Monthly Archives: November 2014

Faith: Uncertainty, Darkness and responding to Life’s Ambiguities.

Posted on by

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.” ― Gilda Radner

Been experiencing a lot of uncertainty lately.

The past few months have been really trying. I find myself vacillating between two options over and over again. Unable to decide.  Ever the pattern recognizer (I majored in math in college!), I couldn’t figure out why this kept happening.

This happened with trivial or important decisions. Each time, I would find myself stuck, unable to see an obvious choice.  I have always been an deeply intuitive decision maker, so the ambivalence was really difficult to deal with.  Not having my usual sense of clarity was throwing me off. I began to struggle – what Jonathan Fields calls “the thrash”…

And then I realized that this was just a season.

Darkness is inevitable. In life, the dark comes as often as the light… Like the calendar, sometimes the darkness lasts longer depending on the seasons… Think about the equinox… Think about those regions that have daylight only,  others have darkness only…  Some days of the year have longer periods of light than others and so on.

Life is the same way.

The thing is Uncertainty can be tricky because  we want to control everything. We want to know everything. Google has spoiled us with instant information and we expect to know everything about our lives.  We want to say with certainty where we are going to be in 5 years, 10 years, etc.

But the unexpected comes…  cancer…  divorce… an accident…

And even the good things – pregnancy, a marriage proposal, winning the lottery…
How do we respond to the unplanned… the uncertain… the unexpected? How do you respond when things get really foggy or dark?

I don’t have all the answers… I can’t tell you why that bad thing happened to you.. I don’t know… But I know that you are loved. I know that your life has purpose. I know that the sun will come up tomorrow… I know that you can get clear about your ideals and live them. But I can’t predict the outcomes… I can tell you what I expect but I don’t know if it will happen.

And that is ok.

We have to make peace with uncertainty.

I don’t have all the answers. I never will.

So after my most recent experience with uncertainty, I decided to sit with it. Sit with the uncertainty. “Embrace the thrash.”  I decided to trust, breathe into it and do what I can. Listen for the lessons. Look for the gifts. Remind myself  of  my core ideals and make sure I am aligned with them.

There is always something I can do. Instead of flailing and beating myself up, complaining and blaming as I grope in the dark, I can choose differently. I can be proactive, positively intentional and come from a place of worthiness, even in the uncertainty.

Oprah (I am her biggest fan!) writes a monthly column in O magazine  “What I know for sure”. So, A la Oprah, I know for sure that the dust settles eventually… the fog clears… in medicine they say “Bleeding stops, eventually”

In other words, change happens.

So that season of thrash, uncertainty, darkness will pass.

My job is to stay present, have faith that my life has purpose, let my ideals  guide me and keep moving.

I am learning that when the student is ready, the Teacher will appear.

My job is to get ready. Clear my desk. Sharpen my pencil. Get my paper. Get rid of the distraction. Get quiet and  Listen.

This is how I navigated through this intense period of uncertainty. I had exercised faith even though I could not see. I couldn’t see where I was going, I couldn’t figure out how to move forward, so I focused on the things I could do.

You could sit down and wait for the smoke to clear… that’s also fine…

Either way, have faith… especially when you can’t see!

 

Cultivating Faith during Uncertainty:

1. What do you believe?

2. In what ways can you prepare during an uncertain season?

3. What mistakes have you made during uncertainty? What lessons or gifts await you in this season of uncertainty?

4. Do you have a mindfulness practice currently? In what ways can you cultivate stillness?

5. Whom can you reach out to for support?

6. In what ways can you “Embrace the Thrash” as recommended by Jonathan Fields?

7. What are your core ideals? Have you listed them? Are you living them?

 

The Bible says that “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen”. Keep your eyes on the prize, even when things get dark and uncertain. The sun will come out. But there are gifts in the dark too.  Keep moving and never, ever give up! See you next time!

Yvonne Whitelaw writes for Yvonnewhitelaw.com where she blogs about her quest to grow into her ideals in her “Live Your Ideals Project”. By sharing her lessons along the way (every Monday and Thursday), she hopes to serve and inspire a tribe of wholehearted warriors like you, to “live your ideals, live your calling and change the world.”

Resilience (Part 3) – Bouncing back after hitting Rock Bottom

Posted on by

“The test of success is not what you do when you are on top. Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.” – George S. Patton

Breathe…

Flashbacks of traumas past…

Breathe… I tell myself. Breathe.

Running hard. Running fast, my feet barely touching the ground… An angry mob, hundreds of men with knives and sticks, yelling epithets, closing in…

Rock bottom…

Standing on a table, above the angry mob… questions assail… accusations…

The Inquisition.

Chaos… Fear… Shame…

I have been reminding myself to breathe lately…

I recently became reunited with a group of schoolmates from two decades past. Tales from our time together were funny, light hearted…

Reminiscing…

Then, the darkness returned… long forgotten repressed memories of trauma and shame from a rock bottom period came flooding back…

Breathe, I tell myself… Breathe.

Hot tears stream down, unsolicited.

The memories unrelenting… What do I do?

Breathe…

Here’s the thing… Rock bottom is inevitable. Like a bouncing ball, how hard you impact the ground determines how high you’ll rebound… but with one condition…

You have to be flexible… Pliable. You have to stretch, be bounce-y, push back…

You can’t expect to bounce back if you have gotten dry, parched, hard and brittle, fragile… (see the previous post about soaking. getting flexible and bending so you don’t break).

Humble yourself. Allow yourself to be vulnerable. Be open to the lessons this experience has for you. You don’t know it all. Sometimes our egos get the best of us and we can’t listen to constructive criticism. Let that go.

Breathe. Stay in your body. Ground yourself. Don’t panic. Listen.

One of my new reunited friends said she had always remembered me as “having it all”, a carefree and vibrant teen…

I could see why she had that impression.

Optimism and Positivity are natural strengths for me… I am one of those smiley happy people… but this gives the misleading impression of carefreeness… Far from it. I was going through one of the most traumatic periods of my life.

I believe that these traits, key components of resilience, have been my saving grace. They made up my survival mechanism for the many traumatic experiences I have had -exploitations, betrayals, molestations and abuse.

Faith. Hope. Purpose.

I have always known there was a purpose for my life… Even as a child I had a strong sense of destiny… Being a voracious reader, I had spent a lot of my early days soaking up bible stories… Having a strong awareness of the Divine, so early in life, saved me… I knew even in the middle of unspeakable horror that I was going to be ok. This does not excuse the things that happened to me but this understanding often kept me from panicking. Knowing I had a destiny kept me moving forward.

People always comment on my dimples… I often forget they are there but they are symbols of  another saving grace…

Choice.

I can always choose to smile… no matter what situations in which I find myself … In an instant I can change my physical state with a smile. And that smile sends signals to my body that I am fine.

And if I can’t smile, I can breathe. Deeply, fully, wholeheartedly. Breathe.

Breathing reminds me that all will be well. Breathing reconnects me to the present moment. Breathing reminds me of God’s presence. I am not alone in this. The God who breathed in me is right here, right now, and I am not alone. And I can reach for help.

Knowing I am not alone, my mind is receptive and open to the solutions around me. I remember that what goes down, must come up (if bouncy!) and I can do something to prepare for that journey back up. And then I can choose my action from a place of calm, love and worthiness.

Same goes for you, my friend. You are not alone.

When you feel yourself panicking in the middle of rock bottom, breathe. Be intentional with your breath. When you feel yourself losing it in all the madness, Breathe!

That’s a great starting point… You will be fine.

Breathe, tell yourself… Breathe.

Then, prepare to bounce back!

Cultivating Resilience:
1. Where are you right now? Rock bottom? On your way back or sliding to?
2. What strengths or ideals do you harness during your difficult times?
3. What choices do you see around you?
4. What support can you reach for right now?
5. What facade are you hiding behind?
6. What do you need right now? In what ways can you prepare for the bounce back?
7. Whom can you support right now?

Breathing is a simple reset button. Rock bottom requires going back to the basics.  No matter what you are going through, let your breath be your reminder that you have choices and that you will be fine – no matter what happens. See you next week!

Yvonne Whitelaw writes for Yvonnewhitelaw.com where she blogs about her quest to grow into her ideals in her “Live Your Ideals Project”. By sharing her lessons along the way (every Monday and Thursday), she hopes to serve and inspire a tribe of wholehearted warriors like you, to “live your ideals, live your calling and change the world.”