Ambivalence - An important reminder.
I’ve written about ambivalence before, and I’m writing about it again deliberately. Not because I’ve run out of things to say, but because I think it’s one of those emotional experiences we constantly try to rush ourselves out of. We want certainty. We want clarity. We want to know exactly how we feel so we can make a clean decision and move on. But life rarely works that way. It’s one of the most valuable things my therapist ever helped me to understand. Our relationships to people, places, work, versions of ourselves, and even dreams can be deeply complicated. You can love something and still feel exhausted by it. You can miss someone and know they are not good for you. You can be grateful for a place while also wanting to leave it behind. These truths can exist at the same time. Ambivalence is uncomfortable because it asks us to tolerate contradiction. It asks us not to flatten our feelings into something simpler just because simplicity feels safer. Often, when we experience c...