Embracing Uncertainty

Accepting an unknown future is one of the greatest powers you can develop.

The Question: Will I Be Safe?

I’ve often wondered if I could truly know my future in all its rich detail, as if handed a biography and I could read through all the chapters to see where life would take me, would I really want to know?

The answer is no, I wouldn’t. But we all carry within us this voice — sometimes small, other times quite vocal — that wants to be certain that we’ll be taken care of, we’ll be safe, and we’ll have our material needs met. We might be curious about where we’ll end up, if we will get to realize our dreams, if we will find love or success or self-realization or whatever it is that we hope lies for us in the future.

That little voice — anxious, worrisome, needy, clingy — struggles with uncertainty. It’s the source of uncertainty. The possibility of pain, suffering, setback, or worse lurks in the unseen ticks of the clock, waiting to spring forth. You might experience this as a deep anxiety that you are doomed to failure or as an inability to rest comfortably when life is going smoothly, as if you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Uncertainty is the insecure ego’s way of painting possibilities with a paintbrush of fear. It takes infinite possibilities and highlights the negative ones, and in so doing, obscures the vast positive potential of the unlived moment. Uncertainty is the tightly coiled sphincter, the blocked root chakra, the overprotective caretaker who sees only danger, never fun.

What is the antidote to this way of seeing the world through danger-tinged glasses?

The Answer, Part 1: What Was the Lesson of Your Pain?

First, you have to get to the root of your fear that life is threatening to you. You feel that you’re not enough, not good enough, or won’t have enough. The likely reason is that you’ve experienced failures, losses, setbacks, abuses, or even profound tragedies. Those experiences, and the emotions that accompany them, are not to be denied, but did you survive? The fact that you are reading these words right now is a testament to your resilience.

Now you’re looking not to repeat them. That’s sound advice if you did something that caused you a lot of pain and can learn the lesson you were meant to learn. Maybe you tried to get away with something — some kind of deceit or harm — and got caught. Maybe you took a risk with some kind of venture, business, or another enterprise, and it “failed.” Did you see your experience as a learning opportunity, gaining valuable lessons or did you see the event as life smacking you in the face?

No doubt much of your fear is that you resisted the lesson that this painful moment had to offer you. You’re still resisting the lesson, and, as a result, still feeling a lot of pain. This pain is still alive in your body. Its tendrils have wounded deep in your chakras, especially the root, but others as well.

This is a kind of trauma response — your fears are not rational, and they don’t respond to reason. They get triggered, like a fight or flight response; a portion of your brain dedicated to survival is still on high alert. You have to embrace that pain, feel it, and give it permission to be experienced and released. Learn the lessons of those events, rather than simply looking to avoid their repetition in the future.

The Answer, Part 2: Looking for the Mystery, Awe, and Wonder

Second, embracing uncertainty requires you to perceive the future through a different lens. Rather than focusing on the negative potential of the future, shift your view to one of awe, wonder, and mystery. What good or amazing possibilities might unfold, including ones you have never thought possible?

It’s a shift in feeling. You cultivate an openness to options you might not even be aware of, with a feeling of excitement, anticipation. It’s like saying to the universe, I like this menu. Some dishes sound great; others not so much. How about a chef’s menu with a selection of dishes not even on this menu? You’re asking for life to surprise and delight you, rather than school you with more painful lessons.

This is why I don’t want to know my future, as if jumping ahead to the end of a book or movie, or skipping episodes in a t.v. series and going straight to the finale. We love not knowing the outcome and instead relish watching the decisions that our favorite characters make, and cringing when they repeat the same “mistakes” and don’t see their own patterns that seem as clear as day to us, the viewers. Why shouldn’t our own lives not inspire the same kind of mystery, awe, and delight?

That’s not always easy. Our lives can be a mix of events, some well beyond the scope of our individual sense of self. The past month, for example, has presented the entire nation with a powerful lesson in being with uncertainty. Despite all the polls and predictions, the outcome of the Presidential election was never clear. No one predicted that Georgia would go for President-Elect Biden, for example. The election unfolded without any kind of major ballot snafu (read: Florida 2000), or any kind of infiltration of state election systems by foreign agents. But we were held in suspense until Saturday morning.

Even now, we must be with the uncertainty of how this transition unfolds, as the current President defies the norms of how a normal administration concedes the election and begins the process of handing over power to the next President. You may find yourself wrestling with fear of what comes next. Do you meet this moment with fear and worry or with a wonder and a sense of trust about how it will all unfold?

The Answer, Part 3: Embracing Your Power to Create

This is the mystery of the present moment. Pregnant with multiple possibilities, each second a portal to new dimensions. Each moment offers you an array of choices for what you will create with the gift that the moment affords you.

That’s the joy of uncertainty — the path ahead is not fixed. You may have more or fewer choices in any given moment based on prior choices. (That’s the law of karma.) But you always have more choices than you realize, including how you react to all that is unfolding in your life and in the world more broadly. What will you create with this moment?

Practice being with not knowing, with the uncertainty, and be in touch with that inner voice that does not feel safe, that fixates on the future as a source of pain. Taking care of that voice by getting at its roots can allow you to let go of uncertainty and lead you to start trusting life’s mystery.

Then you can open to each moment of the unknown with the belief, rooted in trust, that life is leading you always to growth, opportunity, and flourishing. That’s how you start co-creating with the universe — by allowing yourself to be led. Only then will you come to discover treasures and worlds that you never imagined were possible because you gave up focusing solely on ensuring a future that was safe and familiar.

Is that scary? Yes, sometimes. The ego will delight for a bit, and then say, But what about this next moment? This one might be dangerous. Life, in this way, when you let go and allow yourself to be carried, can sometimes feel like a rollercoaster: You know that you’re still held in place, strapped in tight, and yet the twists and turns can still be exhilarating. Embrace uncertainty, and let the universe take you on the ride of your life.