Ambiguity, Ambivalence and Anxiety

In his book, Why Good People Do Bad Things, Jungian analyst James Hollis says that growing up, really becoming the individuals we are, entails expanding our tolerance for what he calls the three A’s: anxiety, ambiguity and ambivalence. All three are unavoidable, and when we can’t tolerate the discomfort each brings, we unconsciously engage in the adaptive strategies we developed as children- undue compliance, self-destructive reactivity, addictions, distraction, denial etc. Hollis points out that the militancy of fundamentalism comes from the “incapacity to sustain even a modicum of ambiguity.” This reminded me of an interview with author Annie Lamott who posited that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.

Faith is expansive. It is a deeper connection to Life in the largest sense of the word. It increases our ability to be with anxiety, ambiguity and ambivalence without clinging to static, reassuring answers that lower or at least mask our fear and discomfort. And there are many varieties of fundamentalism: religious, New Age, political of every stripe.

I’m writing this before US President Obama gives his television address about American policy and plans in Afghanistan. This blog isn’t really about a particular political situation, but about how we make choices when the three A’s are evoked, as they are for me when I consider Afghanistan.

Recently someone sent me Sara Davidson’s blog: Confessions of a Dove in Afghanistan (see link in my profile.) Davidson is part of a group of Americans called Code Pink-Women for Peace who traveled to Kabul as part of a campaign to get the US to withdraw their troops. What they experienced there left some members of the group surprisingly ambivalent about troop withdrawal. Listening to the story of a woman who was brutalized by her husband for accidentally violating one of the many restrictions applied to women's lives, one of the Code Pink women asked if things would be worse if the troops pulled out and the Taliban returned. The woman telling the story replied, “There is no solution on a white horse. This is not just about the Taliban. It’s not about troops in or out. Karzai, in or out. It’s so multifaceted, we have to be honest about the contradictions.” Even knowing these contradictions, the woman said her personal feeling was “all troops out now,” although she admitted that other women were not clamouring for troop withdrawal.

And there we have it: the situation on the ground is not clear cut or simple. There are contradictions. Any action will have consequences. In fact it looks as if, in this situation as in so many others, any choice will have at least some negative consequences. But often choices must be made. Even to maintain things as they are is a choice. Choice cannot be avoided.

So, what do we do when our information about a situation- personal or collective- is filled with ambiguity and contradictions, our thoughts and feelings are ambivalent and, knowing there will be consequences for any choice, we are filled with anxiety?

We do the best we can. That means not going into denial about the ambiguity of the situation, our ambivalence or our anxiety. That means making a choice- if a choice must be made now- and watching carefully to evaluate the consequences, to see where our decision needs to be reviewed or modified. Holding the tension that certainty seems to alleviate, we may be able to see a creative third way where there appears to be only either/or solutions. It means learning as we go, and increasing our tolerance for discomfort and fear so we can see what is. It means resisting the temptation to use a fundamentalist one-size-fits-all principle in an attempt to avoid living a messy human life in a complicated and uncertain world. It means, growing up- exploring and bringing to consciousness our own shadow, our covert and habitual ways of dealing with contradictions, confusion and fear- so we can make conscious choices, so we truly can do the best we can.