From Other to I
This is not so new anymore, not for myself nor for many others, but I am still curious about the mechanisms behind it - and it is always fresh each time it comes up as well.
When something comes up as an "other" and a disturbance, one way to approach it - maybe the only really fulfilling one - is to go fully into it. To fully experience it. To ask Can I be with what I am experiencing right now?
As long as we try to push away any of our experiences, we add suffering on top of whatever the experience itself is. And through this struggle, we also tend to make it all more persistent. It wants into the warmth, we barricade the door, and it only knocks harder.
By allowing ourselves to more fully experience it, we also break down the perceived barrier of I and other. The experience, which initially seemed to be completely "other" and unwanted, now gradually becomes "I". And in the process, the suffering softens and falls away.
The added suffering - created by resistance - falls away. The experience itself tends to transform as well - it is now free to flow and transform again. And the energies and qualities in it, previously "other" and inaccessible to us, are now revealed as "I" and accessible in our lives.
Of course, this is one aspect of the whole process of developing a sense of I, then gradually include more and more in this "I", until everything - beyond and including all polarities - is included, and we see that there is no "I" inherent in any particular aspect of what is. Or rather, that there is not any more "I" in any particular segment than in any other.