What is wholeness? Wholeness is reflected in the range of human experiences one is truly free to embrace. Among these are happiness, sadness, fear, bliss, anger, compassion, humor, courage, tenderness, ferocity, receptivity, assertiveness, love, hate, intuition, rationality, practicality, and idealism. These are but a few of the many facets of being human. Yet few of us express them all – and we may balk at experiencing certain of them.
We are all born with a potential for wholeness. Yet from childhood on, we are trained to narrow our range. We are taught by our families to limit how we think, act, and express ourselves. We are shaped by peer groups, norms, gender roles, and stereotypes. As a result, we end up exercising a smaller set of options.
For instance, traditionally in our culture men are taught to be logical, strong, and silent, and not to express feelings like fear, hurt, and sadness. Women, while taught that feeling is okay, traditionally are not encouraged to exercise their full range of rational or intellectual capacities.
Whatever our history was, we each ended up specializing in certain human qualities, but not others. Some of us excel at verbalizing and reasoning. Some are emotionally expressive. Certain people are hard-driving and assertive. Some are soft and yielding. Some people specialize in a single feeling state – happiness, sadness, fear, or anger. Others seem barely to feel any emotion at all. What do your specialties tend to be?
The card WHOLENESS reminds you that parts of your full potential as a human being are still calling out to be expressed. Take those so-called masculine and feminine qualities. In fact, each of us was born with the potential to express both sets of qualities! Regardless of one’s gender, to be fully human is to be both rational and feeling, active and receptive, hard and soft, practical and intuitive.
We do not have to give up part of our human heritage just because of past training. The card WHOLENESS invites you to look within, and awaken parts of yourself that may have fallen asleep long ago. No matter how you were trained in childhood, the full human potential remains your birthright!
The primary way you can learn to expand your range is through your relationships. We are all different, and it’s not mere coincidence that one partner so often excels in just those areas where the other seems lacking. Your partner, in how they are different from you, gives you a great opportunity to increase your range of expression – if you open your mind, open your heart, and move beyond the impulse to reject that which is different. You can learn from your partner about qualities that you underexpress. You can then develop your own unique way to express each of those qualities. This is how we learn new ways of being – through others who are different from us.
Of course, it is not necessary to become completely whole before you can have a healthy relationship. But, by dedicating yourself to the path of wholeness and embracing differences, you will deepen your capacity to experience happiness and fulfillment in relating.
By John Grey, PhD