For most of my life, all-or-nothing thinking felt like a form of moral clarity.
Rigidity felt like integrity.
Obsession felt like dedication.
It felt like proof that I cared enough.
That I was awake.
That I hadn’t turned away.
But, there’s a difference between vigilance and vision. There’s a difference between caring deeply and collapsing under the weight of that care.
identifying the skill gap
I have a form of OCD that gives me an intense sense of responsibility for things beyond my control: global suffering, systemic failure, and the emotions of strangers.
If I am not fixing everything, my brain tells me I am failing.
And when that is impossible (as it always is) I feel anxious, guilty, and ashamed.
My brain tells me: If you don’t do it all, you’ve done nothing. And if you don’t do it perfectly, you’ve failed.
This isn’t uncommon for people drawn to activism. Many of us are wired for care. We see pain and we want to alleviate it.
But when our internal compass is rigidly binary, right or wrong, success or failure, enough or not enough, we burn out fast.
And we burn out silently, because, to admit that we are overwhelmed feels like another form of failure.
At first, my OCD made me effective at certain goals. I could achieve rapidly, focus intensely, push through limits. But the cost was everything else.
I couldn’t adapt to changing circumstances.
I couldn’t reconcile conflicting needs.
I couldn’t maintain basic well-being while chasing a goal.
My life became a pendulum swinging between overcommitment and collapse.
Eventually, I stopped seeing this as a moral problem and started seeing it as a skill gap. I realized I actually did not know how to hold multiple priorities at once.
And admitting that felt humiliating, like confessing that I’d missed a lesson every toddler already knew.
But once I named it, I could learn.
* I want to be clear, this is not medical advice and I have not cured my OCD with these techniques! I manage my OCD via consistent therapy with an Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) expert, as well as medication monitored by a psychiatrist. If you are struggling with similar experiences and suspect you may have OCD, please talk to your doctor and seek the appropriate medical interventions. 🤍
The unlearning
The unlearning of rigidity is echoed in so many spiritual traditions.
In Buddhism, The Middle Way offers an alternative to extremes.
In Zen, beginner’s mind invites us to remain open.
In Nondual Tantra, there’s no binary to escape.
Everything— grief, joy, contraction, expansion— is an expression of one living consciousness. There is no “right” part of the self to elevate and no “wrong” part to discard.
Nothing needs to be “transcended” in the conventional sense. The divine is not elsewhere, it is present as this very moment, exactly as it is.
Tantra is a path of radical inclusion.
The sacred doesn’t shine despite the mess, but because of it.
What we push away in ourselves often holds the greatest concentration of power, waiting to be recognized.
What are you thinking about after reading this? Feel free to leave a comment, I’d love to hear.
The expanding
I started to explore my all-or-nothing tendencies as overly narrow expressions of care.
I didn’t need to stop caring, I needed to widen the field.
To allow multiple truths to exist at once.
To stop choosing between wholeness and effectiveness, and instead ask how I might hold both at once.
I started practicing what felt impossible: holding more than one thing at a time.
Here is what I learned:
It’s about recognizing that contradictory things can be true at the same time.
You can love someone and still be hurt by them.
You can be strong and still feel overwhelmed.
You can be grateful and still want more.
It's not about choosing one truth and rejecting the rest. It's about making space for all of them to exist together without needing to resolve or rank them.
🛠️ How to Practice:
Name each truth clearly.
Example: “I’m proud of what I’ve done and I know I can do better.”Drop the “but,” use “and.”
“But” cancels out the first part. “And” keeps both alive.Accept discomfort.
It feels cleaner to pick one truth. But real life is messy. Lean into it.
From there, I started to learn how to hold multiple goals at once. Here’s what I learned:
It’s about managing competing priorities without needing one to “win.” For example, you might want to
Build a career and protect your mental health.
Be there for others and hold your boundaries.
Save money and enjoy life now.
🛠️ How to Practice:
Clarify what each goal actually needs.
Some need time, some need consistency, some just need attention now and then.Shift focus, don’t split it.
You can’t do everything at once, but you can rotate attention with intention.Expect trade-offs, not failure.
If one goal gets more time this week, it doesn't mean the others are abandoned.
the garden
I started to envision myself as a garden. The garden has seasons. Some seasons are for growing. Some seasons are for harvesting. Some seasons are for resting.
Some seasons I’ve tended and fertilized the roses. They are flowering dramatically while the sugar snap peas are being eaten by caterpillars. Some seasons I’ve doted on the strawberries and no matter what I do, the birds eat them before they ripen.
Some things come effortlessly, like the mint I planted 6 years ago and is now still growing, attempting to overtake the whole garden. And other things take relentless, consistent care.
Some days, I still want the simplicity of all-or-nothing. And that’s okay. It’s a tool. I am allowed to oversimplify sometimes. I want the clean lines. The certainty. The illusion of being Good. In moderation, it works.
But in excess, it breaks things.
Now, I’m learning a different skill: to be here in the middle.
In the mess.
In the maybe.
In this shimmering space where things are unresolved.
Where contradiction is complexity, not confusion.
I am learning to care deeply and let go. I am learning to act and rest. I am learning to long for a better world and still love this one. 💖
I write for free, once or twice a week, but the real joy is hearing from readers. You’re always welcome to respond. Hit ‘reply’ or send me a message belo