Something that took me a long time to understand:

Anything we expend effort to separate ourselves from, we become bound to. Until we decide to welcome it again.

If that sounds like a load of​ taurean fecal matter​—or perhaps to some, even gobbledygook—that’s because normally I explain my point before I make it, but then I couldn’t have added in this confusing second sentence. And, you know, that would be less fun.

But that’s enough lollygagging and dilly-dallying for today, time to get to business:

It’s a strange thing, and yet it’s true.

When we try to avoid something, we tend to create it.

When we try to position ourselves as against something, we tend to become it.

When we try banish something from a space, the entire space becomes of that nature.

These are strange claims, and I mean this in a practical sense, not necessarily a spiritual one, so let’s have a look at each of them, through examples.

Opposition to a Norm

When we take a stand against a norm, it can feel like we are distancing ourselves from it.

But in reality, we are connecting to it more deeply.

Let me show you the process in its simplest, most abstract form:

1) Look around at what the norm is in society.

2) Disagree with it.

3) “I’m not going to be like that.”

I’ve been there many, many times. It was a persistent pattern for me. Through my writing, I also naturally attract people who feel this way.

But here’s the thing, it’s an illusion:

To decide “I’m not going to be like everyone else“ is to decide to actively let those norms dictate your life.

This can be a bit confusing at first, but think about it:

In a group of “normies” (and I mean that in a non-derogatory way), some people are blindly following the norms. Other people are making authentic choices that happen to follow the norms. This can happen for many reasons:

Because following norms is authentic to them (​a core value​).

Because their authentic choices coincidentally align with most norms.

Because they just happen to agree with those specific norms intrinsically (they’re “normal” people).

Because they do question them but have the humility to know they don’t have any better suggestions.

Note that none of these situations mean the person’s life is dictated by the norms. None of them are blind followers.

However, if you decide “I will never become like that, normal, boring, wrong, [other adjectives you associate with consensus culture]“…

…then you are blindly following the norms! Just in reverse.

You are connecting deeply to the norms, perhaps more deeply than your neighbor Ned Flanders who’s just an intrinsically normal guy. Your every action is ruled by the existence of the norms and the decision not to follow them.

If normies would all adopt the way you dress, you would change your style to something else, because you don’t like it anymore (this happens to counterculture over and over again).

To try and avoid being “brainwashed by normal society” is to be actively brainwashed by it, but in reverse.

The only way out is to welcome the fact that norms are just culture and you can make completely independent choices, some which will align with cultures you otherwise dislike, some which will align with cultures you have more in common with.

(Side note: This is also the only way out of the political polarization loop. People try to get out of the loop by saying “everything’s nuanced”, but that’s polarization too. It leads you to never align with anything that’s not nuanced, even if the reality would, in fact, not be nuanced.)

Avoiding a Feeling or Situation

A similar inverted connection happens when we try to avoid a feeling or situation.

The process is the same: If we truly want to avoid something, we can only do so by keeping a very close eye on it.

There’s no way to avoid your neighbor, Ned Flanders, without paying close attention to him to make sure he’s not home when you leave the house.

There’s no way to avoid anything without doing the same to it.

And when I say “avoid”, I mean actively avoid as an intention. You can, of course, avoid Ned Flanders by moving away from him.

So just to make the distinction clear here:

If you eat healthy and in moderate amounts, you will ensure that you don’t get overweight. This is not active avoidance, it’s not “avoiding weight gain”, it’s “staying at a healthy weight”.

If you obsess over your weight and diet, you may not gain weight either. But you will have the experience of someone with weight issues. Because every change on the scale will impact you emotionally.

This is active avoidance:

You didn’t gain the weight, but you are deeply connected to what it’s like to have too much weight. You have the same relationship to the weight you have.

A highly common example that’s similar is trying to avoid rejection by not risking it: Every time you choose not to risk it, you are effectively pre-rejecting yourself, thereby creating the rejection you try to avoid.

But this isn’t limited to how things feel, it also applies to how things actually play out.

Let’s say, we are somewhat insecure and think people don’t like us, so we hide.

What’s the natural outcome?

Less social interactions. Less clarity for a group on who you are, and as a result, less signals of belonging.

Some people who are insecure themselves might even think you don’t like them, misinterpreting your distance as disinterest.

And just to be clear, I’m not saying hiding is bad. I quite enjoy a good hide. What I mean is:

Anything we expend effort to separate ourselves from, we become bound to. Until we decide to welcome it again.

Those were small clear examples, now let’s give an example of how this scales:

As a kid, I witnessed a lot of abuse of authority and abdication of responsibility from the authorities.

So when I was a teenager, I mistrusted all authorities by default. I was highly paranoid of them. Worried they’d wrongfully persecute me, misuse their power and let real perpetrators off the hook.

All of that happened, over and over again, year after year. I ran into the most ridiculous situations with the police. Things you just wouldn’t believe if I told you. Being held for crimes I didn’t commit, etc.

But why did this happen?

Because my general paranoia towards them and fear of persecution made me behave in ways that mapped to their patterns of “person who is guilty”:

I would actively avoid them. I would behave defensively or argue with them. All of this made me look odd and suspicious.

Then, I would tell them the truth in the interrogation room, and of course they would assume I was lying. Why not? I was a guy who had resisted arrest and shown not to like them in any way? I was a clear suspect.

And so what would they try to do? Abuse me until I told whatever they thought the truth was.

Me trying to avoid abusive or incompetent authorities actually, physically, set into motion a chain of events that consistently attracted that very experience through my behavior.

Many things are like this. It’s hard to overstate how many things are like this.

When we are needy, we repel the people we need most. When we are worried about our finances, we mess them up. When we tell ourselves “one drink only”, we’re connecting to twenty. And when we say “ok but I want to make 1 thing clear, this is not a date”, we fall in love.

Aversion Is Connection

One of my favorite, more advanced or ​Authentic Relating ​games is called “Attraction and Aversion”.

You play this with a group of people who feel comfortable with edginess, and all it involves is this:

1) Go to someone you feel attracted to. Have a conversation together exploring why and checking impact.

2) Go to someone you feel an aversion to. Have a conversation together exploring why and checking impact.

3) Repeat.

One of the things I learned from this, is that aversion towards a person is just another example of inverted connection.

For example, if someone spends their days rage-commenting on the posts of an influencer they disagree with, or actively going to Nickelback music videos and trashing them, they have a deep connection to those people.

You can’t convince me that’s not true. Because most people simply would not invest their time in pursuing those interactions. To do so is connection.

Spending your days thinking “I wish this person didn’t exist” is spending your days focused on them. Your opposition to that person creates your identity in the same way as your love for another person would.

This is an inverted connection. The difference between inverted connection and disconnection is that in a state of disconnection, you wouldn’t be thinking of them at all. You’d just be doing your thing.

We Become What We Connect With

We become what we connect with, and that counts for inverted connections too.

The essence of many things is the opposite of what they appear.

And by that, I don’t mean “it’s always the opposite”, I mean, many times it is—because of inverted connection.

Last week, I wrote about how ​shamelessness is energetically the same as shame​.

A similar trap I fell into in the past is trying to maximize my freedom.

When you try to maximize your freedom, you are actually creating constraints.

You are robbing yourself of the freedom to do anything that would make you feel “less free”.

There’s a lot of things you lose the freedom to do because of that. There’s a lot of magic in commitment that you have no access to when you freedom-maxx. ​Freedom isn’t free​.

Freedom isn’t free in the same way that shamelessness is actually same. And safe spaces are anything but safe.

How does one make a safe space safe?

By suppressing anything that would threaten it!

Wait…how do you do that? By making the space unsafe for the threat, of course.

It’s no coincidence that woke, a movement about liberating people from systemic oppression, became a remarkably oppressive system itself.

That doesn’t mean it didn’t do any good. It’s a necessary force in the world, and it exposed serious issues. Still, it became what it inversely connected with, too.

In myself, I noticed that, the period when I most actively tried to avoid manipulation is when I unknowingly acted most manipulative.

That may sound confusing. But it’s because all our choices and behaviors make an impact on other people whether we want it or not.

If we decide not to make choices that intend to create a certain impact (manipulation), our subconscious mind will make the choices for us.

We’ll still subtly manipulate (even by trying to be innocent, we manipulate! innocent people can trigger a caretaking instinct), we just won’t be aware of it.

The only way out of that loop? Welcome the existence of it. Disconnect from it as a concept.

(For example: I can notice my intentions and reveal them to the other person. Then there is no difference between manipulation and honesty anymore. The signal is clear. Or I can notice my intentions and ignore them entirely. But to do so, I must admit they are there.)

Here’s how that process works:

To Disconnect, Transcend it

The intention to oppose ourselves against something, or to avoid something, is of course, not wrong.

Avoiding avoidance would just be double avoidance. Opposing opposition would be double opposition.

There is no way out of this loop from within it.

The way out is to recognize the nature of the connection we are making.

If the connection is inverted, we must seek its opposite, welcome both sides and reconcile them. That’s the way to find a perspective where the inverse connection disappears and the connection becomes a clean choice.

Are we inverse-connecting to hate?

Then what we want is to connect to love. If we deeply connect to love, we’ll naturally either love those who hate, or not be concerned with them.

Are we inverse-connecting to toxic authority?

Then what we want is to connect to mature, sovereign authority. And if we deeply connect to it, we’ll see that authority is about the choices we make in response to the situation at hand—that by focusing on the authorities who don’t do their job well, we are not doing ours well, because we are energetically handing our authority to them.

Are we inverse-connecting to a certain influencer?

Find out what it is about them that turns you on (yes, emotional responses are arousal). Why do they infuriate you? What sense of satisfaction does raging against them give you? What can that teach you about what you want, and how can you connect with that desire?

What is it about their perspective that you struggle to reconcile with your worldview? How can you update your ​map of reality ​to include their territory without having to agree with it?

It seems to me that opposites intrinsically want to be reconciled.

And in a sense, they already are. Opposites only exist in connection to each other. Without each other, they disappear.

If conspiracy theorists would succeed at eliminating the illuminati, what would they do with their career?

So when you connect to one, you do connect to the other.

The only question is:

Are you connecting to it consciously? Or unconsciously?

The former gives you access to awareness and clear choices.

The latter is letting it rule your life from the shadows.