I live in the desert. Fifty degrees is cold to me. I am a Colorado native. When I lived in Colorado, one of the things I hated were large, heavy winter coats. Thirty degrees was chilly. I couldn’t be outside for long in below-freezing temperatures, but I could handle it well enough if I had to. Back here in the Arizona desert, I cannot stand to be outside when the temperature is below fifty degrees.

Those two things feel opposite. How could I be cold in fifty degrees yet perfectly handle wearing no coat in below-freezing temperatures? Both things are true at the same time. When I was cold in Colorado, it felt relative to my environment. Cold here in Arizona is relative to my experience here in the dry desert, where summer temperatures stay in normal ranges over three digits for months versus sub-freezing normal temps for months.

I wasn’t wrong in saying I’m cold in fifty degrees, and I’m not wrong in saying I’m not cold in under thirty degrees. Sure, it might not make much sense unless you’ve lived long enough in both places to understand, of course, but it’s important to comprehend the perspective of me living in both of those spaces.

The same holds true in relationships. When we work together, we discover how opposites can both be true at once.

In relationships, it’s crucial to acknowledge our partner’s feelings. This acknowledgment solidifies our commitment to one another and maintains the bond created throughout the relationship. Active listening means hearing without judgment and without the intent to reply. When we pause to actively listen, we can begin to actually hear others and their viewpoints. In a world where we all want to matter, yearn to be heard, this is the most respectful aspect of a relationship.

I wasn’t gifted much feedback when my recent relationship ended. One thing I was given was her feelings of loss of control. That’s not how she put it, and it’s crucial I not paraphrase here because that could lead to assumptions. What I was given was this: “I felt I couldn’t have friends or go out without you without getting [receiving] guilt from you.”

I immediately thought of three times in our years together I’d reacted at her going out… once was early in our relationship when she wanted to hop in a car… or maybe on her motorcycle… and ride through another state with a woman she went to high school with. She’d expressed frustrations from her previous relationship about the same feelings, so I felt I was trying to not be the sort of partner who didn’t support or took her control… or not ‘allow.’ (That word is in quotes because I’m a huge advocate for being an individual inside of a relationship, and I hate when halves of couples ‘let’ their partner do things. This is often generational, but I would never ‘let’ my partner do something. I either support it, or I don’t, but ultimately, it’s not my decision to let anyone do anything… except maybe my underage children.)

My reaction… I don’t know this woman; I’m not sure I’m comfortable with my new love driving around another state for days with someone I don’t know; our relationship is still fairly new, and this makes me uncomfortable… a reaction which led her to believe several things. Now, I’m not in her head, so I don’t know what she believed from my reaction. Maybe she felt I didn’t trust her. Maybe she felt I wanted to control her movements and friendships. Maybe she felt I wouldn’t ‘let’ her go.

Neither of us was wrong. What we both missed in that conversation was listening without judgment with our vulnerabilities laid out and the chance to uplift one another in love and mutual respect to each be heard. We were on opposite sides… and we were both worthy of having the opinion we had, the wishes we wanted respected, and a typical belief we were valued.

The other two times I can remember were times when I felt the method of arriving home was not a risk I thought worth taking for our family. It was a non-negotiable for me, and I had solutions. My reaction for the most recent time started with, ‘What the fuck?’ And I can see how that reaction closes doors for dialogue. With a closed door, there’s not much else to do.

Here’s the opposite… I felt I communicated several times, ‘You could go out five times a week, and I could join you twice and be happy.’ There were times she went out with a friend (oh… the budding romance irony, and we wonder why as a people, we lack trust in general) without me and would ask me to join them hours later. I arranged a weekend trip with a bunch of women we didn’t know well, to a lesbian haven of all places, in Las Vegas, for her to go… without me. I took a friend’s toddler home with me one evening when we were out with friends so my partner could go out without me and the mom could join without the toddler. I came home one night after being out and offered to pick my love and our friends up later so they could have a good time without worrying about driving. I even got partner accolades that night. We spent the better part of sixteen months in some sort of lockdown inside a closed world. My feelings on the matter oppose hers.

Our individual feelings about this particular stance are not inaccurate. We are not wrong… either of us. We failed to fix our core issues. We failed to recognize that the opposite can be true.

Acknowledging that opposites can both be true is freeing. It’s a huge change in self-protection for many of us, especially those of us who have been taught to battle opposing views for our entire lives.

When we commit to living inside the vulnerable, we recognize our internal opposites and begin to accept the opposing views of others as also truth and non-threatening to our safety and security.

Internal opposing views can look a lot like this:
I am trying my best. I am doing the hard work. I see positive change. I have begun to work toward self-care, love, acceptance, and authenticity.

The opposite is also true:
I am imperfect. I am a constant learner. I have a lot to learn. I can make big efforts for positive change and work more toward self-care, love, acceptance, and authenticity.

Both are true. The first stems from newfound confidence that I’ve got this! The second acknowledges I don’t have this at all, but I’m working on it.

In relationships (personal, romantic, friend, business, etc.), try to aim to be an active listener and accept two opposites can both be true. We do not live in a world of this or that, black or white, only ying or yang. We live in a world where the opposite can also be true. It doesn’t mean, it’s right or we have to agree with it, but it can be true.

Interestingly enough, I’ve said for years I am my own worst enemy because I can play Devil’s Advocate for all sides at the same time. It makes me a horrible decision-maker — or it has. In my own trauma, I’ve learned quite a bit about this idea of dialectical thinking. Interestingly enough, it’s not the huge flaw I’ve always thought, the ability to see both sides. I even wrote about our ‘This or That’ thinking during the recent height of social justice discussions, especially as they pertain to the old ideas, this or that, of gender identity in my article The Two-System American Failure just over a year ago.

Living inside this thinking is not easy. I feel it as an empath, as someone who fights anxiety all the time, and as someone still in crisis. The struggle begins with being an empath. Sure, we want to be heard and understood, but we rarely speak loud enough for ourselves to be heard. In times of anger and frustration, we can stand tall, but we’re not often standing for ourselves but rather for the voices of others. For me, it’s usually my children, even if at my own expense. This is common for parents. It’s just martyrdom; it’s parenting. I remember a time I made my partner cry. It made me cry seeing her hurt, knowing I’d hurt her. I had a point to make. I wanted to be heard. But all that mattered in that moment was that I’d made her cry.

As someone with anxiety, I tend to struggle with getting it right. Not necessarily being right, but ensuring I have it right. Am I right? Am I correct in thinking this or that? This two-sided coin of two opposites can both be true challenges everything anxiety fights hard to not face in the open.

In crisis, survival is the name of the game. As with anxiety, the struggle becomes gaining power. Again, not the need to be right but to get it right, to make right, sometimes even just simply okay. When the opposite holds true, the fight to which truth meets the fastest path to survival or the strongest path to survival ensues.

A deeper dive from each space reminds us it’s hard to live in that space of opposites can both be true at the same time.
BUT
There is power in AND.
I feel this way. I see this situation this way. AND… You feel and see things this other way. Both can be true.

The core of this belief is living in the moment. Living inside the clarity that past moments don’t matter to right now. Living Inside the Vulnerable where we feel what we feel and we’re willing to do the work to move forward with love, respect, and the gift of being vulnerable.

Try authentically living inside the vulnerable with open kindness to yourself and trust with those in your world with an open mind for opposites being true inside the same space at the same time. Don’t expect it to be easy, and remember not to think of this, possibly new, way of thinking as a challenge to values but rather maybe an opening to the values of others.

Be well
~Stella