December 5, 2021

Both/and..

Can two (seemingly) opposing things be true at the exact same time?

We can be both soft and strong.
We can be tender and accommodating and still stand up for ourselves.
We can feel like we’re not doing enough and also celebrate our accomplishments.
We can absolutely be both happy and sad. Often in one single day, or one hour or even one minute.
We can be rebels in one aspect of life whilst conforming in another.

There was a point in time where I wanted things to have rules, where I wished that everything made sense (I mean- let’s be honest, I still do but I’m not as angsty about it these days), where I really enjoyed labeling and defining things based on my own preconceived notions. How things ‘should’ be, one might say. And now? Well, these days I try, as much as possible, to look at things through the lens of both/and.

Life is a beautiful mystery, a puzzle, a game without a whole lot of clearly defined rules.

Y’know, there’s that Rumi quote— out beyond right-doing and wrongdoing, there is a field, I’ll meet ya there? Yeah. Like that.

It feels like I should tie a bow around this whole ramble- so here it is: we have a few weeks left in 2021, many of us are probably still processing 2020, some of us are wishing we could forget it, etc. There is so much desire to label things good/bad, right/wrong, and so on.

And so the invitation is: as we approach holiday season can we be more gentle with ourselves and more gentle with others and can we maybe remember the concept of both/and?