MY YEAR OF PARADOXES — Part 2

EMBRACING CONTRADICTIONS

Andrea Neiman
Sep 7, 2018 · 8 min read

I entered 2017 thinking it would be a foothold to my place of well-deserved joy and peace. Instead, I realized it was more like a footnote, a reminder, that I wasn’t “there” yet. I’ve always believed that everything happens for a reason and in perfect, universal timing. But we, humans, can’t possibly comprehend the magnitude of what is available to us — the dreams we are capable of living. Sometimes our inner child or the maturing adult gets the best of us, and during moments of discomfort when is the right time to have the things we want. The limited part within that fears we may never really get our “fairy-tale” thinks that NOW is when we should just get what we can. In the midst of the lessons that make us realize we need to stop acting with entitlement, we come to realize some hard truths that are delivered to us in the most contradicting ways.

The abundance of paradoxes that year made it difficult to embrace some of the more joyous moments experienced. It felt like they were interfering with “my happy place.” This forced me to understand that happiness is more about my stage of mind (temporary place of choosing) vs its state (easily influenced by feelings). My need to analyze why things were or weren’t was what was actually interfering with my ability to choose acceptance with the knowledge that I wasn’t settling but rather surrendering to the process. Understanding that the brain goes through stages of interpreting information is more valuable to honor than giving into a temporary feeling that almost always leaves my mind spiraling before I can re-shift my focus.

Each time a door opened a new space to discover the path to it felt less lit. I felt like the light at the end of the tunnel was moving farther away as the answers became more elusive or silent. If I felt an opportunity of expansion, I’d smoke it out with some degree of control to understand it. I’d inadvertently use old tools to explore in efforts to get to that “aha” moment or a resemblance of peace that I felt years prior. I felt I had gone too far in my spiritual journey to just leave that moment alone without deeply understanding why that moment came to be. But I learned that moments can actually be just as random as the people that come to create them. My previous theory that things happen for a reason was being threatened. The truth is, some things are meant to be (destiny) while others are just happenstance (free will). You gain incredible power within when you can identify the difference.

In learning the following paradoxes I got to appreciate and accept what is, and isn’t, and that attempting to understand it all actually takes away from expanding on my wisdom.

1. Give power to not giving up my power.

Becoming a spiritual adult is more than just talking about what you’ve learned, it’s actually living it in a very focused, discreet, and decisive manner. Some call it being the impeccable adult. Training my brain to not turn my feelings into thoughts came hand-in-hand with this. After spending half a decade integrating spirituality with my busy Silicon Valley, Corporate America life (I kind of want to rinse my mouth a dozen times, now), the lessons graduated to opportunities to do things differently. This eventually guided me to trust my gut and to accept “the not knowing” feeling. The only way to achieve this was ultimately by letting my heart REALLY guide me all the way. It was a transfer of exercising one muscle more than the other.

“Your strongest muscle and worst enemy is your brain. Train it well.” — unkonwn.

I wrapped up the year learning how to consciously decide which thoughts to give power to and which to allow to pass through me. This was easier said than done for a perfectionist who has always rested on her laurels in dissecting each and every thought. Unfortunately, this old habit kept me in a perpetual loop of not accepting that certain things, as impractical or unnecessary as they may seem, are what they are. Trying to always understand “what is” only kept me in a mental cycle that usually lead to self-judgement.

One can actually choose their mind’s focus in order to get to inner-peace through a state of allowance. It’s mostly about focused intention and less about actually maneuvering the outcome, and works best when you find yourself over-thinking. But that’s the trick, being aware you’re expending too much energy analyzing and choosing in that moment to change your behavior. The second hardest part is to keep practicing the new method.

Training the brain to turn negative thoughts into positive ones used to feel to me like I was taking a shortcut, shortchanging the spiritual process of learning why I was triggered so that I can cut to the core of the issue. But there comes a point in one’s growth where it’s no longer needed to understand the why (for some, the “why’s” were never necessary to understand), and it becomes then more valuable to learn how to accept what is. In my case, I had learned enough about triggers and their reactions. It was enough knowing that old perceptions are adopted out of what is learned to survive.

2. Work taught me how to play.

This year goes on record as being the busiest for work travel and overall career development. I’m surprised I still managed to accomplish the personal things I wanted to take care of this year, including being coached for public speaking. While many hours were spent working, they were hours spent in play.

Children are considered to be better students than adults because of how open they are to receiving lessons. They harness their creativity and freedom of exploration to allow new information to influence them. They don’t fuss with how the unknowns threaten their very existence. That doesn’t happen until they are repeatedly taught to worry and build a wall. But, much like how children see life as one big giant playground — exploring how to communicate with parents to learn how to get the things they want, building friendships to experience companionship, and becoming good students to understand the meaning of purpose — I allowed my work to become my playground so as to only help me see at a micro level how to live a fun life.

I chose to perceive adversity at work as a chance to do things differently — to experiment, extract findings, absorb them, and often times not make any conclusions until my gut felt it had collected enough to respond. Then and only then I could extract the meaning of that moment, but it required total trust in self and absolute surrender. The more I practiced (played) the more I mastered it. The important part was to have fun through it all even if I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing.

Whoever says you can’t mix business with pleasure just doesn’t believe they can do both well while coming out of the playground unscathed.

3. Life changes me not so that I can change it.

They say riches can be measured in how much you see the world. But it’s not what you witness outside that makes you wealthy, rather the wisdom to know that you carry that same abundance within. Often we visit new places to break from the monotony of our daily lives in hope and in search of growth, a semblance of positive change.

I traveled with my sister for two weeks through Portugal, Northern Spain, and the south of France by car. I witnessed a culture that wasn’t at all foreign to me but yet fostered a renaissance of survival. Being Love got me through this trip. Talk about being put in the throws of learning how to live with someone in close quarters who you carry a lot of history with. I had learned up to this point that love heals all things and transcends all things. But I hadn’t had a chance to fully put this into action where I thought that being in unknown territories would surely keep things peaceful. But there were triggers, alright!

While Love helped me conquer all the unpleasantries, I was still left wondering why I had to go through any of it in the first place, why my world didn’t reflect my internal changes, and what I did wrong to still attract such circumstances.

When I returned, situations back home hadn’t changed either. I realized that no amount of personal transformation is going to guarantee that the world changes with me. The spiritual path isn’t for anyone else but me. A domino affect always takes place as a result of personal growth, but expecting that it happen as a form of compensation to invested spiritual growth was missing the point of the journey.

4. My vulnerability is my bravery.

It’s human nature to protect oneself by constantly walking around with a sword and armor, ready for the next attack. But when I learned to love my way through adversity, I realized that’s when I was the strongest.

Returning home from Europe proved to be difficult because of what was awaiting for me at work. Same key players with the same attitudes and the same outcomes. I had the chance to see what being vulnerable could really accomplish and witnessed miraculous transitions in others as a result of my risks. I had tried to convince, educate, and lead some very head strong characters in directions I felt were in the best interest of my department. And while that may have been so in some cases, it wasn’t my job to get them to those realization. The only chance of my seeing authentic changes was for me to lead with my own authenticity.

“Silence and a smile are both powerful tools. A smile is a way to solve many problems. Silence, a way to avoid many of them.”

Who would have thought that in Corporate America, you can win in business by showing your cards? I certainly didn’t. “It never worked for me in the past so why would it work now?” I always thought. But that was just the problem. I was expecting new results with old tactics. I realized saying very little got more ears to listen.

5. Hope for more, but expect nothing more.

When I set out to soul search in late 2012, I had started with a promise: to never suffer again. I didn’t know how to achieve this, but the intention had been set. Since then I learned that the root of all suffering is expecting people to respond in ways you think they should react. 2017 taught me the fine lines between hope and expectations. You don’t realize that you expect a certain outcome until you feel disappointment over the situation. There’s nothing that can be done to avoid this very human quality. But what is in our control is ensuring not to stay stuck in it.

6. The less I try, the more I do.

Part of growing up is understanding that less is truly more. We work things to death but reap very little of the rewards of such expended energy. We chase love to get love. We buy things to feel richer. We work harder to earn more money. We just don’t stop to smell the roses. Sometimes taking a break gives us more clarity than hustling our way through. My best and fastest work was when I spent more time in silence feeling my way through a project versus mindlessly working away its various problems.

“Simplicity is the greatest form of sophistication.” — Leonardo da Vinci


The past year I just simply stopped working so hard on learning and allowed myself to BE more fully by choosing change. Through my work I learned to play and through travel I learned it was safe to be vulnerable at all times. My year was a balancing act that eventually found its equilibrium and gave way to the unknown so that the known could come to me.

“Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.” — old proverb.

Andrea Neiman

Written by

Marketer @netline_corp. Owner/Photographer | CADAFOTO.com. Love is my home, the world is my orpheum, and I, the muse.

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