The phrase “both, and” has been coming up a lot in my consulting work and my personal life. It is easy to get stuck on one view of a person or a situations. But what if we could also see the beauty and possibility in what seems like a negative situation, or a challenging person? What if we could remain open to balance arising to shift a lopsided situation?
So these are some of the questions I’ve been asking in my professional and personal life: How do you both accept that somebody has treated you unfairly in the past AND leave the door open to see that they are making small changes in how they act? How can you both be sad about your health challenges AND be open to moment-to-moment joy? Can you be open to the fact that recent political decisions are indeed negative for many people AND may have surprising positive outcomes down the road?
It’s not that any of us would intentionally choose the ‘muck’ (e.g. negative circumstances), but if presented with them, we have a choice: act as if there is a “both and,” or act is if there is only an “either, or.” Recently as I’ve intentionally practiced this, I’ve found that it has given me a whole lot of breathing room to be open to surprising discoveries and unexpected change.
