Paradox

The paradox of a paradox is that it is both very simple and very complicated at the same time.

There is an old Chinse story of a weapons seller who claims that his spear can pierce anything and his shield can block anything. So someone asks him, “What happens when the spear hits the shield?”

And there it is: paradox.

Two things that seem impossible to hold together, and yet both are here.

The Spear and the Shield

We see paradox everywhere. Yin and yang in Chinese medicine. Light as a wave and a particle in physics. Effort and ease in yoga. Acceptance and change in therapy. Being fully present and planning for the future with your partner. Loving your children deeply and wanting a life of your own. Wanting closeness and needing space from your family. Wanting creativity and needing to get things done at work.

A paradox is not just a hard decision. It is not the same as choosing between Mexican food or Thai food for dinner. A paradox has a particular feeling to it. It creates tension. It keeps showing up. And the more you try to solve it once and for all, the more exhausted you become.

In their book Both/And Thinking, organizational scholars Wendy Smith and Marianne Lewis define paradoxes as contradictions that are also interdependent and persistent. That means the two sides seem to oppose each other, but they also need each other. They keep circling back, not because you are doing life wrong, but because this is the nature of being human.

You want freedom, and you need structure.

You want intimacy, and you need solitude.

You want your teenager to explore the world, and you want them to be safe.

You want to be generous, and you want to make money.

Paradoxes Are Persistent

For something to be a true paradox, it must return over and over again. The same tension keeps circling back.

One of the paradoxes I have faced this year is the tension between my creative expansion and my professional responsibility.

I love generating new projects. I feel alive when an idea starts to take shape — a talk, salon series, a book, a retreat, a new group. There is a part of me that wants to follow the thread wherever it leads. Make the thing. (Hence four books in three years!) And.

I also have a family, a clinical practice. emails to answer, chickens to feed, and kitchen counter that always needs cleaning.

So the paradox is how do I allow for creativity and generativity while also being responsible for the chop wood carry water of life. Creativity needs freedom, spaciousness, and risk. And a sustainable life needs structure, boundaries, and care.

At first, it feels like one side has to win.

Either I follow the creative current and risk overextending myself, or I become responsible and practical and risk losing the very aliveness that makes the work meaningful.

But paradox asks for a different kind of intelligence.

Paradoxes Contain Apparent Contradictions

A paradox has tension because the two sides feel like they contradict each other.

Creativity vs. responsibility

Rest vs. Effort

Caregiving vs. Self care

Where we go wrong is thinking that a paradox needs to be resolved, eliminated or solved.

But the problem is not always the paradox. Often, the problem is how we are relating to the paradox.

We think we need to pick the spear or the shield. But paradox asks us to hold both.

There is a line often attributed to Niels Bohr: “How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.” I love that, because a paradox may be a sign that you are standing in a living system. And living things are full of opposing forces.

Paradoxes Are Interdependent

Marianne Lewis and Wendy Smith make a key point:  the two sides of a paradox are not only opposed. They are also interdependent.

They need each other.

If you look at the yin-yang symbol, there is a little bit of white in the black and a little bit of black in the white. The two are not separate. They are part of one whole.

Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh spent a lot of time in his garden. And he wrote dozens of books. When I was on retreat with him he told a story of someone asking him why he gardens so much, wouldn’t he be able to write more if he wasn’t pulling weeds? He responded that it’s gardening that allows him to write.

The same may be true in your life.

Maybe the few minutes you spend chopping vegetables clears your mind for a productive writing session. Or the time you spend alone playing with your dog, loosens you up before joining on a stressful work meeting.

The question changes from, “How do I get rid of this tension?” to “How do these two sides need each other?”

The Both/And Move

This is where we need to move from either/or thinking into both/and thinking. You can take any paradox you face and turn it into a both and statement.

Both I want to be present with my children, and I want meaningful work.

Both I want closeness, and I need space.

Both I want to grow, and I need to accept where I am.

Both I need structure, and I need freedom.

In ACT, this is also the heart of psychological flexibility. Acceptance and change are not opposites. Acceptance is often what allows change. You stop fighting reality so you can move more freely toward what matters. You open to discomfort so you can act with courage. You let go of control so you can have more influence over the life you are actually living.

That is paradox.

Practice for the Week

This week, look for one paradox in your own life. Not a problem you can solve by making a quick decision, but a tension that keeps returning.

Ask yourself:

• What are the two sides I keep trying to choose between?

• What does each side care about?

• What is wise about each side?

• How might these two sides actually support each other?

• Where do I need a boundary?

• Where might there be a creative integration?

And then, instead of trying to resolve the paradox, practice holding it.