Both, at the same time

My 22 kilometer bike ride last week gave me time to process a concept I have been working on personally to internalize and share with others over the past several years.

The concept, simply described, is that two seemingly opposite emotions can be felt at the same time. We don’t have to get stuck completely in one emotion at a time. We can allow them to happen together. Allowing two opposite emotions to happen at the same time creates emotional and mental balance. Although we might have been told by our parents, or we somehow came to believe otherwise, we don’t have to live in extremes of one emotion or the other. 

Allow me to use a personal example to explain: 

This time of year, in Israel, in the off-road/mountain biking world is the most magnificent time. Biking in the forest or fields of Israel in the winter months is a sensory experience. The air is crisp, the sun is comfortably warm, and the smells of wet mud and trees after a rain are sweet and exhilarating. The shades of green are like fresh paint on a canvas. The blooming cyclamen create beds of purple and pink fairy angels and we begin to see dots of red poppies appear in the green fields. The experience is breathtaking. 

This past June, Ari and I moved further away from the forest and closer to the beach. Unfortunately in Israel right now, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, there is a lockdown, and we are legally not allowed to put our bikes on the car to travel for exercise. 

I love living by the beach. I am so grateful to have the daily morning sea view, a 7 minute walk to put my toes in the sand and the ability to breathe the salty air.  Biking near the beach is only on paved bike trails, some parallel along the beach, others through the streets or not-yet-constructed neighborhoods. My biking experience has changed and become very different to biking in the forest. 

As I was peddling up an incline last week, on a long strip of black topped bike path, it came to me, and here is where I needed to integrate: While I really miss being able to bike in the colorful, sweet smelling forest right now, I am so happy to be living near the beach. 

Both. At the same time. Appreciating where I am and missing where I could be. Not just saying, I “should be happy where I am,” but feeling both: grateful for where I am and sad that I can’t be closer to the forest.

I wasn’t raised with this concept. I was raised with “Let me see a smile,” or “Dont worry, be happy!” Or even this one, from my Grandma Rose, “No one wants to be around a bitch!” People in general have difficulty hearing or dealing with their own difficult emotions, and have even greater difficulty managing another person’s. So many people feel shame about the negative emotions. We tell ourselves, “I should be happy,” or “I should be grateful,” or “I need to be more positive.” When we recognize these difficult emotions and allow them the space to exist, we validate them. And then we fight the shame of “how I should be...”

I find this concept freeing. I find it empowering. I find it easier with practice. Finding the comfortable balance changes with each situation.

Another cute example of this happened recently while reading a children’s book to my grandson. In “Franklin Goes to the Hospital,” we see that we can be brave and scared at the same time. Franklin was brave to face having the surgery he needed in order to fix the crack in his shell, while still expressing his fears. My grandson repeated the concept several times: “Right, I can be brave and scared at the same time, Grama?” Brave and scared at the same time. Two opposing emotions, that we can allow ourselves to feel simultaneously. Being able to teach this concept to my grandchildren, is such a gift.

So too, the same as with this pandemic, allowing ourselves to feel frustration and impatient at being cooped up inside for so many hours of the day, while at the same time feeling grateful to be healthy and well. Consciously allowing ourselves to feel both emotions at the same time.

That’s what I mean by Both, At the same time.