselves at that time.
By paying attention fully to our experiences, we notice the nuances, the hard and soft edges, the blending of one experience into another, we add, layer by layer, to the painting that is our life, a self portrait of who we want to be in the world and begin to live in truth.
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