Wellness in the Unwellness

The class assignment was set.
A wall with 2 parts to it. One titled ‘Wellness’, the other ‘Un-wellness’. The task was for us to visually represent what each of these meant on a sheet of paper and stick it under its corresponding title. It seemed straight forward enough.

Only when I touched the paper did it become clear to me:
This is a false binary.

I remember so vividly how my body immediately signaled to me these states of being are not separate. I took both pieces of paper and nestled them within each other.

There is wellness in the unwellness.
The search for what is already well within me in times of dis-ease. The questions that were birthed. The growing that was seeded. The words that found voice. The constellations of clarity against what needed to fade away.

There is unwellness in the wellness.
The recognition of what happened. The traces. The disbeliefs that accompanied new beliefs. The ungraceful changes. The inconvenient truths. The growing pains. My altered shape coming out of where I was, into the next step.

My experience of wellness / unwellness was: Symbiotic. Collaborative. Communicative. Responding to. Back and forth. Light and shadow. Angular. Laced with.

One side of the wall wasn’t enough to hold my experience.

When 'Both / And' Live Within You

There's something to be said about the ability to have feelings of 'Both / And' live within you. To expand yourself into a capacity that holds multiple and sometimes conflicting emotions and mindframes.

This isn't to be confused with being neutral, or an inability to make up your mind with a definitive choice. You are deeply invested in multiple states of being at once.  Rather, this is an invitation for the hard conversations:

How far from yourself will you allow a thought, a commitment, or an emotion take you?

It is an acknowledgement to the complexity we can embody when an experience holds many truths.

In a ‘Both / And’ experience, I can be:

🔸Both empathetic to your hurt/ And strong standing in the boundary I drew. 
🔸Both joyous that you're pregnant / And grieving that I can't be.
🔸Both respectful to your person / And critical of your stance on an issue.
🔸Both understanding of your frustration / And reject you throwing your anger at me.
🔸Both honouring of your pain / And supportive of your partner's decision.
🔸Both loving to a parent or sibling / And holding them responsible to the trauma they caused.

What examples do you have where you needed to exercise being 'Both/And'?