Reflections on ambivalence

The benefits of a future orientation on mental health

Over Valentine’s Day brunch, Athena and I got to talking about our different approaches to decision-making. One thing I have always admired about Athena is her capacity to make a decision about what she is striving towards, and then systematically breaking it down into smaller steps, prioritizing them as needed. This is a skill that I have often struggled with in my own life.

Too easily I can get stuck in the trees and lose sight of the forest. If I am initially confident, I soon become plagued with doubts and self-doubts: what if I’m wrong? What if it’s not worth it? What if the risks outweigh the benefits? What if I’m the wrong person for the job? Why did I ever think I could it? What’s wrong with me?

You get the picture.

The long view

Ambivalence is a mental state that is characterized by different parts having seemingly contradictory needs. On one hand, for example, is the part that wants novelty, excitement and change, while on the other hand is the part that wants predictability, familiarity, comfort and safety. Order and chaos, fighting for supremacy.

While Athena has learned to balance these two forces — at least from where I stand — with grace and equanimity, I still very much stumble and fumble my way through. But what I have come to realize, with time and pain, is that ambivalence is often the product of living too much in the present and the past.

This is an idea that I first learned about when consulting with depression expert Dr Michael Yapko. He explained that the cure for ambivalence is focusing more on the future. At first this suggestion struck me as absurd. Surely, anxiety, which often accompanies ambivalence, is an unease borne out of focusing too much on what lies ahead, and not enough on what is happening currently. Anxiety is about worrying about things that have not yet occurred at the expense of doing the things that need to be done now.

But as I further reflected on my battles with ambivalence, I recognized that it often came from my having too short a sightline of what lies ahead: when you are not sure where you are headed, what your target is, making a decision in the now is difficult because you don’t really know what outcome you want. But if you zoom out a little, and take a longer view of where you are headed, you then are able to easily identify whether what you are doing now will get you closer or further away from where you want to go.

The word Disability is not my favourite because it defines someone by what they cannot do. And while it is true that Athena cannot walk or put much weight on her legs, or that sometimes she struggles to reach for light switches and cannot pick things up when they drop to the floor, these limitations are a mere fraction of her identity.

While I am considered the ‘able-bodied’ member of the marriage, I am fully aware that those labels elide my many limitations as much as they obscure Athena’s abilities. For one thing, I do not know anyone who is more effective at organizing the steps of a creative practice the way Athena has tackled every creative project she has taken on, from her first solo art exhibit, to her second one during the time that she was still hospitalized, to more recently her work on a children’s book. Not to mention all her organizational abilities in keeping us on track with our recent apartment renovations and upcoming move. If it had all been left to me, I guarantee you it would not have gone as smoothly.

I mentioned to Athena that ambivalence has been something I have struggled with all my life. Even as a child in the schoolyard, I would freeze in place while playing tag with schoolmates, fearful of fleeing whoever was “it” for fear of putting myself further at risk of being caught. If there was a picture in the dictionary next to the word “ambivalence” or “risk-averse”, my mug would be a good one to have. That said, I have learned over the years to push through the fear, and act anyway.

Sometimes it’s a struggle but I have taken big risks in my life, with varying degrees of success. The failures have served to reinforce the negative belief that I am “not good enough”, “not perfect enough”. On the flip side, when I have taken risks, and succeeded, I have often minimized those successes, or viewed them as the exception rather than the rule. It is an irony that even a therapist, trained in recognizing negative thought patterns, can recognize those patterns in himself but can struggle to break them.

The advantage of anticipatory thinking

Athena credits much of her future-orientation to her disability. Because the world was not designed with her and her wheelchair in mind, every time she rolls out the door in her motorized chair, she is faced with challenges big and small — curb cuts covered in snow, construction blocking side-walks, public bathroom doors that she can’t push open, icy patches in the winter that send her spinning.

So much of what she might encounter on any given ordinary day is unpredictable and unexpected, but through years of experience she has built up an arsenal of creative solutions to everyday problems. What might seem like a simple, ordinary outing to anyone else, becomes an obstacle course that requires constant vigilance and forward, anticipatory thinking.

That capacity to anticipate the unexpected, to focus on the step-by-step-by-step of even simple tasks, is a skill that most of us don’t have to develop to the degree that she does. And it’s one that I’m pretty sure is a big contributor to her overall excellent mental health.

People who tend to think too much about the past often become depressed. People who privilege the present over everything else, often give way to impulsivity. Take, for example, if I am standing in the grocery story, surrounded by chocolate bars. If I am not really thinking further ahead, to my longer term health, the temptation of buying that chocolate bar becomes harder to resist. The urge for sugar in the present moment outstrips any other resistances I might have.

But if I have set a goal for myself of removing sugar from my diet so that I can live a long and healthy life alongside my wife, and then I am faced with a barrage of chocolate bars, the urge to have one might still exist, but I can override it by taking a step back and reflecting in that moment whether the act of picking up that chocolate bar will bring me closer or further away from my future vision of a healthy, long-living husband.

People who orient toward the future, and then break down those goals into smaller, achievable milestones, tend to have a healthy sense of their own agency and a confidence to match it. Athena is living proof of this.

Ambivalence and the fear of vulnerability

The other piece about ambivalence is that it is often accompanied by a fear of failure. Faced with a blank page and a desire to write a novel, for example, a person can either dive in knowing that what emerges might be quite terrible (as first drafts so often are), or get stuck in the starting position.

To start a project, is to make a commitment. It is to set an intention and by doing so it is to express a vulnerability. To want is to be vulnerable. A person who wants nothing, cannot be taken advantage of. They also cannot experience the closeness that comes with being willing to open themselves up to feedback, criticism, judgement, but also connection. Vulnerability is the cost of playing the game of creativity. And once you can embrace the risk as a price worth paying, ambivalence often melts away.

Having something of a perfectionistic streak, I struggle with opening myself up to failure. Partly it’s how I grew up, and partly it may just be temperament. Luckily, cultural and familial scripts are not destiny. They can be rewritten, day by day, moment by moment. Temperament, of course, is harder to change but not impossible.

I will likely always be somewhat risk averse, slightly anxious. But accepting that doesn’t mean accepting inaction. It simply means I might need to try a little harder than the person next to me, who throws caution easily to the wind. I’m OK with that, because I know where I want to get to. My fear, my ambivalence, is just one step along the path of getting there.

One thing I’ve never been ambivalent about, though, is my admiration for Athena and her many abilities.

Happy Valentine’s Day, all.

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Stefan is Tilted Windmills’ clinical counsellor, generative coach and a self-described wounded healer. If you’re seeking support, consider booking a free 30-minute consultation.

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