All or Nothing


When faced with solving a problem, sometimes we only know what not to do, and we don’t actually know what to do.  When this is the case, overcompensation is common and this is usually when the proverbial pendulum swings back in the other direction. 

Often, people don’t know how to balance the pendulum swing.  They go wildly to one side or wildly to the other without any moderation or in between.

When you know what you don’t want, it’s very important to try and refine that into what you do want.  Because usually what you actually want doesn’t lie at either end of the spectrum.  Usually what you want is somewhere nearer the middle. 

Never exercising or exercising every day

Eating all the sweets or eating no sweets

Overspending on “toys” or buying none

Being overly punitive or being overly permissive

Being aggressive or being passive

Avoiding problems or fixating on problems

It’s hard to live in the middle – it requires a shift in thinking and it requires ditching the rules for actually being thoughtful about things on a continual basis.

Sometimes it actually requires somebody demonstrating for us what that might even look like – to sit in the middle. Or maybe the acknowledgement that there is a fear about sitting in the middle – one we haven’t even admitted to ourselves. What might we lose if we give up the overindulgence and/or the underindulgence?


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