Coexisting and not disowning

 I think one of the trickiest things in one's spiritual practice is not demonizing or trying to disown one's various tendencies, but instead to consider them as part of a larger ecosystem. If there is something in particular that one doesn't like about themselves, how might they see that in a way that is compassionate of all? I remember reading something by a psychiatrist who talked about the kinds of suffering that people often went into because their desires weren't accepted in the greater community. Rather than condemning those people, he felt compassion for them, and was able to see that desire lies on an emotional spectrum rather than a kind of polarity.
   What's interesting about this is that it positions desire as a gateway to compassion. If we don't suffer or go through the ups and downs, we hardly have a basis for relating to others or for being able to see the wildness (and beauty) of all things. This is why it can be sometimes useful to stop judging emotions and just see them for what they are, even relaxing with them.
  Of course, suppressing what a person feels is also detrimental because it ends up creating inner turmoil or conflict. Paradoxically, it is only when a person stops fighting with these things that they lose their power over a person; in a sense, they become more clear to the person and one can start to ask, what does this desire want of me? What is it asking me to explore that is unresolved, or what kinds of discomfort is the desire asking me to become a bit more comfortable with? Sometimes there is no actual grand "finale" moment when a desire reveals some key meaning to life. Moreso, the desire might have been tricking a person all along into thinking that fulfilling it would bring about some major transformation or overnight success; in fact, what it was doing was putting a person on a journey of learning about oneself and how they react toward different things, including frustration. I consider all of this as an opportunity to co-exist with all one's emotions and tensions.