What is the color gray? A color between black and white. A color without color. But is that all? It can also be a combination of colors. You can mix equal parts cyan, magenta, and yellow to get gray. Or you can mix green, blue, and violet.

In psychology, gray is thought to be an unemotional color. It symbolizes a state of detachment and impartiality. It is controlled. It is balanced. It is dependable.

What do you think of when you think of the color gray? I will admit these are not always the words that come to mind for me. Sometimes it only seems dull, boring, lifeless. Does this mean that dependability is boring? Is balance boring?

My mind is always searching for an answer, the answer. I want to know why things happen. I want there to be a reason so my thoughts stop spinning. I want to avoid the things that feel bad and steer myself in the direction of the good. But life keeps teaching me that it is much more complicated. Filled with nuance (there is that word again). I am learning through my experiences that it is less about truth and more about perspective.

I am trying to accept this. I am trying to embrace this. It hasn’t been easy.

I’ve been in therapy for years, for over a decade at this point. It isn’t because my life depends on it, not anymore, but I continue to be better off for it. So I keep going. When I first started it was more out of necessity. I was unhappy. I was lost. I wanted to be someone else. Sometimes I still feel this way, but most of the time I do not.

While I think there is less of a stigma around therapy, I still do not think it has been embraced and fully accepted. Too often it still seems like a last resort in people’s minds. It is only for acute and significant mental disorders. It is meant to be temporary. I just need a quick therapeutic jolt. “Oh, I don’t need therapy. I’m not that bad.” “It is okay if you go, but I’m not at that point.” We think it is a sign of weakness. We could not fix ourselves. That is hard to admit to others, but I think it is actually hardest to admit to ourselves.

It took me awhile to realize that therapy isn’t a fix. It is about finding perspective. This realization has been powerful. When I only saw it as a fix, every day I still struggled felt like a failure. Why isn’t this working yet? What is wrong with me? How weak am I? This mindset was based on the assumption that therapy could take away my pain. That being “fixed” meant never feeling pain or any other uncomfortable emotion.

For me embracing a world of gray means embracing perspective. It means accepting that the world is not black or white. That I am neither healed nor broken. Your truth doesn’t have to be my truth and vice versa.

Nowadays the world seems extreme. It is certainly stirring up extreme emotions. Try not to lose perspective. Try to let the other colors seep in. Those that move us away from a black and white world. Those that mix together to become a beautiful gray.

Cue ‘Change Your Mind’ by Sister Hazel