Bloom Your Mind

Ep 117: Two Things are True

• Marie McDonald

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There are two ways of looking at the world. We can think that there is one truth to everything; “one thing is true”…OR we can realize that many things are true at the same time. We call this “two things are true” thinking.  

Recently, I was working with a collaborator on something who was consistently letting me down by not meeting their commitments. When I was just trying to understand the hard things that were coming up for them and getting in the way of their work, my compassion was all that was true. I was in my “one thing is true” mindset. After a few occurrences of this, I moved into a “two things are true” mindset. I realized- It’s okay that those things didn’t get done, AND it’s not okay that those things didn’t get done. 

When that happened, I could both be compassionate AND hold them accountable to what they committed to. When we realize that two things are true, we move from convincing energy to understanding energy. And that’s when the magic…and the problem solving happens. 

What you’ll learn in this episode: 

  • “Two things are true” vs “one thing is true” thinking 
  • A three step process to solve problems that involve more than on truth
  • How learning to use “two things are true” to help turn ideas into real things 
  • Why validating different perspectives is different than agreeing with them 
  • Why it’s hard to do this in a convincing culture that teaches us power and dominance instead of curiosity and understanding 
  • How understanding and validation are way more effective than being right 
  • How understanding that two things are true allows us to gathering data and develop awareness to make better decisions 

When we understand that two opposing things are true at once, we can get creative. Our thinking is innovative and elastic because it’s open to different perspectives, realities, possibilities and thinking. Instead of sweeping everything under the rug, we see it all and solve for it all. 

Mentioned in this episode: 

How to connect with Marie:

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Blue Near Mind podcast where we take all of your ideas for what you want and we turn them into real fans. I'm your host, certified coach, Maureen McDonald. Let's get into it. 

Speaker 2: Well, hello everyone and welcome to episode number 117 of the Blue Near Mind podcast. There's something very special about this episode. I think it's very special anyways and that is that I am recording it at five in the morning. 

On the day it's actually going to be released, which has never happened before. And if you want to know why, it's because I goofed the original recording and the sound was horrible and it sounded so echoey. I was just imagining all of you driving in cars and walking on sidewalks and making dinners with my voice in your ear with this tinny echoey sound and I was like, nope. So I'm up. I always get up early, but I'm up extra early recording this podcast before my husband gets up and we do our morning workout, which is also very fun. And I'm holding a cup of coffee with delicious coconut creamer in it and thinking about how much it rained last night because here in San Diego it has rained like none this year. Here are the tiny little sprinkles here and there and last night. An atmospheric river doused us. And when I think of atmospheric rivers, my friends, it really helps me tap into that miraculousness of life. Like the cool things that we get used to hearing and seeing and being around that when we allow ourselves to pretend like life is a vacation that we're on, like a new city that we're exploring and discovering and we can wake ourselves up to the miraculousness of everything. An atmospheric river is definitely a miraculous sentence or phrase, right? I remember the first time I heard it, I was like, what? I love the image in my mind of a river in the sky. So good. 

Okay. So that's where I am while I'm recording this. Where are you? 

I like to imagine all of you out there. Today we're going to talk about two things being true at once. And I just want to say that you can either listen to this episode and be like, yeah, I get that. 

I've heard some things that are like that before. Or you can listen to this episode from like the center of your heart from just with a lot of intention and apply what I'm talking about to you and your mind and the way you communicate and the way you approach projects and the way you treat yourself. And it can change everything. I will also say that for some of you, even if you do that deep, deep, deep listening, there are some out there that's going to be like, oh yeah, well, yeah, that's how I roll. That's how my brain works. 

That's how I do. And in which case it will provide maybe some new information and perspective that will help you appreciate yourself and help you teach others to adopt a two things or true mentality. And for others, it will really change everything. I have had specific individuals in my life for whom I've tried to teach this concept for literal decades and they haven't been able to understand experience. Really. They've been able to maybe conceive of but not understand experientially what this feels like to have a two things or true perspective. 

And when they finally got there, it really broke things open. So today I am using this two things or true language because I find that it says it better than I ever have. And the person that is saying it better than I ever had is Dr. Becky Kennedy. And so we're going to talk about all kinds of things, but the two things are two phrase comes from her from the book Good Inside. 

And she actually specializes in like pediatric psychology and in child psychology. But the things that she talks about are so applicable to relationships, to our ideas becoming real. And most importantly for us, our purposes today to us in the way that we treat ourselves in our own minds, the way we reduce ourselves or don't the way we validate ourselves or don't. And when we can adopt the two things or true mentality, we have better problem solving way more effective progress like towards any kind of idea in our lives and just happier lives in general because we're not invalidating ourselves inside all the time. And you may think, oh, this is about validation. This is about listening. 

This is like scrunchy soft stuff. It will make you so effective. If you're all about like taking action towards your goal or leading a business or you want the hard skills, this is a hard skill, my friend. Listen up. I'm also going to give you a three step process to once you realize that something is a two things are true situation or moment, I'm going to give you a three step process to be able to problem solve and turn these two things are true moments into great resolutions and possibilities that never existed before. So we'll end with that. I was working actually in the bloom room recently and a physician that was in the bloom room this is on this week on Tuesday was talking about the community aspect of the bloom room being so valuable and he was just sort of like talking for a while about how grateful he was to be in there and how he could feel just the healing and the effectiveness in people, people's progress, people moving towards their goals and being who they want to be in their life because of this ability to sit side by side with other human beings, learning really incredible tools that help in the day to day and just be loved, accepted, normalized, seen, no judgment supported by these other community members and how in his practice as a physician, like a family medicine doctor, he sees people come in for all kinds of physical ailments and what he thinks they need is emotional regulation and support from community and the missing piece in Western medicine. 

It's not either or right. He's he's giving them these incredible things that they must have right medicine, healing, diagnostics and they're going through a whole process where they need support dealing with it all with their brain and their body after he spoke. Other people spoke one after another in the bloom room talking about the deep gratitude they had for the space and that's been happening week after week. And I just want to say that if you are not in a community space that I know I've said this all the time, but that feels like you can talk about what's going on for you in a way that is accepted and normalized and not judged where problem solve and get support. If you don't have one of those, get into a space with friends. 

This used to be something that every human being had in churches and in different groups and institutions that were set up in our society that are just not set up anymore. So the bloom room, for instance, is a very, very low cost community where you can get that every single week and get support in turning every idea into reality. And I want to just also mention there that we are turning ideas into real things all day every day, whether you realize that you are or not. It's not just starting a business. It is not just writing a book. These tools from the field of innovation and design thinking are applicable to designing your day, right? 

Like cooking a meal, exercising, planning a trip. We are making one idea real after another all day every day. So have some support in it. 

We are here for you. And one person asked, can people join the bloom room? And I said, of course, they can always join the bloom room. 

A couple of people in the bloom room asked if they could have friends join and I said, yeah. And then I said, this is a great time to do it, actually, because we are rounding out our first 90 day period. And this is a great time in the next few weeks to hop in and start to familiarize oneself with all the tools and then be ready for the next 90 day cycle. Although anytime is a great time, you can always hop in. All right, so let me know if you want details on that. 

You can visit the link in my bio, the dot bloom dot coach. And exciting news. My website is also almost done. So soon you'll be able to check that out. Five years into my business, here I go. 

Finally building a website. All right, so I was actually working with a collaborator. And this collaborator was so skilled, so amazing, so lovely. I loved working with her, loved being around her. And she kept dropping the ball. So she would say she'd do a bunch of things on her project and then she just wouldn't follow through on them. And every time it was something new that was getting in the way. Every time it was like, oh, this time this disaster happened. This problem happened. This thing happened. And, you know, I've had this experience multiple times in my life as a leader of companies and a leader in general, where I was working with this person and my compassion was leading. I would understand like a big thing would happen in her family life or a big thing would happen, you know, traffic or weather or injury or sickness or overwhelm all over and over different things happening. 

And she kept letting me down. Not just in the way of like, I can't do that, right? If someone tells me I don't have the capacity to do something great, but it was more committing to do things by a certain date that then I was dependent on and I would plan my work around and would communicate to others. Hey, this thing's coming out in the bloom room or, you know, I would tell you all something was coming and it wouldn't come because I was waiting. 

On this other person that wasn't delivering. And in the moment when I realized when I shifted from just compassion to the two things or true mentality, it took a couple of these instances where it's like, oh, this is a pattern. And then I shifted from, Hey, I'm here to support you too. It's okay that you didn't get these things done. And it's not okay that you didn't get these things done. Two things are true. 

And so often we do not allow our brain to be able to accept that two oppositional things or very different things can be true at the same time. Once that happened, once I realized and accepted it is okay that she did not get these things done. And it's also not okay that she didn't get things done. Then I was able to hold her accountable to what she had said she would do with compassion. 

And support. I turned into much more effective problem solver and the problem went away. So this is called multiplicity. The definition of multiplicity is a large variety. Many things being true. Many things existing at the same time. So multiplicity is just a word. There are, you know, different applications of it in psychology and in other fields, but multiplicity to our purposes is just a variety of things. And for us, we are talking about a variety of things being true at once. 

What Dr. Becky says is the idea of multiplicity is the ability to accept multiple realities at once. When there are two people in a room, there are also two sets of feelings, thoughts, needs and perspectives. Our ability to hold on to multiple truths at once, ours and someone else's allows two people in a relationship to feel seen and real, even if they are in conflict. Multiplicity is what allows two people to get along and feel close. They each know that their experience will be accepted as true and explored as important, even if these experiences are different. Building strong connections relies on the assumption that no one is right because understanding, not convincing, is what makes people feel secure in a relationship. So I really want to really focus in on this idea of understanding versus convincing. 

So we have these two modes that we're in. Understanding is the one where we understand that many things are true. Convincing is where we try to get the other person to see our perspective. But this also happens inside of us. We think, I am sad and so I can only be sad or I'm frustrated with this person. But when we adopt the mentality that we can feel many ways at once, I'm frustrated, I feel bad for them. I really want them to follow through for me. 

I'm disappointed and I'm hopeful all at the same time. Then we become much more effective problem solvers, much more effective communicators, and we are able to see the full picture. So we want to move from convincing, which is the attempt to prove a single reality, to prove that only one thing is true, to understanding that two things are true, to diametrically oppose ways of approaching other people. This is this convincing versus understanding and this is from the book Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy. 

So we can feel that it's both really important to me and I'm having a hard time prioritizing it, for instance. Or I've been working all day and all night and all weekend and my kid will still not clean up their room and it's just not fair and they're being so rude and I totally get not wanting to clean up your room. Or I know this person that I love did not mean to impact me in the way that they did and I'm really pissed off and hurt and that was so rude. Or I really want this thing and I don't want this thing. 

Two things are true. Use it. It is like magic. When I use it with my children, with family, with partners, with collaborators on projects, it absolutely changes everything. And you can listen to the episode Listening is Sexy, which came out early in February, to understand how to apply this to relationships specifically. But today I really want to apply it more to our relationship with ourselves because we're trying to turn ideas into real things. And we said we do this all day every day, right? 

But we invalidate half of what we feel all the time. I had a client I was working with actually this week that was saying, I know I want to move towards this project. I know I want to move but I keep having these feelings pop up that are like, do I? Am I just telling myself I want this? 

And I keep pushing them aside. That is a one thing is true mentality that I want to create this project. I want to follow through on this. And so I can't have these other feelings. What happens when we do that is we limit our ability to problem solve or plan effectively or see all the sides of a thing. But when we stop and she says, I really want to complete this huge project and what's this feeling coming up? Oh, I'm feeling a little bit of fear. What's the fear? Oh, it's that I'm going to have to travel a lot. 

Okay, now I can problem solve how much I want to travel and whether it actually fits into my current business plan or whether I need to change the business plan so that I travel less and can outsource that part of the business. Do you see when we allow ourselves to be able to hold that many things are true at once? I am dedicated to this project and I'm afraid I am dedicated to this project and I'm doubtful that it'll work. Then we can ask the question about, oh, where's that doubt coming from and make a much more effective plan. Because in its core, everything just wants to exist a feeling in us a thought in us that keeps floating around like a ping pong ball until we notice it and say, hey, and either tell it, oh, yeah, don't worry about that. That's an old thought that came from a long time ago. We don't have to worry about that. 

Or we can say, oh, that's a good thought. Let me dig into that. An emotion and experience in someone else a lived experience in someone else. They all just want us to validate that they exist. And at its core, when we just are like pushing it aside, we're saying you don't exist. And when we do that, when we have a one thing is true mentality with other people, our relationships become really hard. When we have it with ourselves, we become less effective and less happy because we're just bottling up a bunch of the truths that are inside of us. So even if something is illogical or impulsive or inaccurate or unfair as an opinion or something that's coming up in us. If we are having an experience or a feeling or a strong opinion, or if someone else is validating it will help it not try to take over. It will calm down that real feeling that we have to let it out because we'll acknowledge it and then we can problem solve. 

And I also want to say that validation is not agreeing. It's saying I see you exist. So listening and validating a part of us a feeling we have an emotion. One of the many ways that we're feeling about things when we have this two things are true mentality. It's not giving it the reins when we validate that we're a little afraid. We're not letting our fear drive the bus and our project. We're just saying I see you exist fear. I got you. What's up? 

Why are you there? And the same thing when a child who has been playing all day long and making a giant mess does not want to clean up. No matter how irrational it is, we're not agreeing when we say, oh yeah, it's horrible to clean up. We're just saying I see you. 

Sucks clean up. And the same thing with our partners and our friends. When they have an opinion that's so different from ours, maybe the opposite from ours. It doesn't invalidate ours to just say, I hear that it exists. But it's hard for us to stay in a two things are true understanding mode because we're in a convincing culture. Convincing mode is about power and dominance. Convincing mode is about being right, not being effective, not understanding. And when we come at ourselves with convincing mode, we're not going to see the whole picture. Convincing is bulldozy, has to be right, has to win, has to prove. It's about noticing how others are wrong, how we're right. 

When we go into understanding mode, it's about noticing, gathering data, listening, learning, developing awareness, and seeing the whole picture so we can make decisions and have opinions later based on the whole picture. So our whole goal here is to validate that two things are true. Many things are true. Examples of this are to validate I want to move careers and I don't. Two things are true. 

Money is tight and I have to leave this soul sucking job and I got to make money even more tight right now. Two things are true. I have no hope for the world right now and I have to take some action based on hope. 

Two things are true. I don't have any ideas for what I want to do to help the world and I have to do something right now. I have no extra time in my schedule and this opportunity is too good to pass up. 

Two things are true. This has never been done before and I have to do it. I have no help on this project and I have help on this project. I have no time. I have lots of time. 

All right. So when we see that two things are true and we validate whatever it is that's going on, we calm down the impulse to fight against ourselves and we start to see the whole picture. So our three steps are number one to move into two things are true understanding mentality. How can I understand all the different ways that I feel and think? How can I understand that two things that are even oppositional can exist at the same time? And then once I see the things that are oppositional, I go into problem solving mode. So step one is the two things are true mentality. Step two is to remember that every obstacle is a strategy waiting to happen. There's a book, The Obstacle is the way that is incredible for this. 

There is a podcast episode that I recorded called Moving Through Obstacles that I'll put in the show notes. This is this age old concept called stoicism where we see that when problems arise, they present, when we can look at the problem and solve it, we have a they present a new opportunity that was never available before. There's no light bulb without darkness, right? So we see two things are true and we recognize the obstacle in front of us. And then step three is to use blue sky thinking to get creative about solutions. This is based in this idea from design thinking where we brainstorm using blue sky thinking being ridiculous at first. 

Being ridiculous at first is a process that they use in the Institute of the Future in Palo Alto, where they say every idea that really changes the world sounds a little bit ridiculous at first. So first we solve the problem by coming up with as many ideas for how we can solve it as we can and it's okay if they sound ridiculous at first. So step one, two things are true. What are those two things or those many things that seem oppositional and put us in a problem solving find? Step two, set our mind by understanding that every obstacle is a way forward. So let's recognize what this bind has created. 

What's this obstacle for us? And step three, use blue sky thinking to come up with solutions that sound a little bit ridiculous at first and see what you come up with. Because when we understand that many things are true at once, we get creative or thinking is innovative and elastic because it's open to different perspectives, realities, possibilities, thinking. Come up with wild and ridiculous ideas that actually solve all parts of the problem, not just the part that we're most comfortable looking at. 

Instead of sweeping everything under the rug, we see it all and solve for it all. So three steps, recognize that two things are true, practice that thinking, the understanding instead of convincing mode of our mind, day in and day out. And then when two things are true leads us to a problem, we use these three steps. Number one, understand the two things are better true or the many things that are true. Number two, adopt an obstacle is the way mentality and obstacles are strategies waiting to happen mentality and recognize what the obstacle is. 

And number three, use blue sky thinking to come up with ideas and solutions that sound ridiculous at first and solve your problem in the most epic way. That's what I have for you this week and I will see you next week. 

Speaker 1: If you like what you're hearing on the podcast, you gotta come and join us in the Bloom Room. This is a year-round membership where we take all of these concepts and we apply them to real life in a community where we have each other's backs and we bring out the best in each other. In a community where we have each other's backs and we bring out the best in each other, we're all there to make our ideas real, one idea at a time. I'll see you in the Bloom Room.