08/09/2026
I have always been good at untangling knots.
When I was young, I read a story about someone who could untangle any knot, and I decided I wanted to be able to do that too. To this day, I can’t remember finding a knot I couldn’t eventually work loose.
Today, while thinking about shadow work, weaving, relationships, and Becoming, I realized I may have been practicing a metaphor for much longer than I knew.
We often talk about shadow work as bringing light to the places within us that have remained hidden. Light moves freely until something interrupts it. An object blocks the light, and behind it, a shadow forms.
But lately I’ve been thinking in threads.
And in a woven life, perhaps some of our shadows look like knots.
A thread encounters tension. It doubles back. It gets wrapped around another strand. Something pulls. Something tightens.
Eventually, movement becomes difficult.
And what happens when we encounter a knot?
Our instinct is often to pull harder.
Explain more.
Try harder.
Hold tighter.
Fix it faster.
Push through.
Make the other person understand.
Make ourselves understand.
Get back to where we were.
But anyone who has spent time untangling knots knows:
Pulling harder often makes the knot tighter.
To untangle something, we usually have to stop applying force.
We create a little slack.
We look closely.
Where does this strand actually go?
What is it wrapped around?
Where did the tension begin?
What happens if I loosen this piece?
Which strand is mine to move?
And sometimes we discover something else:
Not every knot needs to be untied.
We tie knots on purpose.
Knots join things.
Knots anchor things.
Knots repair broken threads.
Knots can mark promises and intentions.
Knots can hold something together that we have consciously chosen to keep.
The goal, then, cannot be a life without knots.
The work is discernment.
Which knots bind me?
Which knots hold me?
Which knots did I inherit?
Which did I tie myself?
Which once protected me but now restrict me?
Which join me to something I value?
Which are mine to loosen?
And which aren’t mine to untangle at all?
And then I realized something else.
Tension isn’t the enemy either.
You cannot weave without tension.
Without enough tension on the warp, the fabric loses its structure.
You cannot play a stringed instrument without tension. Too little and the note falls flat. Too much and it goes sharp—or eventually the string breaks.
I played timpani when I was younger. A timpanist changes the tension of the drumhead to change its pitch, sometimes repeatedly within the same piece of music.
There isn’t one “correct” tension for the entire symphony.
The correct tension depends upon what the music is asking for now.
The same is true when we exercise. Resistance creates the conditions through which a muscle becomes stronger—but resistance beyond our capacity can injure rather than strengthen.
Machines use tensioners because systems function properly not when tension is eliminated, but when it is continually adjusted to appropriate levels.
Again and again, the same pattern appears:
Too little tension and the system cannot hold its form.
Too much tension and the system begins to distort or break.
Appropriate tension allows energy to move.
Perhaps that is true of us, too.
Difference creates tension.
Boundaries create tension.
Growth creates tension.
Choosing one path instead of another creates tension.
Loving another autonomous human being creates tension because connection does not erase separateness.
Discomfort, then, is not always evidence that something has gone wrong.
Sometimes tension is information.
The question becomes:
What is this tension doing?
Is it giving structure?
Is it producing growth?
Is it protecting something important?
Is it asking for adjustment?
Is it concentrated around an old knot?
Is the system adapting—or slowly being damaged?
Maybe the answer isn’t always to endure more.
And maybe the answer isn’t always to escape.
Sometimes the answer is to tune.
This is where all of this comes home for me to the practice of Becoming:
Awareness: Notice the thread. Notice the knot. Notice the tension. Notice what is actually happening before deciding what it means.
Alignment: Ask what belongs to you. What matters? What are you protecting? What are you trying to create? What tension can you sustainably hold?
Embodiment: Make the adjustment that is yours to make.
Loosen.
Hold.
Repair.
Tie.
Release.
Rest.
Speak.
Listen.
Play.
And then return to Awareness, because the system changed when you touched it.
Perhaps coherence was never supposed to mean a perfectly smooth tapestry without knots.
Perhaps it doesn’t mean a life without tension, relationships without conflict, or music without dissonance.
Coherence is our capacity to remain in relationship with reality—to notice what the pattern is becoming and respond intentionally to the strand that is ours.
We cannot control the entire tapestry.
We cannot play every instrument in the orchestra.
We cannot untangle another person’s strand for them.
But we can become increasingly skillful stewards of what passes through our own hands.
And perhaps even repair deserves a different image.
When a thread breaks, sometimes we tie it back together.
The knot may remain visible.
The tapestry will never again be exactly as it was before the break.
But the knot can say:
Something broke here.
Something was tended here.
Something was joined here.
And the weaving continued.
Healing isn’t necessarily becoming knotless.
Growth isn’t becoming tensionless.
And Becoming isn’t arriving at some permanently tuned version of ourselves.
It is learning to listen.
To notice when something has gone flat or sharp.
To recognize when pulling harder is only tightening the knot.
To know when we need more resistance and when we’ve reached our present capacity.
To distinguish the knots that bind us from the knots that hold us.
To recognize when the music calls for our sound—and when it calls for a rest.
Because a rest is part of the music, too.
Awareness listens.
Alignment tunes.
Embodiment plays.
And then we listen again.
Because the tapestry is still being woven.
The symphony is still being written.
And we are still Becoming.
