How holding two opposing truths at the same time creates freedom.

This one’s a tricky one.

One that I only recently discovered for myself.

I’ve always been an optimistic person. Someone that defaults to believing the best in others and trusting that they have my best intentions at heart.

Growing up, I used to get teased about “always wearing rose-colored glasses”.

I would laugh and shrug said comment away and continue my merry way.

Literally skipping down the street with my head facing the clouds and a permanent smile pasted on my face.

Ironically, this perpetually positive version of me was only ever attracted to the “bad boys”.

The emotionally unavailable ones that were hard to get. In fact, the “good boys” were boring to me.

My first real love was in my late teens. He was a charming athlete who had a broad smile, blue eyes, a physically strong body, and was 6 years my senior.

He was the proverbial bad boy, aloof and arrogant with an enticing chip on his shoulder.

All the girls wanted him, and so did I.

He had been badly abused by his dad his entire life. He was broken. He was desperate to be loved and was seemingly fiercely independent.

A hard shell with a soft middle.

I saw the tender part of him. The part that was longing to be chosen, the part that needed to be taken care of.

I desperately wanted to fix him, to complete him, to care for him.

My value laid in caring for others over myself and his holes were filled with my attention. I naturally put others before me. I put him before me.
We were the perfect pair.

He would treat me poorly, and then he’d be funny and sweet.

He would casually put me down after saying something nice to me.

He was hot and cold, kind and then a bully.

He’d swing from being an aloof dick to me in front of his friends and then would tenderly tell me how much I meant to him in our moments alone.

He’d be super kind and attentive out in public, and then ignore me once we were back at his place.

We’d go from fighting all night screaming and crying, to desperately collapsing into each other’s arms and dreaming of running away from it all.

Just like in the movies.

Big highs and big lows. A distinct head side and a distinct tail side.

This was what “real” love was to me back then. A Jekyll and a Hyde.

The perfect paradoxical recipe that kept me coming back for more.

And I was hooked.

In order to stay with him, I had to only believe the good part of my story about him.

The soft and tender. The kind and strong. The charming and witty.

I couldn’t be with the hurtful, mean side of him for very long and stay, so I’d quickly forget and focus on the good.

Ah the beauty and real depth of denial, what allowed me to stay. 

But here’s the thing about denial. I, in my ignorant educated nursing mind, believed that denial meant that I would consciously know what I was actively denying.

Surely I was smart enough to recognize this in my own life as I had in the lives of so many of my patients and their family members.

I thought I would think to myself, “I know my boyfriend is abusive but it’s ok, because he’s just so sweet”. 

Nope.

Real denial had me completely forget the bad to swap it out for the good.

Like actually. As if it never even existed.

When he hurt me or put me down, it felt like I was falling.

I’d flip to the other side of the coin and I’d be flabbergasted. As if I suddenly fell off a cliff. One that I never saw coming.

It was always such a confusing and almost dizzying experience for me.

This again? Huh? Why? This doesn’t feel good.

I thought he had me. I thought he wouldn’t let me fall.

And yet he’s right there watching me and innocently says to me, “what happened?”. 

As if his tail didn’t spin out to trip me, but that somehow, I had slipped…

Wait, did I slip???

I was oblivious. I had my head in the clouds, and kept wearing those pretty tinted glasses.

And boom, just like that I’d be picking myself and all my body parts up off the ground, gobsmacked that I was back down there.

Way down at the bottom. Again.

Enter the apology. Enter tears. Enter the kind words and gestures.

Oh thank God. This feels WAY better.

Flip.

Back to good. Heads!

This is who I chose. I like this side…

And so, it continued.

You see, I could never hold both sides of his coin together at the same time. If I could, I wouldn’t have chosen him to begin with.

I was either blissfully only seeing his head or my body was a smooshed mess on the ground that had gotten there by the use of his skillful tail.

But it was never both and my inability to see these opposing sides together repeated for several relationships to follow.

So, what happens when we start to heal, and we can hold space for both sides?

The heads and the tails.

The Jekyll and the Hyde. 

Wait, are these all the same person?

Can they both be true at the same time?

My counsellor once said to me, “Chantelle, once you can see him as a whole person, you will be truly free”.

I remember thinking, huh? What does she mean, I do see him as one whole person. 

But I was blind to my own survival mechanism. To my need to believe that that charming man was exactly who he portrayed himself as. That the mean side of him didn’t exist.

What I’ve learned is, the main component that I carried that had me be the perfect fit for such a man was my self-doubt.

Even though you’d never know it on the outside, I was filled with it. I could never make a decision without first asking at least 3 of my people and then I still wouldn’t be sure. I always said yes when I meant no and I had very little regard for my own feelings let alone my own personal boundaries.

In fact, I didn’t even know what boundaries were.

If self-doubt is at the root cause of what had me choose them, then the only way not to is, self-trust. 

This is where I might start sounding like a broken record. But yes, the only way we can choose differently is if we have a good sense of self.

I did this by learning to trust myself over others and by learning to also embrace MY two sides. My “good” side and my “bad”.

Bare with me here…because you see, within myself I hadn’t yet accepted the parts of me that I didn’t like.

I would feel shame and literally like a bad person the minute I’d do something I didn’t like about myself. I had zero space for irritated, bitchy or tired Chantelle. I’d feel selfish if I did anything for myself before others and it made me viscerally uncomfortable to say no.

So, I’d stuff her down and falsely present only my “good” side.

The rehearsed, polite, perfectly poised version of me.

My head was much prettier than my tail, as well.

My Jekyll and my Hyde.  

I was mirroring and choosing in another what I needed to learn and had yet to embrace about myself.

I chose men who flip flopped because I essentially was as well. I only felt comfortable with the caring, fixing, people pleasing version of myself. So I naturally chose ones that I could be that with. I had yet to learn what healthy self-expression and boundaries were.

I needed to learn to love my whole self, the good and the bad, in order to see and accept both in someone else.

No more compartmentalizing to make things easier.

All of me and all of you. 

So how does one do that? And what does that actually mean?

I started by learning what I liked and disliked. Like peeling back an onion.

It sounds so simple, yet so many of us don’t actually know the answers to these easy questions.

Who am I? What do I enjoy? What don’t I like?

I think of Julia Roberts in the movie, “Run Away Bride”.

After panicking last minute and leaving her groom at the altar, she realizes that she barely knows herself. She goes for breakfast and orders all the different types of eggs at the restaurant.

Eggs benedict, over-easy, scrambled, sunny side up, poached. And for the first time in her life, she sits down and tries each one slowly to see which ones SHE actually likes, and which ones she clearly doesn’t.

Sadly, I think there are a lot of women out there that can relate to this scene…I know that I could.

She eventually learns that she hates scrambled eggs and that eggs bene are da bomb! I happen to agree with her.

We are raised in a society to be the “good girls” at the cost of our own knowing. 

As the holistic psychologicst so beautifully states;

“Good girls are conditioned to believe they’re responsible for other adults’ emotions and that they can never disappoint or upset anyone around them. It has us believe that our role is: to get other people to like or approve of us in social settings, to not “rock the boat” or ever upset anyone, and to betray our own needs in order to appear selfless.”

In other words, our healing happens when

• we actually figure out which eggs we like, and which ones we don’t. Example, “I want eggs benedict for breakfast!”
• we stop taking responsibility for the emotions and feelings of others. Example, “I know that you’re disappointed that I can’t come over, but I’m still gonna stay home tonight. Looking forward to seeing you at work tomorrow.”
• we can be with disappointing others, and still do or say what it is that we need. (see the above example for this one too).
• when we love all the parts of ourselves, including our ugly tail sides, because frankly we are human and cranky is normal. Example, “Kids, mom’s bagged, I need to hunker down, eat my own popcorn and watch my show. I love you but mama is out!”

This takes time, practice and it isn’t easy.

But, over time, that sense of self grows and with it so does our self trust and our ability to self-express.

We no longer need to only see one side to survive. 

We can see both and still stay true to us. 

Once this happens, there is a level of freedom that I personally have never felt before.

Freedom from;

• the constant tug of guilt.
• the nag of needing to always ‘do’.
• the ongoing desire to please instead of disappointing someone.
• saying yes when I meant no and feeling gross afterwards. 

Freedom from the exhaustion of keeping someone’s good side alive at all costs.

Not only someone else’s, but the exhaustion of keeping our own good sides alive as well!

The Jekyll and the Hyde become one.

They can both be true at the same time, and we are now in complete control of our own reality, our own decisions and our own safety.

That when we fall from the cliff because an ugly tail has swapped out for a charming head, we are prepared with a parachute, and we gracefully glide to the ground.

No more falling.

No more blindly trusting. 

No more flip flopping.

And no more shaming any of our sides.

They ARE the same coin. 

So, where can you stop flipping and see what sides you need to embrace? Which sides need to heal and which ones do you need to see in another in order to be better prepared?

To hold both the good and the bad of others and yourself and to have that be OK.

I can tell you that real freedom is created when we can hold these opposing truths at the same time.

And that it’s a pretty awesome place to be, rose-colored glasses and all.

xo