Holding two truths at once

Hi there, I’m Aarti, Founder and Lead Counsellor at Incontact. One of the most surprising things I have learned from sitting with people over the years is how uncomfortable we are with mixed feelings.

We prefer clean stories. If we are happy, we believe we should not feel sad. If we are grateful, we believe we should not feel regret. If we made the right decision, we believe we should not wonder about the road not taken.

Yet life rarely unfolds in such neat ways.

Some of the most emotionally healthy people I know carry a quiet ability to hold two truths at once.

They can love the life they have built and still feel the ache of the lives they did not choose.

1 Story — The house that was never bought

A conversation from years ago has stayed with me.

A client was describing a home she and her husband had viewed many years earlier.

The details were surprisingly vivid. She remembered the neighbourhood, the garden, the light that came through the kitchen windows. She spoke about it with a tenderness usually reserved for memories of people rather than properties.

Eventually she paused and laughed at herself.

“It sounds ridiculous. I love my life. I love the home we have now. But sometimes I still think about that house.”

What struck me was not the house itself. It was what the house had come to represent: a different version of life. Different neighbours, different routines, different friendships, different possibilities.

She was not regretting her decision. She was grieving a future that never came into existence.

And perhaps that is something many of us do more often than we realise.

Not because we chose badly. But because every meaningful choice quietly closes the door on countless other lives we might have lived.

1 Insight — Emotional maturity is not choosing one feeling

We often treat emotions as though they compete with one another.

If we are grateful, we assume sadness should disappear. If we are hopeful, we believe fear should no longer exist. If we have healed, we think grief should be over.

But human emotions rarely work that way.

In therapy, I often see people trying to solve feelings that do not actually need solving.

They want certainty about whether they are happy or unhappy.

Whether they have moved on or not. Whether they are grateful or disappointed. Whether they are healing or still hurting.

The reality is that many of our most meaningful experiences contain seemingly opposing emotions at the same time.

A parent can feel immense joy watching a child grow and profound sadness that childhood is passing. A person can feel hopeful about the future while grieving what has already been lost. Someone can deeply love their life and still carry moments of longing.

These emotions do not cancel one another out. They deepen one another.

Psychological maturity is not arriving at a single feeling.

It is developing the capacity to make room for all of them.

2 tools to practise holding two truths

Tool 1 — Replace “but” with “and”

Notice how often you speak to yourself in opposites.

“I’m grateful, but I still feel sad.”

“I’m excited, but I’m nervous.”

“I’ve moved on, but I still miss them.”

Try replacing the word but with and.

“I’m grateful and I still feel sad.”

“I’m excited and nervous.”

“I’ve moved on and I still miss them.”

A single word can change the way your mind relates to complexity.

One feeling no longer needs to invalidate the other.

Tool 2 — Ask: “What else is true?”

When a strong emotion appears, we often allow it to take over the entire story.

If you feel grief, ask:

“What else is true right now?”

Perhaps you are grieving and loved.

Perhaps you are disappointed and hopeful.

Perhaps you are exhausted and proud.

This question helps expand emotional reality rather than narrowing it.

The goal is not to feel better.

The goal is to see more completely.

There is a quiet wisdom that develops when we stop forcing life into simple emotional categories.

The world is rarely either/or. Most of the experiences that shape us are both/and. We can grieve and be grateful. Hope and worry. Love and longing. Strength and tenderness.

Perhaps maturity is not learning how to eliminate difficult emotions.

Perhaps it is learning how to sit beside them without asking them to erase everything else that is also true.

With warmth and care,

Aarti ❤️