Swinging to Extremes? Don’t Find the Midpoint. Seek the Both/And.

Catherine is trying to find the midpoint between two extremes.  A self-described “pleaser” for most of her life, she spent her time doing what others wanted her to do.  Eventually, she gave so much time away that her marriage began to suffer. 

However, once it impacted her newborn baby, she knew she had to change.  As uncomfortable as it was, she bit the bullet became a boundary warrior.  She only did things that were a priority for her. 

Ahh bliss!  Championing her own needs served her very well…until it didn’t.  She started to lose connection with people; she felt isolated.  But she was terrified to drop her boundaries because she knew what it felt like to give her time away…the consequences felt awful.

Catherine's pickle demonstrates Polarity Principle No.4 from Hug of War: When we experience the overuse of one pole, we tend to see the benefits of the other pole as the “solution,” so we swing to that other pole and expose ourselves to its overuses.

Given these extremes, Catherine is now “seeking the midpoint” between the two extremes.  She describes it on her most recent podcast (in which she interviews moi.) 

“The midpoint,” I asked?  Then I said something sassy like, “Finding the midpoint is like holding your breath between an inhale and an exhale and hoping to live.”

“Wait, what?” she said.

Seek the Both/And

Leveraging the tension of a polarity isn’t sitting in the middle.  It’s not compromising.  It’s having the capacity to do both, then choosing what’s most useful given the current context.  Or even better, doing both at the same time.

With some polarities, you must choose one pole or the other in the moment.  I’m not aware of anyone who can both inhale and exhale simultaneously, for example.

But there are many, many polarities in which you can experience both poles at the same time. 

In Catherine’s situation, how can she spend her time both pleasing others and pleasing herself?  She can leverage the “fixed and flexible” polarity.  For example, let's say she fixed Saturday night as date night with her husband.  It’s a boundary she’s happy to set in stone because maintaining a healthy marriage is a top priority in her life.

But what happens when she’s invited to a Saturday night bachelorette party for a close cousin?  Her “older self” would want to go, but because it would violate her fixed boundary, she would decline the invitation. Although she’d feel proud of herself for honoring her boundary, she would also regret not attending the party.

Her “current self” is looking for the midpoint.   That might mean going on an early, short date night with her husband then boot-scootin’ it to the bachelorette party late.  That could have worked, but it didn’t feel good because it dishonored both her husband and her cousin.

Her “new self” is finding a “both/and” by focusing on both the benefits of fixed (spending date night with her husband) and the benefits of flexible (going to her cousin’s bachelorette party).  Once she asked herself how to honor her commitment to her husband and celebrate her cousin, the fog cleared: Switch date night to Friday night and go to the bachelorette party on Saturday night.

This way, she pleased both herself and the important people in her life.  She harmonized the poles!

Catherine knows how to please others…she spent most of her life doing that.  She also knows how to honor herself.  Her time as a boundary warrior helped her overcome the discomfort of saying no to others.  Her next step is learning how to do both, not just one or the other.

With this reframe, she realized that finding a midpoint isn’t the answer…it is building the capacity to do both, and defining a path that serves her greater purpose.  It was a mind-blowing aha for her.  🤯  Which is probably why her podcast is called The Expanders Podcast.  Check it out!

To learn more about managing polarities, join my mailing list, read Hug of War: How to Lead a Family Business With both Love and Logic, or seek the both/and. ;-)