“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.”