What if two seemingly opposite things could both be true at the same time?

In this episode of Meaning vs. Merit, Dr. Maria-Christina Stewart sits down with clinical, developmental, and educational psychologist Dr. Lance Linke to explore the concept of dialectical thinking—a cognitive and emotional skill that allows us to hold multiple perspectives simultaneously.

In a world increasingly shaped by polarization, algorithm-driven outrage, and black-and-white thinking, the ability to slow down and consider opposing viewpoints may be one of the most important psychological tools we can develop.

Dr. Linke brings his expertise in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to explain how dialectics work, where the concept comes from in philosophy, and how it can be applied in everyday life.

Together, they discuss how learning to tolerate complexity can lead to better decision-making, stronger relationships, and greater emotional regulation.

This episode also marks the beginning of a new chapter of Meaning vs. Merit, where conversations will explore not only achievement and identity, but also the psychological tools that help us navigate a complex world.

In This Episode We Discuss

• What dialectical thinking actually means

• The philosophical origins of dialectics (thesis, antithesis, synthesis)

• How Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) uses dialectics to help people regulate emotions

• Why humans naturally default to black-and-white thinking

• How holding multiple perspectives can reduce conflict and increase understanding

• Why slowing down our thinking can improve decision-making

• How dialectical thinking may help bring people together rather than divide them

• Simple ways to start practicing dialectical thinking in everyday life

About the Guest

Dr. Lance Linke is a clinical, developmental, and educational psychologist with expertise in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). His work focuses on helping individuals build emotional regulation skills, cognitive flexibility, and healthier ways of navigating complex psychological challenges. For more information to Dr. Linke, please visit: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/lance-hartmut-linke-ipswich-ma/889794

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Welcome back to Meeting vs. Merit. It's been a little while, and as I begin this next chapter of the podcast, I'm loosening the boundaries of our topic a bit and following conversations wherever they lead. The themes of meaning, achievement, identity, and culture will always be here, but sometimes the conversations that matter most don't fit neatly into a single framework. So moving forward, you'll hear episodes that still touch those themes.

but also conversations that help us think more deeply about how we live, relate to one another, and make sense of our complicated world. To start, I'm diving into a concept that I think is incredibly important right now, dialectics, the ability to hold multiple truths at once and to move toward understanding rather than polarization. In this episode, I sit down with my dear friend and colleague, Dr. Lance Linke

a clinical developmental and educational psychologist who is also an expert in dialectical behavior therapy. We explore what dialectical thinking is, where it comes from, and how it can help us navigate complexity and difference in our daily lives.

This conversation is the first in what may become a short series exploring dialectics more deeply. If this topic resonates with you, please take a moment to rate, review, and share it with a friend. Your support makes a huge difference in helping us help others. Now let's dive in.

I'm so excited to be here with my colleague, Dr. Lance Linke who is an expert in DBT, dialectical behavior therapy. And one of the things that we are going to dive into today is a term that we call

the dialectic. And so Lance, maybe we can start there. Because before we talk about like what it applies to and how, you know, what areas of our lives we might use it, I'm just curious about a couple of things. One, what's the dialectic? And two, it's part of this name of this therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, but certainly,

We were talking about the dialectic a long time before. So like, what is it? When did we start talking about it? I don't know if we necessarily know that, but like, where have we seen it referenced? And then maybe, maybe we can transition into like, why is this something important for us to be thinking about?

Yes, ⁓ I don't know the etymological history. think, you know, ⁓ Hegel, the philosopher, used it as, my understanding was pivoting off the integration of the synthesis and antithesis. once you're able to reconcile like a... ⁓

a, I think, Kant maybe used it as arguments or like introducing an idea and then it's counter position idea and then the integration of those would lead to a synthesis that would be of like a reconciliation between.

I see. It's like a solution to two different problems, like two different sides of a problem.

a problem and it's almost like a solution. ⁓

Yeah, like if I think they introduced it philosophically as a thesis and then, you the antithesis and then coming up with a synthesis of those two and I think Hegel tried to formalize that in a philosophical way again. Probably students of philosophy would be able to clarify that more. I think it found its way into dialectical behavior therapy from

antithesis.

my understanding Marsha Linehan was instrumental in obviously introducing that into the verbiage of.

third wave of psychology and using that as a way to...

cold

different ideas simultaneously. ⁓ And yeah, please. Yeah.

So can I pause you just so quickly? Because

I love what you're saying. I'm kind of summarizing. To hold different ideas at the same time. And we have thesis, antithesis, synthesis, which I really love. And I know these are concepts that date back at least to ancient Greek times, if not.

prior, they definitely talk about this and holding what we might think of as opposing forces, but actually they kind of co-occur, right? So I think you're probably going to go into that. And I'm guessing in other parts of the world, they go into it as well. So am I on the right track with understanding in detail the dialectic?

Yeah and again because I think our orientation today is more of a practical approach that's how I would use

People may say that's not accurate in terms of Hegel or even Marshall Linehan. But I think that's the essential point is to be able to hold, appreciate, metabolize ⁓ two seemingly disparate, even seemingly opposed ideas simultaneously. Yeah.

Do you have an example?

Yeah, absolutely. Let's say Freud's, one of the earlier writings, there was something about, I think it was one of ones about burnt pudding, where he gave that rendition of somebody hated their sister, and yet you can love your sister. Let's say there was some family grievance or something. So how would the brain simultaneously hold?

Mm-hmm. Mm.

two seemingly competing ideas like the love of a sibling and ⁓ maybe frustration or disdain for that same individual. Even in a day-to-day example, how is it that my brain would both like to a piece of cake and doesn't want to eat a piece of cake? know, like I want to abstain from refined sugar.

Totally.

And yet.

Mm-hmm.

the at the patisserie looks great.

also wants to.

I'd like to go have a piece of cake now. anyway, it does look good in my mind. ⁓ So what you're referring to with the emotions where we can hold two competing emotions at the same time, we certainly talk about that often in therapy, right? The both and that I can feel anger and joy and

What's that?

Yeah, right, Thanks.

whatever it is all at the same time. And we understand that now with neuropsychology where we can see imaging of the brain and we can see that when we're experiencing different emotions, different parts of the brain are lighting up and multiple parts of the brain associated with different emotions can be lighting up at the exact same time. So I understand that. Is there another example?

that doesn't necessarily relate to what I just described with the lighting up of the brain in different emotional spots, but where there may be competing forces or things, maybe not even, not emotionally, but like in our lives, in external circumstances that coexist where we may hold them at the same time. Any examples that come up?

Yeah, politics could be one. ⁓ Think of the person or the politician you'd like least.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Doesn't matter.

really what belief structure one holds. But if you think of that and then are you able to name three things that a person has done that are constructive or advantageous? ⁓ You may notice, like a lot of people may notice, like they have internal resistance. who knows, it's maybe not a one for one correspondence, whether this exercise will work. But most of the politicians that we think of that we really loathe have been in office long enough that they've done

Mm-hmm.

a multitudinous things that probably reason could find at least one or two or three probably examples of something that align with what somebody would find beneficial even if we find that politician to be.

Mm-hmm. So yeah, it does. It's both talking about our own brain, the way that it's wiring, that multiple parts of it can be lighting up at the same time. It's also saying that when we look at various events or situations from an intellectual cognitive,

garbage. Does that make sense?

standpoint, we can observe that there are what we might think of as opposing things co-occurring. They may be acting, in this example for people, maybe politicians or whoever, they may be acting in different ways at the same time and some of the ways we may, ⁓ you know,

welcome and like and move towards and simultaneously they may be doing other things that we dislike, maybe even strongly dislike. But it's not just the emotional holding of both of the like and dislike, but when we think about it intellectually,

narrative that we are constructing may hold different opposing factors.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, you seem to be narrowing in on like, there's those cognitive dimensions of it and these emotional dimensions of it and the way that at least we're framing this version of the dialectic, it's, yep, that those can be both held simultaneously, almost in like an open mindedness, you know, and that it's not going to be...

Like our perception is not going to be narrowed by either the cognitive or the emotional constraints of like a...

a viewpoint or perspective. And that runs antithetical to a lot of ways that we just consider personality to be, you I like this, I don't like this. And we're kind of exploring the boundaries of, I guess, you know, in some ways, open-mindedness and holding seemingly competing views simultaneously. ⁓ Why even consider this? ⁓

Mm-hmm.

It seems like it offers the opportunity to create more degrees of freedom, almost like that old adage of, is the elephant the tusk or the tail or the foot? When there are numerous people describing the touching part of the elephant, do you know this?

don't.

It's like there's an elephant in the room

and everybody's maybe blindfolded or they're all touching a part of the elephant. So there's one thing that says, what is this thing you're touching? One person's touching the tusk and it's like, it's smooth and hard. Another person's touching the tail and it's like, it's ⁓ whiskery. And the other person's touching the trunk and it's like, ⁓ it's soft and malleable. And they're all describing the same.

Elephant but but from different perspectives which which seemed to exclude, you know The elephant Hard and ivory or is it? soft and malleable ⁓

the Trump. ⁓ It's both. ⁓ And, you know, interestingly, it's like almost like the frame is almost zooming out to allow for more information. That more information at this juncture is kind of our hypothesis, so to speak, is that ⁓ that may allow us to

witness or perceive more information that could possibly be helpful versus constrained.

Helpful towards what?

Helpful George what?

Yeah.

⁓

Yeah, that's a great question. ⁓ Because if I look at it as a cognitive tool, I don't think it makes that decision. I think we have to decide like, valuatively where we want to go. then, you know, because I was just thinking as I described that interestingly, it's like somebody who's committed a crime, we may not like, what is our intent? ⁓ If it's to put them away, you probably as the defense attorney or the ⁓

⁓ or not the defense attorney but the prosecution you you may not want to

The other one, the prosecuting.

entertain the dialectic and also appreciate how good this person has been, but you might want to, right? And so again, here's the value of it. Why would we want to entertain? So if somebody's committed a crime, if they stole a car, why would we want to possibly notice good aspects of the character and aspects of, you know, more pro-social decision-making? Well, I mean, from a rehabilitation standpoint, we could really.

find a lot of good reasons to or to maintain. while much of our thinking as humans has been designed to pull the trigger and make ⁓ all or nothing decisions, is this person going to go to jail or not, one of the things we're exploring with the dialectic, while it will be ⁓ longer and slower, more information, is to

is to examine the nuance and subtleties of situations in order to discover whether that nuance and subtlety and more information will give us more degrees of freedom, so to speak, in making decisions. Does that make sense? In holding these simultaneously, obvious perspectives simultaneously allows us potentially more information and that more information I'm going to...

maybe pivot on Alex Wissner Gross's description of intelligence as keeping degrees of freedom open.

more degrees of freedom we can keep open, the more possibilities we have to, well, that's, I mean, it's almost a self-definition, but that's his definition of intelligence, or at least was.

So I guess one of the questions that I have about this is, it's like you said, what's the intent? And I imagine that for many people in a variety of situations, thinking about or rather holding multiple seemingly opposing views, especially about something that matters to them that they care about is,

not going to be appealing. And I imagine, yeah, and I imagine one of the reasons it's not going to be appealing is because at least at a feeling level, it feels like it's easier to just have the one viewpoint, right?

Yes.

Yeah, it's such a beautiful observation and it gets to the you know the court case of you know if your car was stolen you probably don't want you know like yeah and it would require a distress tolerance to consider you know even think of politically people don't even like you know sometimes we say I use that example and people say I can't think of three things a politician has done even somebody that's been in office for decades I can't think of anything they've done it know ⁓

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

You're right. I think we're moving contrary to

some, I might even add, and I don't.

and for human beings for some time. What's my evidence of even we should entertain this further is maybe we're leveling up in the same way as we've learned to prefrontal cortex override some emotional activities and create distress tolerance like ⁓ a judicial system that is geared toward slowing down a process, looking at facts, you know, at least in

in its theoretical construction, the United States judicial system, we can use that, and not going to street justice immediately. Why is that advantageous? Because... ⁓

Again, I haven't studied too much law, I'd say over practicing that would slow things down and allow us more accuracy in making decisions around consequences for people. even, you know, maybe there's more facts and things that can arise to the surface. And in a similar way, cognitively, maybe we're leveling up and finding alternative ways to slow down cognition and create more

of an infrastructure, like a structured infrastructure for cognition, and I'm talking, I'm like waxing almost evolutionarily, that creates more informational input in a more savvy way. What does savvy mean? Again, we can design the value of statements, but like as we get more complex societies, I feel like ⁓ more information, more open-minded,

Mm-hmm.

will create more

thorough and constructive ways of behaving, if that makes sense. It's like a judicial system. It slows things down. We're less likely to make mistakes when we're checking our mathematics. And the dialectic is another way to ascertain more information to check our mathematics more, so to speak.

Mm-hmm.

that I'm thinking, I think about that for my personal life. think that I am somebody, I mean, I'm a psychologist, right? So I, ⁓ well, maybe this isn't a given, but I have spent a lot of time ⁓ in my professional and my personal life practicing various skills that I teach ⁓ to help myself.

do the things that we're talking about. example, you mentioned distress tolerance. I have a capacity to tolerate distress in ways that I didn't 30 years ago. And that was intentional. That was a lot of practice. was daily, twice a day. I'm going to sit and meditate years and years. You know this. So and

That's right, right. Yeah.

I do.

And 30 years later, I still notice now I've got three kids and husband and, you know, the extended family and I have this incredible capacity to hold a dialectic and I can feel fuming at the same time as incredibly grateful and joyful and all of that. And I feel

the stress in that moment of like it it in retrospect when I think about those moments I imagine there's there I can understand the viewpoint that just going with the fuming and letting it out could be easier instead of that like almost

Mm-hmm.

It's not a stress exactly, but it is a, as soon as I bring in that competition of check the fuming, there's a lot more going on, slow the whole process down, there's an internal, ugh, right? And I have tools to manage it and I still feel it. And it's not like I'm, ⁓ whatever, it's easy peasy. I have to use the tools. And sometimes I do lose my patience anyway, but.

Yep.

Yep.

Yeah.

Of course.

But what I'm getting at is like, I guess I've lived enough in my life, at least from my perspective, to see that if I didn't do that, I think the outcomes would be worse. And I think that's what you're getting at. That like,

worse. it's precisely

that's that's exactly it.

If I just went with

fuming, I'd like destroy all the relationships, right? And then maybe need to repair and all of that. Whereas here, instead of that, there's an overwhelm, a difficulty, whatever, and I have to do a regular practice. Yes?

Yes, absolutely. to frame it a little bit, we might even say that it's like going slower. It's like teaching ourselves to go slower. And the dialectic can do this cognitively in the way as emotional regulation does it affectively. You're absolutely right. Because I think from your example, all of us know what it's like to go berserk.

Mm-hmm.

The problem

with Berserk, one of it tends to be, just like you said, even if it's cathartic in the moment, creates a tale, it creates a wave of destruction oftentimes, like I mean that emotionally or physically.

it seems oftentimes to behoove us to go slowly. Like if we start practicing skills, if we start practicing gratitude in the time of an emotional nadir, ⁓ yeah, it can feel like it's going against the grain and all sorts of things come up to the brain a lot of times. Like, you know, am I giving myself a pass? Am I invalidating myself? Am I invalidating? All these machinations can arise and yet ⁓ one of the reasons I believe in practicing it for

Mm-hmm.

30 years and distress tolerance and emotional and cognitive management is because it has demonstrable empirical effects for your life that are more constructive in the long run. It's qualitatively different and the dialectic is one of the tools on the cognitive side. It's the way...

⁓ like an emotional reframing would be a tool on the emotional side. is, and I believe this is a skill, the dialectic is a skill or a practice that can facilitate the cognitive balance that you were describing.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, this is a lot to think about and kind of think about how to apply it. We're talking about why to apply it. Can I ask you, we're talking sort of on a personal level of why to apply it in our, you know, I gave an example of like some personal interaction, but let's say that it's, ⁓ you know,

in a broader context when we're looking at various things in society or just external events, maybe not in society, maybe it's, I don't know, our kids' school or something, which I guess is society, but it can be even bigger. It can be with international level. So are there other ways that come to mind where it could be helpful for us to practice? I know you gave the example of politicians and that's sort of how, but the why.

Yeah.

that be helpful either that example or others?

Yeah, politics we can wade into. I'll use a side door of ⁓ the war and then maybe we can even find places ⁓ in politics. The war is practically and existentially terrifying. If we let that one...

emotional currents subsume us. We're not trying to minimize it. Of course it's terrifying. If we only waded in the waters of

fear and terror, which is easy to do. You might even see this professionally ⁓ with some clients. We certainly can see the reverberations just.

Mm-hmm.

by going to the store, sometimes in our town or city, it's palpable. ⁓ And we didn't have access to gratitude, let's say, which again, we can say is the dialectic of finding gratitude in very difficult places. The practical question comes for us is, is there benefit in accessing gratitude or other points of view? ⁓ Again,

you

Mm-hmm.

We'd have to discuss the subtleties of this because somebody could say,

why are we trying to entertain a dialectic around being open-minded around ⁓ other points of view that are disgusting. ⁓ There's going to be all manner of levels and places to integrate this, but I'll start at the beginning and then we can get on and nuance it more. Define gratitude in every day could have some very specific benefits of ⁓ mitigating the existential terror. could

find pathways to re-regulating our systems cognitively, emotionally. It could even, if you're at a level of the local or higher decision-making capabilities, allow different perspectives to enter that might be advantageous, ⁓ maybe even understanding somebody else's point of view about something that could create more of a comprehension that could infuse

very specific decision making. I just want to pause because I don't know if this is getting too nebulous and abstract, like, does it make sense that accessing different perspectives, holding them.

and noticing whether they offer any benefit or advantageous would be something that in the dialectic would be practiced and without it we could be more myopic or limited in our informational capacity.

Yeah, and I think the thing that stood out to me, I'm kind of stepping aside from the existential stuff and the war, but you said that it could, I don't know your specific words, but like bring people closer together, help people understand each other more. And I wonder if we can speak a little bit more about that because, know,

I think it's kind of part of our general zeitgeist understanding that ⁓ the media, the AI algorithms, and so forth are certainly not

aiming to do that, right? Like there is a lot of division. There's a lot of division getting stoked, right? And so is it, you know, and we can get to again, the why ⁓ in a minute, but is this potentially a tool that could actually serve to unite us? And that would be effective when there are so many competing forces trying to divide.

seem to be the case yeah right almost the antithesis of it ⁓

⁓ It's such a beautiful concept that you're describing. think unity is a fundamental essential word in the dialect.

I believe that and I believe that's part of its derivation of its strength is to find commonality in places that seemingly are opposed.

Yes, and if power is not self-evident, know, that advantage is not self-evident of that unification principle, we can discuss it because I think you're exactly on it. That unification principle is, I believe, at the heart of the dialectic. even in terms of philosophically, I think that was its original design in some ways by Hegel, is that it created a synthesis out of

seemingly opposing narratives or hypotheses.

That's beautiful. It's beautiful and it's what we need. I think so much about, well, back to I'm a psychologist, I think a lot. lately I've been thinking a lot about

are

adjustment to AI and what are going to be some of the

characteristics, traits, themes that will emerge as being very important for us in this period of AI ⁓ that may have been always, but may have not been getting quite as much attention. ⁓ connection is one of the things that comes up, like this human to human interaction and connection. And ⁓ these are the things.

Yep.

You know, we learn them in school to an extent and it has increased their social emotional learning for sure, but I also.

The division continues to be stoked, right?

my gosh,

and inconspicuously so. I didn't mean to interject. You're so right.

No, please. Yeah.

Yeah.

this is a cognitive connection facilitator.

Yes, yes.

open-mindedness.

Yeah, for us to be able to hold each other to come together, that unity that you're talking about. I love it. The unity, you know, I'm going a little bit on a Chan tangent here, but I am proponent. And not just that I am a big

of teaching my kids from a very young age complex thinking. And this goes against what I have heard many psychologists recommend. They will say that kids ⁓ can really only hold the capacity for concrete thinking. And so keep it at that level and then shift it. And I do not do that. I am very purposefully

contradicting that. And so, you know, they may be one, two. And I hear people say, ⁓ what a good kid. What a good child. And I'm like, we're starting this all or nothing. We're like from the get go, right? You get this. I'm good. And then some people are bad. That's the bad guy, the bad person. And I'm from the get go. I'm like,

Yeah. Right.

You know, the people that we think are bad, some people love them. Some people love them personally. Some people love them from afar. But not everybody is going to think that they're bad. to hold that from the get-go, just as we're talking, I have a theory. I have a theory that back in the day in things like farming communities, we may have had these dialectics.

appear more naturally in life

when you look at nature you see opposition you see the contradiction I always talk about how you see imperfection which I also actually define as perfection right perfection is imperfection when you look at nature if you think that

you know, nature's perfect and beautiful just as it is. And that's that right there is that dialectic. I think that now we have all these scripted, manicured lives in a sense, and we don't have the opportunity moment to moment to practice it.

And it's under practiced. And you're right. And part of the gradients I think we would look for is like, what makes it feel easier to default to just a myopic view? There's some energy conservation in that. And part of our examination is, ⁓ yeah, that's a default setting. And do we get to level up by shifting that? I agree with you 100 % about the savviness of

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

teaching children early about complex thinking. And I would even say the good, the bad is an unsophisticated way of examining, interpreting, and interacting with the world. it's time, sounds so definitive, to level up emotionally and cognitively. ⁓

Mm-hmm.

you

do we have to do this as some, I'm not trying to give a philosophical or evolutionary narrative. My estimation is just that with more sophistication, more open-mindedness, more emotional, biological and cognitive regulation, we can do and achieve.

more things that we want, this is our value driven decisions, than we could otherwise. What do we mean by more? I mean more complexity, more energetic efficiency. What do I mean by that? Having a ⁓ theoretical and maybe even practical, which I don't think we have yet, judicial system.

Mm-hmm.

you

creates more energetic efficiency in the civilization or society.

Can you say that in, it's very sophisticated. you, my brain is like still trying to figure it out. Can you say it again?

There's a lot of...

Yeah.

There's a lot of, there would be a lot of points to iron out here, but a very broad brushstroke. A street justice system.

can have maybe less efficient than a structured judicial system. Why? Because gosh, thinking quickly, acting quickly can create ⁓ mistakes that a more slow roll would be able to uncover, elucidate, mitigate.

Hmm

And those energy losses or mistakes or grievances would over time create more perturbation. I would frame it something like the dialectic ⁓ like affective regulation is more efficient.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

to reaching

some of the goals that we say we want, like peace and. ⁓

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, we can just start there because that would be nice. ⁓

Peace, that

is a beautiful, wow. It feels like a really nice place to close ⁓ for today, because this actually sounds like it might be a useful ongoing conversation, but I love the peace that the dialectic can actually bring us to peace. Can I ask you just a final thing in our last couple of minutes? Any tips?

Maybe just one on what we could all do to start practicing the dialectic.

Absolutely. ⁓

Practice.

seeing things from a different perspective. It sounds mundane, it can be as simple as frustrated with road frustration. It's not road rage yet. like somebody cuts you off in traffic. Of course we're frustrated. We're not asking anybody not to be frustrated with that.

We would watch the narrative arise that Idiot for example, ⁓ we would just practice walking that back. What if? That person was rushing to the hospital for a loved one the notion is not to give them a pass or be like I'm so Zen or ⁓ That's right or wrong or maybe they're not or you know, like look at their bumper sticker, of course, they're not going to

a a math hole. ⁓ The notion is to recognize that once we shift the cognitive frame of this person is rushing to a loved one and didn't cut us off with intent, the way it shifts the affect, the way it shifts our emotional stance, and then to recognize that there's a there's this very

correlative relationship between our thoughts and our affect and once we can notice that we can reverse engineer that in other ways to start then it becomes a mechanism that helps us regulate both cognitively and affectively because you can see that connection does that make sense so even practicing reframing stances I imagine act

Acceptance commitment therapy is going to have a lot to say about this because of the relational frame theory. But please go ahead.

So, basically, maybe the one takeaway practice is slow down when we have thoughts that are.

Yeah.

that reflect one perspective. Maybe first we have to notice that we are, maybe that's a practice, just noticing it.

Yeah, that's beautiful. Yep.

Yep. That's that's usually number one, right? Notice. Yep. Yep.

Yeah,

and if we notice, maybe we can practice seeing, just looking for another perspective as well, just that. And then there are zillions of perspectives, but maybe even just two, a second one, right? Okay.

A zillions. Yep. ⁓ And I'm just going

to punctuate this with one that we used before that.

Here's a game we play sometimes. ⁓ Look for one thing that you're thankful for in the day.

Mm-hmm.

harder to access, especially when we've been cut off in traffic. But maybe that's a very practical one to introduce is just to notice whether we're able to appreciate or have gratitude for one thing, especially during times when we're more emotionally amped. And that will give us the first flavor of a dialectic.

Totally.

Awesome. I love it. Awesome. So we have actually two things. We've got, you know, maybe three things like notice it, bring in another perspective and practice gratitude every day. I love it. I'm so glad that I got to speak with you. Dr. Lance Linke ⁓ I'm Maria Christina Stewart and I hope that we can do this again. Thanks so much. I appreciate you. Take good care everyone. Bye.

I appreciate you.

Ciao.

Thank you for listening to this conversation with Dr. Lance Linke As I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, this is the start of what I hope to be a deeper dive into dialectics, what it means to hold multiple truths at once, to slow down, stay curious, and resist the urge to rush towards simple answers. In a world that often pushes us towards certainty and division, that's not always easy, but it might be one of the most valuable skills we can practice.

If you'd like to keep up with future episodes, be sure to follow the podcast and share it with someone who might enjoy the conversation. Thanks again for listening. See you next time.