March 25, 2021

When you hear the word “tension,” what comes to mind? (It’s okay if at first you think of Chubbs trying to calm Adam Sandler down in Happy Gilmore; I do, too.) How does your body feel? What images do you visualize? For me I think of a tight neck, a tight stomach, and that face you make when you can’t believe someone just made that inappropriate comment and aren’t sure what to say next. It makes me think of conflict, something I have spent a lot of time in my life trying to avoid. 

 Lately I have been compelled to embrace the tension. 

Why embrace tension? That sounds hard. A former classmate and current coaching colleague of mine has been consistently reminding me of this beautiful space that embraces the “both/and.” Both/and is an idea I have heard many times. Until recently, though, I had not been able to personally connect and thus fully understand and embrace the idea. My background with both/and was limited. It dealt mostly with grammar and correct composition of sentences. (I just looked up the phrase, and in the Usage Note section on the Macmillan Dictionary website it warns “Do not use ‘both . . . and’ in negative sentences.” https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/both-and.)  

My spouse Jeremy recently preached a sermon about Jesus “holding the tension.” Holding the tension of BOTH understanding his clear call to give life AND understanding the fact that he had to suffer and die because of it. Talk about tension. Jer held his left arm straight out to the side when he talked about the first piece of what Jesus was holding, and he held out his right arm when referencing the second. This creates a visual of both how difficult and how powerful, (see what I did there?) it is to be able to hold that tension.  

Gratitude and grief, joy and sorrow, life and death. 

There is a lot of tension to try to hold onto right now. What I am finding helpful – for my clients and myself – is to consistently make time and space to name “all the things” and “all the feels.” Name and acknowledge that simultaneously dealing with gratitude and grief, joy and sorrow, life and death, and on and on is flipping tough! It is tough, and it is exhausting.

Right now is a great time to both name and acknowledge your reality – successes and struggles – and set some goals. These may be new goals, or you might want to look at potential goal renewal (I think I just made that up, but it sounds legit), depending where you are in your life. The best way to set goals is through open-ended questions. Take a minute to think through these questions while we continue to slog through this liminal space and navigate what it looks like to work toward this whole getting “forward to normal” thing. 

One last caveat (I’ve always wanted to use that word): as you reflect on where you are in your tension-holding and prepare for setting or renewing goals, remember that holding the tension is tough. It is just tough. And because of this, we must also be intentional about creating space for self-grace (rhyme time alert). Goals and grace!  

• What have you learned about yourself over the last year-ish?

• What have you grieved?

• What are you grateful for? (If we are getting all grammar-y here, which we usually are, it’s: “For what are you grateful?”) 

• What new insights and wisdom have you acquired? 

• How will you live differently, after experiencing this last year-ish? 

• What is one thing you can do today that will help you hold the tension better? 

Hang in there, and remember when you feel crazy because you are dealing with seemingly contradictory thoughts and feelings all at once, you are crazy. Crazy and completely normal.