Dialectics
A survival skill for the ages, it's how we live with contradictions.
In another installment of “what do I need right now,” I’m writing about the concept of dialectics. I’ve gotten to rely on this ability of ours with almost a religious fervor. Lately, it feels like every other day someone says some version of, “We should not be expected to work and carry on our lives while fill in the blank is happening.” I can think of a number of these situations in my adulthood: 9/11, riots, the pandemic, insurrection, DHS occupation and turmoil, lying leaders. The thing is—they are right, and also the rent is still due. We can want to stop what we’re “supposed” to be doing in order to process or address the extraordinary circumstances, but they happen all the time. Big or small.
And, lately, it’s hard to believe that people have to go to work and go shopping and conduct their lives by being in traffic at the same time as ICE agents in motorcades crash into cars or box people in to throw them to the ground and take them to a federal building, and yet they do. We do. That sentence alone is a dialectic: the moral reality that no one should have to pretend things are normal while people are being hunted, and the brutal reality that capitalism expects us at our desks by 9 a.m. anyway. Holding both without going numb or exploding is not a personality quirk; it is a survival skill, and for some of us it has become almost a faith practice.
Back to the Power of Language
Dialectics, in that sense, is the quiet, stubborn belief that life will not collapse if two things are true at the same time. It is refusing to exile one truth just because it makes the other one uncomfortable. In philosophy, dialectic began as a way of working with opposites—thesis and antithesis held in tension until something new emerged from the collision rather than from erasing one side. In therapy language, especially in DBT, it becomes “both-and” thinking: the ability to say, “I am doing the best I can, and I need to do better if I want a different life,” without treating either clause as a lie. The point is not to clean up the mess; the point is to stop demanding that reality become less contradictory just because our nervous systems prefer straight lines.
You can hear dialectics in small, ordinary sentences long before you ever learn the word. “I love you, and I’m really upset with you right now.” “I feel guilty about this decision, and I know it is the right one for me.” “I miss my ex so much it hurts, and I know getting back together isn’t healthy for me.” “I want to use my old coping behavior, and I want the kind of life that behavior keeps stealing from me.” None of those lines resolve the tension. They hang in the air like unfinished chords. That hanging feeling is usually when the body starts screaming that something is wrong—that a contradiction this sharp must mean someone is lying, that you’re unstable, that the future is not safe. Dialectics is the decision to stay with that unfinished chord a few seconds longer and see what becomes possible if you don’t rush to pick a winner.
Naming dialectics gives a frame to what otherwise feels like tearing. Without a name, the experience of holding two truths—“this job is exploitative” and “this job pays for my medication,” “this country is doing unforgivable things” and “this is where my community and life are rooted”—can feel like a personal moral failure. If it hurts this much, the brain assumes, there must be a right answer that just hasn’t been found yet. With a name, the same experience becomes a known weather pattern: “Of course this hurts; this is what it feels like when two things are true and neither can be evicted.” That reframe doesn’t fix the conditions, but it does lower the shame. There is a huge difference between “I’m wrong for feeling both” and “Any human in this situation would feel both; this is the correct amount of pain for the circumstances.”
Dialectics for Remapping
On the ground, dialectical thinking is often nothing more glamorous than swapping out one word. “But” tries to erase the first truth: “I’m exhausted, but I have to show up,” as if exhaustion is a problem to be argued out of existence. “And” agrees to hold both: “I’m exhausted, and I’m still choosing to show up.” It sounds semantic, but language is the user interface of the brain. Those little “and”s are how new pathways get tested: the neurons that usually sprint toward either/or are asked to wait a moment, to hold the file open long enough for one more line of code. Over time, the brain starts recognizing that pattern as survivable. The nervous system learns that the presence of contradiction does not automatically mean danger; it can also mean complexity.
This is where dialectics and remapping neural pathways meet. Black-and-white thinking is efficient; the brain loves it because it makes threat detection simple: good/bad, stay/escape, them/us. But that same rigidity is what makes every paradox feel like a crisis. If your inner script says, “If two things conflict, one must be a lie and I am unsafe until I figure out which one,” then every contradiction—your politics versus your paycheck, your love versus your anger, your values versus your survival strategies—hits like a fire alarm. The body goes straight to all-or-nothing solutions: quit immediately or stay forever, cut them off or swallow your feelings, burn everything down or pretend nothing is wrong.
Dialectical practice writes a different script. It doesn’t make the external conditions any softer; it changes what your nervous system does in response. The new script sounds like: “If two things conflict, it means I’m standing in a paradox, and I can be safe in the doorway while I sort it out.” Not safe as in comfortable, not safe as in guaranteed a happy ending—safe as in “I can survive being in-between for longer than my panic thinks I can.” The external realities might not move at all. The ICE raids may continue while your alarm clock still goes off before sunrise. The job may stay exploitative while also keeping the lights on. But inside, a different kind of space opens up between awareness and action.
Dialectics as Resistance
Because of how dialectics make me feel, I think of them as a form of resistance. How I won’t “let the bastards get me down,” even when the bastards are my own thoughts. And the resistance grows. In practice, dialectics result in new default thoughts forming over time. Instead of, “I should not be expected to work while this is happening, so if I keep working I’m a hypocrite,” a dialectical pathway offers: “No one should be expected to work under these conditions, and I’m still going to my shift today because I need income and I’m looking for ways to redistribute whatever power I do have.” Instead of, “If I still feel grief, I must not be healing,” it becomes, “I am healing and I am still grieving.” Instead of, “If I am afraid, I must not be ready,” it becomes, “I am afraid and I am ready enough to take one step.” Each time you choose the “and,” you are rehearsing a slightly different way for your brain to meet conflict, thickening that new pathway a little more. It’s empowering.
For people trained by trauma, systemic harm, or chronic stress to believe that contradiction equals danger, dialectics can feel like a spiritual discipline. Not worship of suffering, but of the possibility that the self is big enough to hold multitudes. I absolutely depend on it. It’s how I survived my mother’s prolonged chronic health problems and traumatic death while also being in recovery for alcoholism and an eating disorder…not to mention a pandemic and a couple of layoffs. “I am furious and loving. I am grieving and relieved. I am surprised and I understand. I am complicit in systems I oppose, and I am also actively resisting them where I can. I am an alcoholic and I am really, really healthy.” Faith, in this sense, is not trusting that things will tidy themselves up or that justice will arrive on a clear schedule. It is trusting that when the next paradox arrives—when the world is burning and your timecard still needs to be punched—you will have enough inner scaffolding to hold both truths without self-destruction.
That doesn’t mean it stops hurting, which is why distress tolerance is one of the core aspects of dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT). The body will still tighten. The mind will still long for a sharp, decisive story: I am right and they are wrong; this is pure or it is worthless; I am good or I am beyond repair. But slowly, with repetition, you learn that standing in the doorway between two rooms does not mean you are being torn in half; it just means both rooms are part of the same house you are learning to live in. Dialectics is not a way out of contradiction. It is a way of staying human inside it.
Exercise: Practicing “And”
Try this with pen and paper if you can.
Think of one situation where you feel pulled in two directions.
It could be about the world (“The world is on fire and I still have to go to work”).
About a relationship (“I love this person and I’m furious with them”).
About yourself (“I want to rest and I feel like I should be doing more”).
Write one honest, messy sentence about it, the way your brain already says it.
“I need to make a dental appointment, but it’s hard to find the time to go.”
Find the two truths in your sentence and, if you used “but,” cross it out and write “and.”
“I need to make a dental appointment, and it’s hard to find the time to go.”
Read the new sentence out loud, slowly.
Notice what your body does: tight, numb, relieved, teary, annoyed. You are just observing, not fixing.
Under your “and” sentence, write one more line: “Given that both of these are true, a small next step I can take is…”
Make the step very small and specific. For example:
“…look at my schedule to find three open options for an appointment.”
“…block off one hour this week to rest without scrolling.”
“…tell one trusted person how torn I feel.”
You are not solving everything. You are practicing moving forward while carrying both truths.
If you want to keep going, write three more “and” sentences:
One about the world (news, politics, injustice).
One about a relationship (friend, partner, family, community).
One about yourself (body, work, healing, creativity, caregiving).
For each one, repeat the pattern: write the messy sentence, change “but” to “and,” add one tiny next step. Then read all of your “and” sentences out loud to let your nervous system hear that more than one truth can exist at the same time—and you can still choose a direction.