Two Things Can Be True

I've been experiencing a lot of seemingly conflicting emotions lately. They seem to fluctuate several times throughout the day. It can be confusing at times. It makes me question how I really feel. But now more than ever, I have come to realize that this . . .

Two things can be true.

Especially during particularly emotional times like transitions, we naturally feel a wide range of emotions and think any number of seemingly opposite thoughts about our situation. Because we are in between. Stuck in a space between what is no longer and what is not quite yet.

While some transitions are widely recognized, such as graduating from high school or college, having a baby, getting divorced, changing jobs, moving, retiring, etc.

Others are sneakier.

We might be moving right along in our routine when we begin to feel a little nudge. A little whisper that something feels off. Something isn't quite the same anymore. You don't feel the same as you've always felt. This happens in many, many settings and situations.

Take parenting for example. Even from the early sleep-deprived days of infancy, our children were growing and changing at an unbelievably fast rate. You might be chugging along with your nice comfortable sleep routine when BAM, it gets completely turned on its head. It continues on through elementary years, teenagers, and parenting adult children. I can admit looking at my son one moment swelling with pride and amazement, and then he says something snarky and I want to punch him (I mean obviously I don't). Parenting is really a series of transitions—just as you adjust to one stage, another begins.

So back to my original statement of two things can be true. . .

We can feel love and frustration

We can be overjoyed and terrified

We can be devastated and excited

We can miss what was while looking forward to what's next.

We can feel incredibly strong and incredibly vulnerable.

We can be healing and still hurting.

We can know we made the right decision and still grieve what we lost.

We spend so much energy trying to decide which feeling is the real one, as though one emotion has to cancel out the other.

But that's not how being human works.

You don't have to choose between gratitude and grief, hope and fear, peace and uncertainty.

They can sit beside each other.

Two things can be true.

And perhaps giving ourselves permission to hold both is one of the kindest things we can do for ourselves.

Journal Prompts:

• What are two seemingly opposite emotions I'm holding right now?

• What if I stopped trying to decide which feeling is the "right" one?

• Where in my life am I living in the space between what was and what will be?

• What am I grieving that deserves acknowledgment?

• What am I hopeful about, even if it feels small?

• What expectations am I placing on myself about how I should feel?

• If every emotion I'm experiencing has something valuable to tell me, what might each one be saying?

• What would change if I gave myself permission to feel it all without judgment?

Affirmations:

•  can hold joy and grief at the same time.

• My emotions do not have to make perfect sense to be valid.

• I don't have to choose one feeling over another.

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