I’m in . . . no, I’m out.

You’ve been meeting with your therapist for ten weeks and you both are trying to investigate why you have difficulty practicing the behavioral skills you’ve agreed to attempt.

You know you want to leave an unhealthy relationship. Three months later, you’re still there. 

Everyone on Twitter seems to be healing. You want to heal too but you can’t seem to start the process.

Ambivalence. 

It’s the thing that keeps us stuck in our healing journeys. It’s the thing that reinforces our “one foot in, one foot out” state of being.  It’s the invisible block that prevents us from achieving the things we say, and believe, we want. Ambivalence isn’t something we just overcome and I am often disheartened to witness how this social media world, which pushes microwave healing wrapped in catchy phrases and viral posts, hardly makes room for the normalization of ambivalence.

Change and healing aren’t hard solely because adopting a new pattern takes time. One of the most difficult parts of change is the ambivalence—that conflict of, “I want to change but I also want to stay the same.” Rice and colleagues (2017) suggest that ambivalence is a cognitive and emotional stuck point in which we face the desire to change and the comforts of not changing. More than pros and cons, ambivalence highlights our values, fears, and uncertainties. Ambivalence is not resistance, but it is genuine uncertainty that arises when we think of changing the patterns that have aligned with our being. Change is great, and sometimes necessary, but who will we become when we change our behavioral patterns? What comfortable pieces of our previous navigation do we forfeit when we show up differently? What uncomfortable pieces of accountability and responsibility arise when we choose to respond to situations differently? How much shame will meet us when our behavioral changes remind us of the maladaptive patterns we used to engage in? Ambivalence is here for a reason; it's typical to the human experience. Change is scary. 

So, what do we do? Do we shy away from ambivalence and thrust ourselves, eyes closed, into changed behavior? Heaven forbid, as such action is not sustainable. I hope I may encourage you to meet ambivalence with open arms. If you find yourself unable to make the changes you would like, why not name and validate the thing, or things, keeping you stuck? Acknowledging your mental and emotional barriers will assist you in figuring out how to address them, will help you move forward in achieving your goals, or will help you recognize that maybe change isn’t what you want at this moment (a major sign of progress). Sitting in ambivalence helps you get honest with your values—both salient and conflicting—and allows you to move as honestly as possible.

May your ambivalence bring clarity.

-Dr. P. Ryan