Holding Multiple Truths

My lovely friend created a really thoughtful instagram post yesterday in which she shared some of her conflicting feelings related to life, the world around us, and just kind of…everything that’s going on…and then asked her followers to share some of the ‘this and that’ kinds of feelings they are having and I need to tell you, friends, it was SUCH an enlightening experience. To see the number of responses from so many people who are currently holding a lot, who are feeling so very much. Love and rage. Hope and defeat. Energy and fatigue. Excitement and dread.

And of course, we are humans, we have complex feelings, we contain multitudes, we sure can have lots of feelings at one time! What I think doesn’t always happens is that we fully acknowledge the – and I hate to say negative feelings because all feelings are valid – but let’s say the less-socially-acceptable ones. So it was hugely refreshing to know that there are a lot of people just out there feeling their complicated, messy, and sometimes contradictory feelings – and that they were willing to share them.

And I do think this extremely complicated year has done a lot for many of us to throw down the gloves and just say “Ok, look. I’m scared and I’m mad and I’m gutted and I could cry and I could rage…and…and…and” because there has been a lifetime of things to feel all these ways about in the first half of 2020 and no doubt another lifetime of things will take us through to the end of the year and beyond.

When he was little, our younger son, like most kids, felt things so very deeply and he only ever seemed to have two states of being: it was either the best day EVER for Max, or it was the WORST DAY OF HIS LIFE. And yes, these phrases are verbatim, and he uttered them, it seemed, daily. (capitalization by me, on his tiny self’s behalf). A child of extremes, indeed, but it was important for us to let him explore those big feelings and wallow or revel in them as appropriate and then, ultimately, to work his way through them.

And of course as he got older, the big feels were mediated and the good things became “awesome” and the bad ones became “bummer” and the swing between the two narrowed a bit as he began to understand that life is going to life at you no matter what, and eventually you take the good, you take the bad (you take them both and there you have the facts of life…etc. etc.) and it takes maturity to be able to deal with this life.

And my friend’s instagram question to her followers reminded me of that journey to awareness and maturity that he went through. This ability to acknowledge that we hold multiple truths simultaneously, it’s learned through life experience and growing up, and time spent as a human being. There is power in that acknowledgement because I feel as though we aren’t always encouraged to talk about our emotional complexities. Society tells us to be positive, to have a ‘good attitude’, (I’m oversimplifying and generalizing of course) but I think we do ourselves a disservice when we don’t acknowledge what is actually happening inside our clever minds and our oh-so human hearts.

I answered the question with my two almost constant feelings currently, anxiety/apprehension and hopefulness. I am, by nature, an anxious person and a bit of a pessimist, but on my absolute best days I am also a hopeful person because yes, sometimes anxiety and pessimism can be tinged with hopefulness. That is my truth, and there was something really freeing about being able to express it like that.

And I will admit that on some days, the really tough days, my tendency is to channel my son at four or five years old and rage and rage because it is actually the absolute worst day ever. And then I find something else that I am feeling and hold onto that and you know what? I can feel them both, I’m human. And you’re human. So state your conflicting emotions, let me hear them.

Scared and enthusiastic. Melancholy and excited.  Overwhelmed and grateful. Brave and chickenshit…because we can have both. And because you know Alanis said it better in Hand In My Pocket, so maybe (definitely) go listen to her instead of me.