Holding Opposites

Making peace with life’s mixed emotions

It’s that time of the year again: the moment we naturally look back over the past twelve months. As I do that, I realise I have mixed feelings. There were some great moments, and some difficult ones. Joy, sadness, frustration, grief, happiness… And honestly, that feels about right.

Like many French persons of my generation, I was taught to pick a side: for or against; good or bad… You form an opinion. You defend it. You make your argument sharp and clear. There’s a lot to love about that. It builds clarity, structure, confidence. But it also leaves very little room for nuances. You’re either this or that. Right or wrong. In or out.

Even now, it still feels natural for me to look for something definite, to choose one feeling, one conclusion. Was it a good year or a bad year? But over time, it becomes easier to be more flexible.

Discovering Another Way

At some point, especially through my time in India and through yoga, I discovered another option. Not choosing between opposites, but allowing both. Think about it, of course, you can:
- feel happy and sad at the same time.
- live with a so-called health condition and still feel healthy.
- love and hate someone at the same time.
- be excited about the future and anxious about it, without needing to sort it out immediately.

Yoga mirrors this constantly. In one posture you might feel strong and shaky, calm and uncomfortable, focused and distracted. For instance, in a low lunge you might feel calm in your breath but uncomfortable in the stretch. Your body is steady, yet your mind can drift.
The practice is not about trying to change these feelings or make them go away. It’s about staying with all of them. Over time, this way of being doesn’t stay on the mat, It starts to show up in everyday life too.

Why It Matters

Mixed feelings aren’t a failure of clarity. They’re a sign of attention, of presence, of having fully lived the year as it was.

There’s an old Zen story about a farmer whose horse runs away. His neighbours rush over, saying how unfortunate it is. The farmer simply replies, “Maybe.”
When the horse returns with several wild horses, the neighbours celebrate his good luck. “Maybe,” the farmer says again.
Later, the farmer’s son breaks his leg trying to tame one of the horses. “How terrible,” the neighbors say. “Maybe.”
Soon after, soldiers come to recruit young men for war and pass over the injured son. “How fortunate.” “Maybe.”
The farmer never tries to ‘shrink’ life into a single meaning. He doesn’t rush to label moments as purely good or bad. He allows the story to stay open.

As the year comes to a close, I imagine many of you are carrying a mix of feelings like this. Maybe you’re grateful and tired, relieved and disappointed, hopeful and unsure. That doesn’t mean anything went wrong. It simply means you noticed, you felt, you lived.

Since this is my last article of the year, I want to keep my wish simple: May you stop feeling the need to choose just one feeling.

With love,
Veronique

PS: and I hope you can come and visit us in 2026…