Holding Space for Both

This week I’ve been sitting with a thought that keeps returning to me: how often life asks us to hold two seemingly opposite truths at the same time.

We like clarity. We like neat categories—joy or sorrow, busy or restful, moving forward or holding on. But the reality of being human rarely offers such clean lines. Instead, we live in the tension of “both.”

It struck me how often, in the span of a single day, we are asked to carry multiple truths at once. We may be filled with gratitude for what we have while also longing for something we’ve lost. We may feel energized by new beginnings even as we quietly mourn what is ending. We may love the rhythm of routine while yearning for the freedom of unstructured time. None of this is wrong. None of this cancels the other out.

Holding space for both doesn’t mean resolving the tension—it means honoring it. It means giving ourselves permission to feel joy without guilt and sadness without apology. It means recognizing that the human heart is wide enough to carry contradictions, and that those contradictions don’t weaken us; they deepen us.

When I reflect on the moments I’ve felt most alive, they were rarely marked by just one emotion. Sitting at a child’s graduation, there is pride and excitement tangled with the ache of time passing. Watching a loved one find healing, there is relief entwined with the memory of pain. Beginning a new project or season, there is eagerness mixed with uncertainty. The fullness of these moments comes not from choosing one feeling over the other, but from allowing space for all of it.

Perhaps this is one of life’s quiet lessons: that our souls are not meant to be one-dimensional. We are stretched and shaped by our ability to embrace the “both.” Peace is not found by pushing one feeling aside—it comes by acknowledging the whole.

So, this week, I’m reminding myself to soften into the contradictions. To resist the urge to choose between “either/or” and instead welcome the gift of “and.” To let the excitement of what’s ahead sit right alongside the nostalgia for what’s behind. To breathe deeply and know that the heart has room for all of it.

Maybe the invitation isn’t to resolve the tension, but to rest inside it. To recognize that life’s beauty often lies in the mingling, not the separating. And when we can hold space for both, we are holding space for life in its fullest form.