The Paradox of Healing: Learning to Hold Opposing Truths
We like things to be simple. Black or white. Good or bad. Healed or broken. But the reality of human experience isn’t that neat, it’s contradictory, layered, and sometimes frustratingly unclear. But…
You can be both strong and struggling.
You can crave independence and deeply need connection.
You can be healing and still have days where it feels like you haven’t moved at all.
Psychologically, we tend to avoid contradiction because it feels uncomfortable. Cognitive dissonance, the mental tension that arises when we hold conflicting beliefs or emotions, pushes us toward resolution. We want to pick a side and move on. But what if true healing isn’t about resolving contradictions, but learning to hold them?
How Psychotherapy Helps You Navigate Opposing Truths
Therapy isn’t about fixing you, because you’re not broken. It’s about helping you make space for the complexity of your experience, learning to tolerate contradiction, and finding new ways to move forward.
This might look like:
Exploring past experiences that shaped your either/or thinking and developing a more flexible, compassionate self-view.
Learning emotional regulation techniques so that conflicting emotions feel less overwhelming.
Developing self-acceptance, not as an endpoint, but as an ongoing practice.
Challenging limiting beliefs that keep you stuck in cycles of self-doubt or perfectionism.
Psychotherapy isn’t about forcing neat resolutions. It’s about learning to sit with discomfort, unpacking what feels unbearable, and ultimately integrating all parts of yourself.
The Paradox of Healing: Both/And Thinking
One of the biggest shifts in therapy is moving from either/or thinking to both/and thinking. Instead of forcing yourself to pick a side, what happens when you allow space for both realities to exist?
You can be healing and still have scars.
You can love someone and also need to set boundaries with them.
You can have hope for the future and still feel uncertain about the next step.
When you let go of the pressure to resolve every contradiction, you start to build emotional flexibility, the ability to hold complex, even opposing, emotions without being overwhelmed by them.
Example: The Push-Pull of Healing from Trauma
A veteran in therapy might say, “I should be over this by now. I survived. Why am I still struggling?”
Through therapy, they may begin to reframe this belief: “I am both a survivor and still healing. My strength doesn’t erase my pain, and my pain doesn’t erase my strength.”
When we hold space for these seemingly opposite truths, the weight of expectation begins to lift.
How Therapy Helps You Embrace Both/And
1️⃣ Noticing When You’re Stuck in Either/Or Thinking
Therapy can help you identify rigid thought patterns that keep you trapped in extremes. A therapist might gently challenge your assumptions: “What if both things are true?”
2️⃣ Reframing Contradictions as Complexity, Not Failure
Feeling strong one day and overwhelmed the next isn’t a setback, it’s part of growth. Psychotherapy offers a space to explore these fluctuations without criticism, helping you trust your own process.
3️⃣ Developing Emotional Tolerance
Holding contradiction requires emotional endurance. Therapy helps build that capacity through grounding techniques, cognitive restructuring, and mindfulness-based approaches.
4️⃣ Making Room for Uncertainty
Not everything needs an immediate answer. A therapist can guide you in tolerating ambiguity, sitting with discomfort, and allowing healing to unfold in its own time.
You Are Not Broken—You Are Complex
The next time you feel like you’re failing because you haven’t "fully healed" or "gotten over it," remember: healing isn’t about arriving at a perfect, contradiction-free version of yourself. It’s about learning to exist in the tension and knowing that both can be true.
If you’re struggling with the weight of opposing emotions, psychotherapy can help you find clarity—not by forcing answers, but by giving you the tools to hold your experience with greater ease.
Are you ready to explore your own “both/and” journey? Reach out to start a conversation. Healing isn’t about choosing one side of yourself, it’s about making space for all of you.