Life in the Middle

Taffy, homemade mozzarella cheese, bread dough--many things benefit from the tension of being pulled in opposite directions. I’m not one of them.

Whereas taffy becomes more filled with air, cheese curds become more pliable, and bread dough gets stronger, being “pulled apart” sometimes has the opposite effect on me. I breathe in less air, tense up, and feel weak.

It’s been my frequent, involuntary physical response to conflict. That is, to people around me arguing, to people squaring off in diametric corners of opinion, to people I care about getting caught up in unresolved conflict. In other words, being “stuck in the middle” is a place that causes me distress.

However, what I’m discovering through DBT is that successful coping is often all about “being in the middle” The “middle” is where markedly different viewpoints, experiences, and realities co-exist. DBT reminds me that few things in life are completely black or white, all or nothing, the high road or the low road, here to stay or gone forever.

For proof, I need look no farther than the stack of DBT diary cards I’ve kept for the past year.  Each includes a section in which I rate various moods and emotions each day on a scale of one to ten. I’ve neither recorded many rankings of 1… nor of 10. Surprisingly, even on what I’ve perceived to be my worst days, I’m usually in the middle numbers—things are neither all terrible nor all wonderful. At the end of the day, feelings, moods, events somehow even themselves out.

Lately, I’ve been trying to keep this in mind when I feel pulled in opposite directions in the midst of someone else’s conflict. Things might feel irreconcilable at the moment. But both black and white objects have the same gray-colored shadows, constantly changing according to the light source.

 I’m learning to recognize and appreciate the shadows of life, ever shifting, moving, coming and going. And that includes moments of conflict.