Space in Between Worlds

Between the Shore and the Waves

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The seed of this title came from a tender moment: something Babe once sent me — #youaremywaveandmyshore.
That phrase stayed with me, like a koan, whispering of the eternal dance between depth and flow, between the ground that holds us and the waters that move us.

There are thousands of books, teachers, and systems telling us how to live better, heal deeper, awaken faster. For many, this abundance becomes another source of overwhelm. Should you meditate every day? Seek therapy? Do shadow work? Read Rumi, Jung, or Eckhart Tolle? Follow Michael Singer’s The Untethered Soul or Michael Neill’s Three Principles?

It can feel like standing in front of an ocean with no idea how to step in.

I too have felt the overwhelm of too many voices, unsure which path to take. I’ve stood in front of that vast ocean of options, longing for clarity, wondering if I had to choose the “right” teacher or method. Maybe you know that feeling too.

But maybe the point is not to master all of it. Maybe the invitation is simpler: to dance.

Two Great Movements

Across psychology, spirituality, and philosophy, two great movements appear again and again — like the ebb and flow between waves and shore.

1. Transcendence / Witnessing

Michael Singer (The Untethered Soul), Michael Neill (The Inside-Out Revolution), Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now), Alan Watts — all point in the same direction: you are not your thoughts.

  • Singer says: let go of the voice in your head; rest as awareness.
  • Neill’s Three Principles approach reveals that our psychological experience is created from within through Mind (the creative force), Consciousness (awareness itself), and Thought (the temporary forms awareness takes). This understanding naturally reduces the grip of troubling thoughts.
  • Tolle urges us to step into the present moment, free from identification with mental content.
  • Watts laughs at our attempts to control or even to “do” meditation: when you stop trying, you fall into life’s natural flow.

This is the witness stance — the recognition that behind the storms of thought and feeling, you are the sky.

2. Integration / Depth

Carl Jung, Viktor Frankl, Carl Rogers, Joseph Campbell, Richard Schwartz (Internal Family Systems), and many modern therapists remind us of something equally vital: our wounds, shadows, and longings cannot simply be dismissed. They must be felt, honored, and integrated.

  • Jung called it individuation: becoming whole by bringing the unconscious into conscious relationship, not eliminating it.
  • Frankl found meaning even in suffering, teaching that purpose — not happiness — carries us through life’s inevitable difficulties.
  • Rogers discovered that unconditional positive regard creates the safety needed for genuine psychological change.
  • Schwartz’s IFS reveals how our psyche contains different “parts” — some wounded and exiled, others protective — that need compassion rather than elimination.
  • Campbell’s mythology shows how archetypal patterns guide our personal journeys through predictable stages of challenge and growth.

This is the depth stance — the work of metabolizing what life has given us rather than transcending it.

The Eastern Roots

Long before modern psychology or self-help, Eastern traditions were already mapping these same movements of consciousness.

  • Buddhism teaches that suffering arises from clinging — to thoughts, feelings, possessions, even to self-concepts. Vipassana meditation provides systematic training to see thoughts and sensations arising and passing away, not to create awareness but to reveal what was always present.
  • Zen points even more directly: don’t cling to scriptures or concepts — just sit. “What is your original face before your parents were born?” asks the same question as Singer’s “Who is it that notices the voice in your head?”
  • Taoism gives us wu wei — effortless action that works with natural forces rather than against them. Watts loved this teaching: like floating in water, the key is not to struggle against the current but to find your balance within it.
  • Advaita Vedanta points to non-dual awareness: you are not the mind observing objects. You are the consciousness in which both mind and objects appear.

These streams remind us that the dance between transcendence and integration spans millennia — carried through sutras, koans, and parables, then re-expressed by modern teachers East and West.

The Human Condition

Between these two movements lies our shared human situation, though it manifests uniquely for each person.

Certain experiences appear nearly universal among humans who have access to basic survival needs: we inhabit bodies that age and die, we form attachments that involve both love and loss, we grapple with meaning-making in an often chaotic world, and we inherit both individual traumas and collective cultural patterns that shape our inner landscape.

Yet each person’s relationship to these universal themes is utterly particular — shaped by neurobiology, family dynamics, cultural context, historical moment, available resources, and countless other variables that make prescriptive approaches inadequate.

This is why both transcendence and integration approaches are needed. Some people’s suffering comes primarily from over-identification with mental content — they benefit from witnessing practices. Others need to process unmetabolized experiences through therapeutic or somatic work. Many need both, in different proportions at different times.

Spirituality, therapy, philosophy, and art are not ends in themselves. They are technologies for relating more skillfully to the unavoidable challenges of human existence.

Echoes in Psychology and Art

This dance between transcendence and integration is not just an idea in spirituality or therapy. It echoes through psychology, literature, and film.

  • Psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman (Transcend, 2020) reimagines Maslow’s hierarchy, showing that true growth requires both self-actualization (integration) and self-transcendence (witnessing).
  • Mark Forman’s Integral Psychotherapy blends shadow work, somatic practices, and non-dual awareness into a single therapeutic vision.
  • In cinema, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972) portrays a psychologist confronting his grief on a distant planet — a fusion of cosmic transcendence with shadow integration.
  • Kim Ki-duk’s Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring (2003) shows how spiritual discipline and human frailty weave together across the seasons of life.
  • Even comedies like Groundhog Day (1993) teach us: true liberation isn’t escape, but the integration of compassion, relationship, and presence.

Art and psychology remind us that this tension is archetypal — humanity has always lived between the shore and the waves.

Art as Practice: Where the Dance Becomes Visible

If psychology and film reflect the dance, engaging with art lets us step directly into it. Creating or experiencing art naturally moves us between witnessing awareness and emotional integration, often without our realizing it.

Art as Witnessing Practice:
When we lose ourselves in a piece of music or become absorbed in sketching, we enter what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called “flow” — a state of pure presence that mirrors Tolle’s “now” or Zen’s “just sitting.” The act of creation becomes meditation: a calligrapher moving with breath and ink embodies Taoism’s wu wei. Even simple activities like mindful listening to a song or contemplating colors in a painting can dissolve our identification with mental chatter.

Art as Integration Work:
Art also offers a safe container for exploring difficult emotions. When we draw our frustration, write about our grief, or dance our joy, we’re doing what art therapists have long recognized — giving form to inner experience. This mirrors Richard Schwartz’s IFS work: instead of analyzing our “parts,” we can sketch them, giving voice to what feels unnameable. Carl Jung used mandala drawing to integrate unconscious material, finding that the circular form naturally organized psychic content.

When to Use Which Approach:
Notice what you’re drawn to in the moment. If you’re overwhelmed by emotions, try expressing them through color or movement — let art help you integrate what you’re feeling. If you’re caught in mental loops, try focusing completely on the sensory experience of creating — the texture of clay, the sound of pencil on paper. Art naturally guides us toward what we need.

The beauty is that no artistic skill is required. A child’s crayon drawing can be as transformative as a master’s painting. Humming in the shower serves the same function as attending a concert. Art invites us to notice, feel, and express — the same movements that define both witnessing and integration.

Whether we’re looking at Frida Kahlo’s raw self-portraits (integration of pain) or Claude Monet’s serene water lilies (transcendent presence), art shows us that both movements can coexist. A single song can hold both grief and peace, just as our own experience contains both shadow and light.

The Dance: A Practical Framework

So what do we actually do when overwhelmed by options?

  • Start with your current experience: What is your primary source of suffering right now? Are you caught in repetitive thought loops and would benefit from stepping back into awareness? Or are you avoiding difficult emotions that need attention and integration?
  • Notice your natural tendency: Some people instinctively want to transcend and let go. Others naturally dive deeper into psychological material. Neither is wrong, but both may need occasional movement toward the other pole.
  • Choose practices that match your capacity: A trauma survivor may need therapeutic integration work before witnessing practices feel safe. Someone drowning in analysis paralysis might benefit from meditation before more therapy.
  • Include art as a bridge: When formal practice feels too intense, try creative expression. Overwhelmed by emotions? Draw them. Stuck in your head? Focus completely on playing music or looking at a painting. Art often provides a gentler entry point to both witnessing and integration.
  • Allow for seasons: Sometimes we let go (Singer, Tolle, Watts, Taoism). Sometimes we face our shadows (Jung, IFS, Rogers). Sometimes we search for meaning (Frankl, Campbell). Sometimes we simply breathe, cry, or laugh with friends.
  • Remember the goal: The point is not to perfect yourself or achieve a permanent state. It’s to develop a more flexible, compassionate relationship with whatever arises in your experience.

Even now, I sometimes notice myself pulled too far toward one pole or the other — lost in thought, or buried in old wounds. The dance is imperfect, and maybe that’s the point.

The dance is not about choosing one path over another. It’s about developing the wisdom to know which movement serves you in any given moment, and the skill to move fluidly between them as life requires.

An Invitation

If you feel overwhelmed by the voices, the gurus, the endless shelves of self-help: pause. Ask yourself what you most need right now. Space from your thoughts? Or attention to something you’ve been avoiding?

Step outside, listen to your breath, notice a tree or a cloud. That too is meditation. That too is integration. That too is art.

The dance is already happening. You don’t need to earn it, perfect it, or understand it completely. You only need to notice where you are and take the next step that feels most alive.

📚 Resources for Further Exploration

Transcendence / Witnessing

  • Michael Singer – The Untethered Soul (2007)
  • Michael Neill – The Inside-Out Revolution (2013); Supercoach (2009)
  • Eckhart Tolle – The Power of Now (1997); A New Earth (2005)
  • Alan Watts – The Wisdom of Insecurity (1951); The Way of Zen (1957)
  • David R. Hawkins – Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender (2012)

Integration / Depth

  • Carl Jung – Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1961); Collected Works
  • Viktor Frankl – Man’s Search for Meaning (1946)
  • Carl Rogers – On Becoming a Person (1961)
  • Joseph Campbell – The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)
  • Richard Schwartz – No Bad Parts (2021)
  • Marion Woodman – Addiction to Perfection (1982)

Eastern Traditions

  • The Dhammapada (Buddhist scripture)
  • Shunryu Suzuki – Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (1970)
  • Thích Nhất Hạnh – The Miracle of Mindfulness (1975)
  • Lao Tzu – Tao Te Ching (4th century BCE)
  • Adi Shankara – Vivekachudamani (Advaita Vedanta)

Bridging & Synthesis

  • Ken Wilber – Integral Spirituality (2006)
  • Jack Kornfield – After the Ecstasy, the Laundry (2000)
  • Pema Chödrön – When Things Fall Apart (1996)

Psychology & Contemporary Synthesis

  • Scott Barry Kaufman – Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization (2020)
  • Mark D. Forman – A Guide to Integral Psychotherapy (2010)
  • Polly Young-Eisendrath & Melvin E. Miller (eds.) – The Psychology of Mature Spirituality (2000)
  • Michael Kyle – Identity, Transcendence, and the True Self (2016)
  • Ellen Emmet – Authentic Movement: Embodied Witnessing of Transpersonal Experience (2023)

Art and Awareness

  • Julia Cameron – The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (1992)
  • Shaun McNiff – Art as Medicine: Creating a Therapy of the Imagination (1992)
  • Alain de Botton & John Armstrong – Art as Therapy (2013)
  • Clarissa Pinkola Estés – Women Who Run with the Wolves (1992)
  • Natalie Rogers – The Creative Connection: Expressive Arts as Healing (1993)
  • Barbara Ganim – Art as Spiritual Practice (1998)

Films

  • Solaris (1972, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky)
  • Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring (2003, dir. Kim Ki-duk)
  • Groundhog Day (1993, dir. Harold Ramis)

🌊 In the end, it is not about becoming perfect, enlightened, or free of shadow. It is about learning the dance — between awareness and depth, shore and wave, stepping back and leaning in, brushstroke and silence. An unfinished, beautiful, very human dance.

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