A math teacher once told me that there are two interesting things about math and science: (1) “Everything interesting happens at the boundaries,” he said, and (2) “To really understand math and science, you have to grasp the centrality of paradox.” How true he was. The whole idea of boundaries is quite central in math, and for that matter central to a lot of things in the universe, including psychology, of course. As far as we know, the universe has no boundaries although that apparent fact is in great dispute as we explore the universe. The boundary issue in math has much to do with infinity, which obviously has a lot to do with the lack of boundaries. I won’t indulge myself in this matter any further because once I barely got through Calculus 3 and differential equations when I was in college, I was not capable of understand the essentially abstract nature of higher math. I understand the centrality of paradoxes in math a bit better, albeit not much because I am not an abstract person by nature. Let me just leave it with the fact that lot of important stuff in math has to do with how two things that appear to be opposite are actually both true but you can’t quite put them together. Psychology, meaning clinical psychology, especially the understanding of personhood and relationships, has a lot of paradoxes.

What is a paradox?

First, a personal note. I shouldn’t tell you this but Deb and I have used the term paradox in many ways, e.g. jokingly referring to us as a “pair o’docs.” Get it? Pair of doctors.  And we use various forms of paradox in our computer work. Enough of that

The etymology of the word paradox is from early Greek composed of the words para- that means alongside of or in front of and the word doxa that originally means opinion, judgment, or thought. Thus, paradoxical originally meant two thoughts that were inconsistent with each other. However, as the word evolved, particularly in English, it came to mean to thoughts, experiences, or feelings that were seemingly inconsistent with one another.

Paradoxes can be related to feelings, thoughts, behavior, or words. In other words I can have disparate feelings, thoughts, actions, or words where both sides seem to be true. In other words, I may have two feelings, both that seem to be true but they are very disparate feelings. Additionally, there can be a paradox between what I feel and think, what I feel or do, and the other 10 combinations among feelings, thoughts, actions and words. The hardest paradoxes to face and understand in life are those that are within you, like wanting to go somewhere for the day and wanting to just stay home and hang out. Paradoxes can also occur between people, people who are largely in agreement but occasionally find real differences. I mostly want to comment on paradoxical feelings in this blog.

Some personal examples

A few years ago Deb wanted to take a trip on her own where she could hike and explore, which is one of her true passions. She went to Portugal and hiked a long trail along the coast of the country. After she had been there a few days, she called me up and said the following: “I am so glad that you’re not here” and then quickly said, “I wish you were here.” Knowing Deb and understanding the importance of such paradoxical statements, I was not chagrinned although many people have been somewhat bothered when I tell them the story of her call from Portugal. Can you see that Deb felt both of these feelings: she was glad to be alone and she missed me and wished I was there?

Today, I would like to stay in front of my computer and write but I would like to go outside on today’s sunny day, and I want to get out of town and do some duties. I can’t do all these things and so I must settle on doing the right thing. But what is the “right” thing? I have to feel through these paradoxical feelings to do the right thing.

Harder paradoxes to face are in matters of love, liking, communicating, and otherwise relating to other people. There are some people for whom I have strong feelings, like loving and not loving, trusting and not trusting, believing and not believing. Family members can be very difficult and the difficulty often has to do with paradoxical feelings for someone. Note the liking/loving blog I did some time ago, i.e. loving someone but not liking that person.

More personal matters are things that happen. Deb (and I) have just about finished a major remodel of the kitchen. I didn’t really want to do the remodel but it was very important for Deb to do it so I acquiesced on the project because it seemed the right things to do. It has been a chore, not so much the physical work or financial cost but the personal, and ultimately the interpersonal cost. Now as the program is reaching a conclusion I find disparate feelings: I appreciate the new kitchen, largely because it fits Deb so well. And, I “don’t like” the whole kitchen because of the strain it put on me over these past six months.

You can see that while there are verbal, factual, cognitive, and behavioral paradoxes, the larger element is in the realm of feelings.

Paradoxes with feelings

Jack loves his wife but says that “the marriage has been over for a long time,” so he thinks they should get a divorce. Yet, Jack doesn’t want to get a divorce. He wants his family and his wife even though the marriage has been hard on them for almost the entirety of their 30 some years together.

Brad is gay and a pastor of a church where “you can’t be gay.” Furthermore, he wants “a family” even though he has never been attracted to women in any erotic way. We could say that he “wants it both ways” that I discussed in a previous blog but this situation is more than wanting it both ways. He is plagued by feelings that pull him apart

Sam is quite honest, but he finds himself frequently being dishonest with his wife. Indeed, he is afraid of her disapproval, a malady that seems to plague all men with the women in their lives. It seems conflictual that he is a man of good character but falls into being dishonest with his wife all the time, usually on small trivial matters.

Peter feels quite comfortable in his home but very often feels quite uncomfortable in his home. He can’t seem to accept that these feelings are both true, not just of different times but more importantly, of significantly different feelings. He can sit on his favorite chair and feel quite at home one day, and the very next day feel oddly in the wrong place.

Max trusts no one but he falls into trusting people all the time and wishes he didn’t trust them. He can’t seem to make sense of these two disparate feelings. He grew up needing to trust no one because no one was trustworthy, but then as now, he found himself trusting people and getting disappointed all the time.

Mel wants to be with his girlfriend and really enjoys his time with her, granted after a good bit of time and an equally good bit of therapy that helped him clarify his love for her. Yet he finds a bug in his bonnet every now and then and needs to “get away from LouAnn,” sometimes for hours, sometimes for weeks. She has a hard time with this paradox. She wants him to say that “he wants to be with me or doesn’t want to be with me.” He has both feelings.

Understanding and utilizing paradoxical feelings

1. Feelings are never wrong

I have written about this several times over the years. I use the term “feelings” to be roughly equivalent to how my soul/spirit feels. Feelings, at least in my understanding and use of the term, is quite akin to intuition. “I just feel something” or “I just know something” or maybe “I have a gut feeling.” While feelings are never wrong, the words I try to find to express these feelings are always wrong, or more accurately, approximate. We as human beings need to accept the fact that I can never communicate my feelings with words to anyone at any time, not even to myself. This is where so many people go wrong: they say something that related vaguely to their feeling and the words do not communicate. Worse yet, they malcommunicated, meaning that they communicate something that is the opposite of what I feel.

2. Allow yourself to say words to yourself that approximate these paradoxical feelings, like:
   1. I love my wife and I don’t love my wife
   2. I want to stay home and I want to go out
   3. I want to eat and I don’t want to eat
   4. I am a good person and I am not a good person
   5. I should do this or that and I shouldn’t do this or that
   6. I want to live and I don’t want to live

If you allow yourself to have both of these feelings and dare to use some words—just to yourself, you will find a certain comfort, but you will also be inclined to force one side of the spectrum or the other. Work hard to accept paradoxical feelings

3. Tell someone your paradoxical feelings.

Be very careful to whom you share paradoxical feelings. You don’t need advice; you certainly don’t need criticism; you just need someone to hear you out. Such people are hard to find. You might have to advise your listener that you just need to say a “few things that feel crazy” to help your organize your paradoxical feelings

4. Watch the conjunction of these paradoxical feelings.

You might need to say something or do something but you need to allow for the paradoxical feelings to be there for a while before there can be a natural conjunction. Some people jump too quickly into action while others delay action forever. If you allow for these paradoxical feelings to both be there, you will come to a discovery of what you should say or do, if anything. Sometimes you actually do need to day or do anything. You just needed to feel these things and come to a sense of peace about the feelings.

5. Remember this procedure for future reference.

This means keep track of how you found your way through a certain part of life, very often a very important part of life, by allowing paradoxical feelings to be there. So, when you have other paradoxical feelings, you will be better at having both knowing that both are true in some way.

6. Allow for some other paradoxes in life, like:
   1. You feel one thing but think another
   2. You act in a certain way but don’t like your action
   3. You say something that is not entirely true but somehow seems to be the right thing to say.
   4. You say one thing one day and another the next day

Enjoy the paradoxes of life. They can be revealing, instructive, and healing.