The Superposition Principle of Emotional Truth
You can be hurt and still love them. You can be disappointed and grateful. Welcome to quantum-level family therapy.
Most people are total amateurs when it comes to emotional complexity.
We’re talking dollar-store Wi-Fi levels of emotional bandwidth.
Because here’s how most of us were raised:
“Only one person is allowed to have feelings at a time—and it better be the loudest one.”
Mom’s telenovela esque anxiety? Ran the emotional thermostat for the whole house.
Dad’s blowout temper? Everyone walked on eggshells until he chilled out.
Your brother’s addiction to drinking and mild Pokemon card obsession? Sucked all the oxygen out of the room and dried up $ from mom and dad.
And guess what got lost? Your reality.
You learned to simplify and to collapse your experience. To make your emotions more “palatable” so someone else didn’t implode.
You were trained—without anyone saying it—to believe that if two people feel things at the same time, someone has to be wrong.
Spoiler: It was usually you.
Why This Binary Thinking Is Wrecking Your Relationships
You grew up thinking:
You can’t be mad AND love someone at the same time.
You can’t be hurt AND still be responsible for how you react.
You can’t feel let down AND understand where they were coming from.
So now…
When your partner says you snapped at them, you feel erased. (Wtf are you talking about you think thats snapping let me know you snapping.)
When your kid says you made them sad, you panic. (I am definitely the worst parent and Dr. Becky would b*tch slap me.)
When someone tells you their truth, you scramble to find which version of reality wins. (Its obviously not going to be yours so you fight to poke holes in theres. This is the most common unconscious reaction it’s almost laughably predictable to me in my practice.)
Because in your head, only one truth gets to survive.
But here’s the breakthrough:
Relationships aren’t a courtroom.
They’re a quantum field.
Wait—Are You Actually Quoting Quantum Physics?
Damn right I am. Stick with me.
In quantum physics, there's a principle called superposition:
A particle can exist in multiple states at the same time—until it's observed. Then it “collapses” into one.
Relationships? Same damn thing.
You can:
Be trying your best AND still totally miss the mark.
Be deeply hurt AND acknowledge your role in the conflict.
Love someone fiercely AND feel distant from them in the same moment.
Emotional maturity is not collapsing other people’s experiences to preserve your own or vice versa…
Your Family of Origin Didn’t Teach You This—Because They Couldn’t Handle It
Look, most families aren’t built for emotional nuance.
They’re built for survival.
Big family? Then you probably learned early:
Don’t rock the boat and piss off mom or dad.
Don’t outshine the sibling who “needed more.” (That’s obviously insensitive and selfish. KIDDING!)
Don’t bring up your anxiety when Dad’s already slammed a door. (He will just slam another.)
Your nervous system was shaped by a feedback loop of:
“If someone else is having a hard time, mine doesn’t and won’t matter.”
So of course, when you're in conflict now, you think:
“If they're hurting, I must be the villain.”
But like a bad infomercial—THERE’S MORE!
They can be hurting… and so can you.
They can be disappointed, and that doesn't mean you’re worthless.
You can mess up, and it doesn’t mean your character is in question.
Let’s Talk About 'Both/And' Thinking
Most people were raised on emotional fast food: quick, simple, binary. You were either good or bad. Right or wrong. Happy or grounded.
But here’s the upgrade: Life is 'Both/And'—not 'Either/Or.'
Holding 'both' doesn’t mean watering down your experience. It means recognizing that:
You can be struggling as a parent AND your kid can have a valid complaint.
Your partner can be avoidant AND you might still be emotionally overwhelming.
You both might be reacting to completely different layers of pain—AND external stressors can be amplifying both of you differently.
This shift is massive because it de-centers the emotional scoreboard. You stop looking for who’s “more right” and start asking what’s influencing both people.
Maybe your partner didn’t show up because they’re maxed out at work. Maybe your kid is melting down because school is overwhelming—and because your tone reminded them of a past wound.
'Both/And' allows space for everyone to be shaped by circumstance—without erasing anyone’s pain.
This is especially healing in marriages and families where emotional bandwidth was scarce or chaotic. Most of the time, someone’s reality got sacrificed to make room for the “big” energy in the room—rage, panic, addiction, unpredictability.
You learned to simplify… to survive.
Now you get to expand… to connect.
So How the Hell Do You Start Holding Two Truths at Once?
Let’s bring in one of my favorite core principles:
Explore. Explain. Evolve.
Explore the idea that your experience isn’t the only valid one. Hard, I know. But you’re not a toddler anymore.
Explain what you feel without requiring someone else to be wrong first.
Evolve by holding two (or more) realities without getting emotionally concussed.
Because emotional maturity isn’t about being “right.”
It’s about staying present long enough to realize no one’s truth cancels yours out.
You’ve just been trained to panic when things get ambiguous.
If you want to go back to this in depth, banger of an article (if I do say so myself) check it out here. It goes wayyyyy deeper into a process of evolving a relationship to have more intimacy emotionally.
Real-Life Quantum Scripts (Because You Know I Love Tangible Tools)
Try saying:
“I know you didn’t mean to hurt me, and I want you to understand why it still hurts.”
“I want to understand your side, even though I feel like I am always seen as the bad guy.”
“I still love you and I need space to be able to figure out how I feel about all of this.”
Alas Superposition!
Last But Not Least! Stop Looking for the One Right Truth
Look, your family might’ve trained you to survive conflict by collapsing complexity.
But your marriage?
Your parenting?
Your actual grown-ass life?
It demands more.
It demands that you stop choosing between your truth and theirs.
It asks that you expand, not contract, when things get messy.
Because when you stop collapsing emotional superpositions?
You stop needing to win.
You stop needing to erase.
You finally start to understand.
And that, my friend, is the difference between reacting like a wounded kid and leading like a differentiated adult.
Leave a comment or share this with someone who may really need to learn about physics and/or their relationship!