Breaking Free from Black-and-White Thinking: How to Embrace Life’s Nuance

[Barb Nangle]

Photo Credit: Marcelo Chagas

Black-and-white thinking is a common pattern for people whose lives are chaotic, and/or who have unhealthy boundaries, addiction, compulsion, and/or obsession. This is sometimes referred to as “all or nothing” thinking or “either/or” thinking. That is, there's no gray area, things are either black or white. For example, “If I don’t get this done perfectly, I’m a failure.”

I thought in that way for a very long time, and sometimes still do. It can be a very hard mindset to spot in yourself. I’m reminded of the often-used phrase in recovery, “I can’t use my broken brain to fix my broken brain.” Sometimes, I still catch myself thinking things could only be a complete disaster or perfect. Often, I need others to remind me, “You know Barb, there ARE other options.”

This is a tough one to overcome, but it’s possible! I’ll talk about that shortly, but first, let’s talk about being in the gray area. I think of this as being able to detect nuance. The definition of nuance is “a subtle difference in shade of meaning, expression, or sound. “

When you can detect nuance, it means being able to detect teeny tiny little differences between things as opposed to bold and stark differences, like the differences between the colors black and white. The reason so many of us focus on bold and stark differences is that we deal with life in a reactive manner, which puts us into fight-or-flight mode much of the time. That means we're going by our internal programming or what I call our lizard brain.

When this happens, we're not able to think clearly because our body temporarily shuts off access to the frontal lobe, or higher order thinking part of our brain. This happens because we’re meant to ACT, not THINK when in that mode.

To be able to detect nuance, you have to be thinking clearly and be able to focus your thinking brain on the subject at hand. If you’ve spent much of your life in chaos, that means much of your life has been spent in fight or flight mode so your habitual patterns of thinking are black and white. That doesn’t mean you can’t ever detect nuance. It means your go-to is this distorted mode of thinking in stark terms.

One of the solutions to this mode of thinking is to get other people’s perspectives. It’s through talking with others who have said, “You know Barb, there are other options” that I’ve sometimes been able to see my black-and-white thinking. If you need help with reaching out to others so you can get other perspectives, I recommend you read this article, which is about how to start reaching out to others even when you’ve never done so.

You can also train yourself to see nuance in other ways. Slowing things down, sort of like playing a video in slow motion, allows you to see things you miss at regular speed. That means pausing so you can pay close attention to your life.

You can’t be dissociated, you need to be present to detect nuance. You can't do those things when your nervous system is activated. This is why black-and-white thinking is so problematic and so common with people who have poor boundaries. When we have poor boundaries, we’re typically reacting to what life brings to us rather than purposely choosing how to live. We’re reactive rather than proactive. 

In addition to not being able to detect nuance when we're activated, we're also not able to describe nuance when talking about our experiences. For example, if things were good or bad, or if that person was really nice or an asshole. Nothing in between exists in our language when we think like this. We can’t see situations or people as having both good and bad qualities. 

If you want to move away from black-and-white thinking so you can detect and articulate the nuanced experiences of life, slow down so you can become present. It may help you to ground yourself. Typically, grounding refers to consciously connecting to the gravitational pull of the earth (feel your feet on the floor or ground, and consciously observe that connection). It may also help to ground yourself by connecting with your senses, like observing five things you can see or the faintest sound you can detect. 

In terms of slowing down, pausing is the best technique I’ve found. It’s the #1 most important tool I learned is recovery because I can’t employ any other tools if I haven’t paused. When we slow down, we can catch our breath which tells our bodies “I’m safe.” When we can’t catch our breath, it feels like we’re under threat and unsafe which triggers fight or flight mode. Pausing allows us to come out of fight or flight mode so we can become present and get clarity of mind.

Many of us have this distorted thinking pattern where we can only “see” things in stark terms that have a lot of contrast between them: good/bad, either/or, black/white. Life is much more  nuanced or “gray.” To get to nuanced thinking, get others’ perspectives, slow down and get present so you can come out of flight or flight mode, and allow your brain to access your frontal lobe so you can detect the nuances of life.

Remember that changes like this are also nuanced. You’re not likely to make the shift immediately or forever. It will happen in stages and setbacks are likely. When that happens, remember to pause and perhaps reach out to others to find out how they deal with their black-and-white thinking. Modes of thinking such as this are insidious and it takes dedication to overcome them, but it can be done. Appreciating all the gray, nuanced areas is a much more satisfying and pleasant way to live than only seeing the stark contrasts of life.

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