One of the things that limits our abilities to do something differently or be someone different, grow, change our habits, I think is “either / or” thinking. I see so many examples of that every day either in myself or others. We really need to get to a place where we can think “and” instead of “either/or.” Let me give you an example.

Last year, my husband, daughter and I were in South Africa. Even though my husband had lived in South Africa for 33 years, he had never been to Cape Town. I thought this was tragic as we have seen so much of the world, but not what was once our own back yard. He decided we would drive from Johannesburg, through the dry Karoo desert, into the lush Cape. I really wanted to say “either we fly or we don’t go”, instead I put my fears aside and agreed to “we go AND we drive.”

The drive was long, really long, but it was one of those times when you are cocooned in a bubble of steel, within a meter of each other and you just chat, read, nap, nibble on snacks and connect. I was facing a decision of leaving the Corporate world which had been really rewarding and taking a partnership in a business with two beautiful, talented human beings who have similar values to my own, but the risk equation was not lost on me. So we were sitting in the car and I was balancing the pro’s and con’s and pondering the choices, where it really was an “either/or” – either I stayed doing what I had always done, or I took a chance and did something different. We stopped at a Wimpy in the middle of nowhere and had some lunch. While we were waiting for our burgers, I said to my daughter, “That’s it, I am resigning and I am going to do this, watch this space, I am going to be really successful.” It was one of my tongue-in-cheek hypermanic moments and I did a wiggle and a grin. Her reaction was very different to what I thought, she rolled her eyes and said “Mum, that does not suit my plans.” I was confused. I did my “Huh” face. She said “Mum, I plan to have four children and I don’t need a successful granny in a suit, like the granny in “Two and a Half Men”. You need to be like my granny, crazy, funny, at home dancing with the broom.” I smiled at her. I know what she means. But we are a myriad of so many things, we are not “either/or,” some decisions definitely are “either/or” but when it comes to who we are, we have to put a big “and” in them. I do think, I can be the successful granny in the corporate business suit, who comes home dons the tracksuit and lives in the present with my grandchildren. Yet we limit ourselves and our loved ones so often by looking at everything through an “either/or” lens, forcing someone to be “either this or that.” Some of my best conundrums have been solved when I ask myself, “How can I do/be this “and” that – the out of the box thinking that happens and my own beliefs and prejudices that I have challenged, have left me in a different less judgmental zone and allowed me to make much more compassionate decisions about myself and the choices my family want to make.

So today, I challenge you, put your black and white pencils aside and allow yourself to use all the coloured crayons in your toolkit, give yourself or someone you love the power to add an “and”…

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Tanya Uncategorized