Evan One and Evan Two: A tale of spirituality and sexuality
Is this you, too?
I am two in one, twenty in one! Perhaps you are as well, as multiple aspects of yourself vie for expression.
Et tu?
But for convenience sake, let’s keep it simple, Evan One and Evan Two.
For example, Evan One enjoys lofty conversation, and hummus; Evan Two loves him some sex.
If it’s sexual, that’s probably Evan Two. Evan Two used to be Evan One — for oh so many years — but One is more dominant now. Evan Two still likes looking at photos of naked women — wait, Evan Two wants to step in here . . .
E2: Likes? Loves! Women are natural and beautiful, and naked even more so. Back to you One.
E1: See what I mean? Two still likes flatulent humor.
E2: Loves.
E1: (sighs) God, our nine-year old probably prefers Two.
E2: Except when he’s been bad . . . you’re more understanding.
E1: Zane is never bad, he just–
E2: Thanks for double making my point there, One.
As I evolve, what I was fades while what I aspire to become moves to the foreground. Though there used to be battles for supremacy with dramatic turns of direction — meditating on a lawn in stinky clothes after an all-night fling at sensual abandon — now it happens more smoothly.
It flows organically, this personal evolution, the way power change does in a democracy when one party gives it up to the other (and then brays from the sidelines). It flows because One doesn’t dislike or disown Two. One, over time, simply gets more attention — because One is where the growth is — and Two eases to the passenger seat.
In The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, Debbie Ford encourages us to embrace our dark side, that there we will find wholeness. It’s a way to integrate light and dark without a bitter divide.
Listen in as she tells of her own juicy epiphany:
I was at a Leadership Intensive seminar led by a woman named Jan Smith. In the middle of the seminar, I was standing up in front of the group speaking when suddenly Jan looked at me and said, “You’re a bitch.”
My heart sank. How did she know? I knew I was a bitch, but I had been trying desperately to get rid of this part of myself. I had worked hard to be sweet and generous to compensate for this awful trait.
Then, dispassionately, Jan asked me why I hated this part of myself. Feeling small and stupid, I told her it was the part of me that caused me the most shame. I said that being a bitch had only brought myself and others pain.
Then Jan said: “What you don’t own, owns you.”
I could see how being a bitch owned me, I worried about it all the time, but I still didn’t want to own it.
“What is good about being a bitch?” she asked.
As far as I could see there was nothing good about it. But then she said, “If you were building a house, and the contractors were running over budget and were three weeks late, do you think it would help to be a little bitchy?”
Of course, I said yes.
“When you need to return merchandise in your business, does it help to be a bitch at times?”
Of course, I said yes. Jan asked me if I could see now that being a bitch at certain times was not only useful but a great quality to possess if you wanted to get things done in the world.
Suddenly this part of myself — which I’d tried desperately to hide, deny, and suppress — was set free. My whole body felt different. It was as if I had just dropped a hundred-pound weight from around my neck. Jan had taken this aspect of myself and showed me that it was a gift, that it was not something to feel shameful about. If I allowed it to exist, I wouldn’t have to act it out. I would be able to use it, instead of it using me.
After that day, my life was never the same.
One and Two (and Three and Four and Seventeen) are not even lightness and darkness, for me . . . it is greater and lesser. One is the greater self now, Two is of lesser interest now. But the idea of integration — a spirituality that revels in sexuality . . . and can also go full nine-year old when it wants — that is a wholeness worth living!
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