What It Means to Hold Two Truths at Once

It's 6pm and I'm standing in the kitchen trying to get dinner on the table. The dog is weaving between my feet. The TV is on in the background, just loud enough to be distracting. It's been a long day and my body is already running on empty.

And then my toddler asks for a snack. Again.

It wasn't the first time she'd asked. It wasn't even the second. And in that moment, with everything already pressing in from every direction, I snapped.

The guilt arrived before the words were even finished leaving my mouth.

Not the slow, creeping kind of guilt. The immediate kind. The kind that lands in your chest like a stone and starts its quiet inventory of everything you did wrong. She's just a little girl. She was just hungry. You should have handled that better. What kind of mother does that?

If you've ever had a moment like that, where you fell short of your own expectations and the shame showed up faster than anything else, this is for you.

Because I want to tell you about a concept that changed the way I relate to myself in those moments. Not a way to avoid them. Not a way to pretend they didn't happen. A way to hold them without letting them swallow you whole.

The Weight of the Either Or

Most of us were never taught to hold two truths at once. We were taught to pick a side, and our language proves it.

Think about how often you use the word "but." I love my job, but it exhausts me. I tried my best, but it wasn't enough. I want to change, but I don't know how. That single word erases everything that came before it. It tells your brain that only one of those things can be true, and it's usually the harder one that wins.

What Dialectics Actually Do

In Dialectical Behavior Therapy, a dialectic means that two opposing truths can exist at the same time, and that holding both of them is not only possible but necessary for our wellbeing.

Grief and relief. Love and unhappiness. Excitement and fear. These aren't contradictions. They're the full, honest picture of what it means to be human.

When we allow two conflicting truths to coexist, something shifts. We stop fighting ourselves. We stop trying to resolve the tension by picking a winner. Instead, we find a kind of balance that lets us stay regulated, stay present, and stay in motion without the whiplash of constantly swinging from one extreme to the other.

My Favorite Dialectic

I am doing the best that I can, and I can do better.

Sit with that for a moment.

“I am doing the best that I can” gives you permission to stop punishing yourself for the imperfect moments. I am not saying we ignore the behavior, but shame has never once made any of us better parents, better partners, or better humans. It has only made us more depleted, more reactive, and less present for the people we love most.

“I can do better” keeps you honest. It doesn't let you settle. It reminds you that growth is always available, that wanting to do better isn't a judgment, it's an invitation.

Holding both at the same time means you don't have to choose between grace and accountability. You get to have both. And from that place, real change becomes possible. Not because you shamed yourself into it, but because you gave yourself enough compassion to keep trying.

What This Might Mean for You

You don't have to be a parent for this to land. You just have to be someone who holds themselves to high expectations and struggles when you fall short of them.

Maybe it shows up in your work. Your relationships. The way you manage your anxiety or your stress or the parts of yourself you haven't figured out yet.

Wherever it shows up, I want you to try something. The next time you catch yourself in that painful space between guilt and grace, don't pick a side. Hold both.

I am doing the best that I can, and I can do better.

Not one or the other. Both. At the same time.

That's not letting yourself off the hook. That's the most honest and compassionate way you can acknowledge something needs to change.

And it just might change everything.

If you've been stuck in that space between shame and settling, therapy can help you find your way through both.