Welcome to Love Notes from Rhonda.

And the other day I was answering somebody's question about paradox.

And I woke up the other day and realized that I never really answered the question fully.

Oh, I talked about black and white and gray and I didn't get to the heart of what paradox truly is.

So I'm going to answer it now because it's really important that we all know what it means, what a paradox means.

So this is what a paradox means.

It means that both sides of the story are true.

So let's just take a very easy paradox.

A paradox is, let's say that you want to be wealthy.

And so you say to yourself, well, I don't want to be poor, I want to be wealthy.

In fact, the paradox is, is that you have to be willing to be poor in order to be wealthy.

You have to be okay with whatever your money situation is, whether it's wealthy, middle class, poor.

Again, whatever it is you have to be okay with.

See, if you're only attempting to be wealthy because you can't stand being poor, then you're only operating out of one side and you're actually being driven by fear.

Now you can totally wanna be wealthy and not really interested in poverty.

Yet poverty isn't what is the frightening thing, right?

I mean, I know it sounds frightening for you if you don't want to have poverty, yet poverty in and of itself doesn't bring shame, doesn't bring heartache, doesn't bring suffering, necessarily, right?

It doesn't bring low self esteem, it doesn't bring lack of love.

That's not what lack of money brings.

So I just want you to hear again what the paradox really means.

The paradox is that two opposing things are both true.

So I want to be rich.

Well, in order to be rich, I need to embrace poverty, I need to embrace poor.

I want to be in love.

I want to be in an intimate relationship.

I must embrace being willing to be alone, right?

So those are paradoxes.

When you are in a loving relationship or want to be coupled, which is awesome and wonderful, you know, wanting to be coupled, wanting to be in a loving, intimate relationship, you also have to be okay with being alone because then you bring your full self into the relationship.

If you can't stand being alone, don't want to be alone, then you're only bringing a part of yourself into that relationship because you're getting into that relationship because you don't want to do something, right?

So you know how we talk about expectations and intentions or complaining and gratitudes.

Let's Use that.

Remember, we don't do in fearless living, we don't say, quit complaining.

We say, instead, focus on gratitudes.

We don't say, quit beating ourselves up.

We say, what do we say?

We say, focus on acknowledgments.

So we don't want to quit doing something or stop, quote, unquote, doing that thing.

Now, I understand you may want to.

I'm not talking about every single thing in all the world.

Like, you may say, well, I want to cut back on my sugar.

I want to cut back on my sweets.

Totally get that.

Totally get that.

Yet the sweets are not the problem, right?

The sweets in and of itself are not the problem.

They're just a, you know, vehicle.

They're just the fear response.

Right?

They're just the.

The way they show up.

Right?

So I want again, say what a paradox is.

A paradox is when two opposing forces actually are in agreement.

They both are true.

And so if you can live in the paradox, if you can live in, oh, I want an intimate, loving relationship and I'm going to be okay being alone, that is true freedom.

Because you can, you can live inside that whole spectrum, the whole scale, right?

So if you can, only if you only want one part of the scale, the other part of the scale pretty much guaranteed is going to come into your life because you can't avoid life.

You can move towards life, but you can't avoid life.

So again, a paradox is wearing two opposing things.

Both are true.

Things that don't seem.

How can they both be true?

How can I?

If I want to be rich, why do I have to embrace poverty?

Well, if I want to be in a loving relationship, why do I have to embrace being single?

Well, that's the paradox, isn't it?

So I want you to have the full wholeness experience.

And living in paradox is a very spiritual experience.

When you are spiritual or when you embrace spirituality or when you embrace that part of you, all of you can show up.

You know, the part of you that wants to be wealthy, the part of you that is wealthy, the part of you that is poor, the part of you that is okay with being poor, the part of you that wants to be in relationship, the part of you that wants to be single, all the parts of you can show up and not just the part that you want.

Because again, we don't want to run from anything.

We don't want to avoid anything.

Sure.

We want discernment.

Sure.

All those things are true.

Yet that's the paradox, right?

So paradox is having two opposing forces appearing to be, you know, on the opposite sides of the coin, but in fact, they're one and the same.

So that's the paradox.

I want to be in a loving relationship, and I must be perfectly fine if I'm single the rest of my life.

I want to be incredibly wealthy.

I want to be a millionaire.

And how do I find peace if I have nothing?

That is how you find true freedom.

And, yeah, you can still go be a millionaire, and you can still go have a relationship.

And I want you to be free.

No matter what you choose, I want you to be free.

Until next time, be fearless.

I love you.