My Insight
I’d just like to say that I am drawing on the uncertainties in my life, which is that my husband and I have decided to move to Costa Rica after being in this community that we are in, in Northern California, for me almost 30 years, and for him almost 40 years. It's a really big deal.
There are a lot of aspects of that are very unknown. So many details, I can't even begin to say but especially the unknown about moving to a new country, and what that will be like and what we need to have in order and just learning as we go here. As one of my teachers says, “build the plane as you fly it.” That’s kind of like what we're doing. We're just kind of figuring it out as we go.
Uncertainty
What I love about the Buddhist teachings and the yogic teachings I’ve studied is that they speak about uncertainty a lot, because the truth is, life is always uncertain.
• we never know what's around the corner
• life is uncertain and we plan
• we make appointments
• we schedule to create certainty and security for ourselves
Ultimately, we just don't know. We can't know what's coming or what will happen, even when we make the best plans. As they say, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans,” right?
Uncertainty is something that we all live with. We shield ourselves from it as best we can, pretending that we know, pretending that we have security. Even though at any moment the ground can potentially crack under our feet (if we live in earthquake territory) or the rug can get pulled out from under us.
• someone could leave
• someone could die
• something bad can happen
• something good could happen that can change your whole trajectory
We can only do our very best with what we have.
What helps me quite a bit is keeping that bigger perspective in mind about uncertainty. Just knowing that even though I think things are certain, I think I'm going to wake up tomorrow, I think the sun will rise tomorrow, I actually don't know. I've got a lot of data that says it's likely, but ultimately, I don't know and I can't totally rely on that. The more we can get into alignment with that truth, that we don't know, I think the more we can just go with the flow.
For me it's helpful every day to remind myself that I don't know. Whether it's about the big plans in life or about the little day-to-day. For example, my husband and I have a practice where every day we appreciate each other for being there, for still being there. We don't take it for granted that each other is still saying “yes” on a daily basis. We say “hello” in the morning and we greet each other each day. When somebody leaves for work, we make sure to say “goodbye” because we don't know if they're going to come back. Right? Something could happen, or we don't know if we're going to be here.
Keeping that awareness, as one of his teachers says, “on your shoulder,” as if it's always there to tap into what the Buddhists call “impermanence.”
Impermanence is always true. Things are always morphing and changing. People are changing their minds, people are changing their decisions, their health is changing, the world is changing. Just keeping that meta-awareness, I think can help us not be so grasping, not be so attached and clinging to how we think it should be or has to be for us to be okay. So, learning to live with the ebbs and flows of life.
I think that there are reasons and times in our lives when we do feel more insecure. If there is a lot of anxiety, if there is a lot of feelings of neediness and insecurity or instability, then that is important to honor.
You may have had earlier trauma where you didn't get security when you needed it and there was too much flexibility. I think most of us get that children especially need a sense of stability, for their own sense of safe development and healthy development.
As we get older, we want to be able to be more adaptable to change and more flexible. So, if you have a lot of early upset in your life, a lot of instability, it makes sense that you might need more stability now. You might really crave that (stability) and so you might not be as adaptable to, the ebbs and flows of life.
Ultimately, we want our security to come from the inside because we cannot rely
on even the earth. The more we have that inner security developed on the inside,
the more we can just cruise when things are in flux, when things are changing.
How do we develop some of that inner security is this perspective that I'm talking
about. Also, daily practices that open your awareness like:
• meditation
• yoga
• tai chi
• Qi Gong
Practice being centered and being present with yourself; being connected to yourself. You’ll grow this inner calm and this inner quiet and this inner stability that you can bring with you wherever you go.
Tip #1 Checking In
One of my five tips for navigating the unknown is to keep checking in with your partner or if you're by yourself, check in with you.
• How are you feeling about the uncertainty?
• How are you doing with it?
• How are things going?
• What kind of progress are you making?
I think that's a really important thing to do, no matter what's going on in your life with your partner, is to stay current with what's happening emotionally for you. It helps to have that kind of stability between you. For example, we know that life is changing all the time but together we have a stability and a sense that we're connected.
Tip #2 Getting Clear
The second tip is to get clear and clarify what’s true.
• What do I know?
• What do I not know?
There are certain things that we know, and the rest we can keep coming back to. I think it’s helpful to just clarify what's true, what's reliable (that which I know), and what is not, (what do I not know).
Tip #3 One Day at a Time
My third tip for you is, taking it one day at a time. When we spit out about the future, we think about “too much to do,” and “all the stuff I need to know.”
• We get overwhelmed
• We get all worked up
• We get anxious
• We get stressed
The more stressed we are, the less able we are to connect with ourselves and the less able we are to connect with our loved ones. The more we can stay in present moment, not that we don't ever think about the future, because when you've got something big coming up, you're going to think about it, but to bring as much of that into the present.
For example, given what I know needs to happen,
• what can I do today?
• today I accomplish what I can
• and tomorrow, I do it again
So doing your best to stay in the day-to-day, step-by-step really helps me keep it coming back to the present.
Tip #4 Don’t Get Ahead of Yourself
The fourth point is the flip side of that actually. Don't get ahead of yourself.
• Stay present
• Keep coming back if you get distracted
• What can I do now?
Don't freak yourself out about the future too much. Keep coming back to the points I already mentioned, step-by-step.
• How am I feeling?
• What do I know?
• What do I not know?
Tip #5 Acceptance
My fifth point is accepting what you don't know and what you cannot control. That's a big one and can be really challenging to just drop into acceptance when you have a lot of angst and anxiety in your system.
The truth of
• This is what I know
• This is what I don't know
• This is what I can do
• This is what I cannot do
Get in alignment with that basic truth of,
• What do I have control over?
• What do I not have control over?
There's something for me that kind of clicks into place when I get in alignment with the truth. I encourage you to check that out and try it for yourself.
On this note, as I'm sharing about the unknown, and the uncertainty and how we can freak ourselves out, I want to share an adorable video that comes from the Muppets. If you remember the Muppets or if you watched them as a kid, they are brilliant. It is just a couple of minutes long and I think it's really brilliant and it's going to deliver the point I was talking about. So here we go. We're talking about existentialism and phenomena.
I think they do a great job at discussing what I've been talking about today. It's called phenomenology, the unexplainable phenomenon of life just is and we can't always explain it. If we don't get it, we can't rock it. The universe just is.
That's the gist of what I wanted to share about living in uncertainty and some tips that I have for you, and how to change your mindset around needing security and also honoring when you do need security and stability. That's important too. I think we all need that to an extent as well. Finding your own way to balance the two; the truth of needing stability and the truth that everything is always
uncertain. We can manage with both and learn to hold the complexity of both because both are always true.
