Recently I finished this painful and important book written in a very friendly way by Sarah Wilson. 

There are so many elements of this book that I found deeply gratifying. The chapter titles alone had me feeling seen and validated:

hope, relief, truth, collapse, spiritual, liminality, death, live, metacrisis, moloch, post-blame, denial, uncertainity, anti-chaos, ungrowth, simplification, duty, pain, oh, and we can dance!, humble, wisdom, adulting, we must create art in the apocalypse, reckoning, humaning, and homecoming

There is a part where she employs the “Yes, And” model and I wrote in my notes, Improvisation or the Basics of Psychotherapy Both/And.  For those of us in the mindfulness mental health realm, as I am, with two decades of experience, the concept of both/and is fundamental to psycho-education and teaching how to be alive; we are both excited and scared, we are hopeful and skeptical, we exist within the contradictions, we are complex creatures and it was never binary, even though the patriarchy would have you think so.  She employs this model as she attempts to reconcile that we have destroyed our planet beyond repair and that we, as individuals, did not choose this unfolding, she says:

I think most of us can see this is not about letting humanity off the hook.  It entails more than that.  Yes, no one is to blame.  And, we are all to blame.

And I thought it also makes sense of how I feel about the climate/nature/Mother Earth: I feel overwhelmed, immense grief, intense rage AND joyful, deep gratitude, even ecstatic that I am alive, here on the one planet we inhabit.  How do we allow ourselves and each other the space to experience our fullness?  That brings us to the foundation of improvisation, “yes, and.” As any great actor knows, you build on what is before you, you always start in agreement with your performance partner, the core principle is to join and then develop the scene:  “Yes, we are on a plane, and oh my, there is an octopus here!”

This concept is translated into the interpersonal (exchanges between self and other) realm through validation: “yes, you feel exhausted, overwhelmed, joyful, despondent, excited,” whatever the emotion may be.  YES you validate the person with you, AND, if appropriate you ask more questions or share your own experience.

In the intrapersonal (existing within yourself) it sounds like, ‘YES, I am overwhelmed, I don’t feel like a very good parent at this moment, AND, I am doing my best.”  Or, “yes, I want to provide for my family, I am working a lot, AND life is still expensive and it is challenging.”  There are so many applications of this concept that serve us individually and in the world.  

I rely on it daily in my practice with clients and with myself.  Yes, I wanted to get this blog entry just right before posting, AND, I just have to start putting it out there. I had been mulling this over for weeks,; I finished the book, went on retreat to Esalen, danced and grieved and cried, returned full send into parent and work life and then watched a recent episode of Ted Lasso (hence the image), titled Yes & Baby.  It was the push I needed.  

I hope this is the nudge you need to allow for seemingly opposing realities to be true simultaneously.  Begin with acceptance, it is the first, imperative, part in the equation of change.  We must accept our current reality in order to change it.  Try saying yes to the moment as is, to what someone presents to you, to an aspect of yourself, and then add your AND – what comes next…  

A few thoughts: 

Role model for those around you that contrary experiences are the norm.

Explore each feeling, give each voice room to express it’s take on a situation, or ask what it needs.

And, if you need some support, reach out.