Emotional Support Sisters

One thing that I have tried to implement in the last five or six years is replacing “but” with “and”. Obviously, it doesn’t work in every instance, but in the instances that it does, I have found it to be quite powerful.

Let me provide some examples:

I’m so tired but I really want to binge on Netflix tonight.

I tried my hardest but I failed.

She’s adorable but she tries my patience.

My feet are cold but the rest of my body is sweating.

I wish I could manage better but chronic illness makes that really difficult.

I really want that cookie but I am trying to eat more nourishing foods.

There’s nothing I can do to help you but I wish I could.

I’m thrilled that you got the job you wanted but I’m sad you’ll move so far away.

You had the chance to get on board with the project from the start but you didn’t.

I am truly passionate about [insert subject here] but I feel like I do enough about it.

I am a compassionate person but sometimes I lose my temper.

The most powerful “and” statements, for me, are the ones that recognize that human beings are capable of feeling and thinking more than one thing at a time. That’s not a skill we are born with. Infants cannot manage to feel a little sad and a little happy. As children grow, they begin to develop that ability. With the multiplicity of feelings also comes the ability to have two different thoughts at the same time (or vice versa–with the thoughts comes the feelings). Sometimes this causes cognitive dissonance, but that’s a topic for a different time.

Ask any parent whose child receives a diagnosis of any physical or mental or emotional disorder–there’s more than one emotion. I don’t have children and can’t speak from experience, but I can report on what I’ve heard and read. There’s quite a mixed bag of emotions with this sort of thing. Parents often mourn the loss of the future they imagined for their child, even though their child will still have a future. Parents can also feel incredibly relieved and even grateful, even though they’d prefer it didn’t happen to their kid, because at least now they know what they are facing.

It is a disservice to tell people that they can only feel one way about a thing.

And it’s a disservice to yourself to tell yourself that you can only feel one way about a thing. There’s a cute song from The Addams Family Musical called Happy/Sad. The last stanza is:

So let’s be happy

Forever happy

Completely happy

And a tiny bit

Sad.

It’s okay to feel both. It’s okay to be both. There’s room for the “and”.