How Binary Thinking can be your Teacher, maybe even your Friend.

It's called all-or-nothing, black-and-white, good-or-bad, and right-or-wrong.

Binary or Dichotomous Thinking tends to limit our perspective into 2 clearly defined and opposing viewpoints.

Categorizing our reality in this way can at times be a useful habit of the mind; Threat, Danger, Run! or Poison = Bad. This is likely why it's so common and pervasive in our psyche.

However, when binary thinking is our dominant, habitual, and choiceless way of seeing the world, nuance is removed, opportunities are limited, and relationships suffer.

We find the world outside of our own identification as adversarial and conflicted.

If things we encounter are not in absolute alignment, then they must be out-of-alignment.

We also find that those we have relationships with, the world at large, and even ourselves are not able to meet the standards set by an absolute value.

"If it's not perfect, it's a failure."

This positioning of polar extremes can cause us to experience uncertainty, disruption, volatility, paranoia, depression, and anxiety in our thought patterns and emotions. Often the exact things we were unintentionally desiring to avoid by placing these labels of certainty onto our experience in the first place.

We're trying to create safety, through certainty and control.

When you find yourself with 2 clearly defined and opposing options, alternately ask yourself, "What also might be true?".

Instead of responding with certainty and defending your position, cultivate and utilize a quality of curiosity and openness.

What exists along the spectrum of grayness between these two defined points?

This allows for a much richer and interesting life experience.

In this way, you can transform your binary thinking from something that limits you to something that signals an opportunity to enrich your experience and enhance your perspective.

As you continue in this practice, you'll be able to notice not just when you're struggling with this distortion, but you'll also be able to witness the struggle of others.

Slowly you'll come to see how this impairment limits one's ability to view reality with accuracy, and how this inhibits connection, opportunity, and growth.