on uncertainty

and how we meet ourselves when all we want is to be sure

Yesterday I was at work, wrapping up what was a busy and challenging week, letting my tired mind wander while I opened boxes of syringes and stacked them onto my shelves. I do some of my best thinking when I’m restocking my room each afternoon, placing things neatly in drawers without having to focus too much.

After a lot of high intensity moments during the week, a lot of ambiguity, and lots of anxiety, I found myself thinking about how badly we all want certainty.

Especially when someone is trusting me to help care for them, the pressure i feel to always have the correct answer or judgement, to know what will help the most, what i should be saying, or what any given person will want or need, is immense.

Factors like liability and the fast pace of capitalism certainly play a role in my rigid way of thinking and want for certainty, but I think the biggest underlying cause is my own anxiety, because deep down I know that I can never be sure.

I’ve been stretching the most trusting and creative parts of my brain a lot recently, both in my job and in my personal life. Situations I’ve run into before have crept up and my brain wants to believe that I know exactly what is going to happen, exactly what will keep me or someone I care about safe, and how to carefully mastermind things so I can have certainty.

Unfortunately, though, there has been little certainty at all.

I really truly hate ambiguity. Even writing those words I feel my chest getting tight and my stomach starting to turn. I want to know what is going to happen because I want to feel prepared.

Many times in the last week I have believed that I knew precisely what someone would say, exactly how they would react, or just how I would feel- yet, over and over again, I was proven wrong.

During one of these stomach-turning moments, I tried to settle myself into some meditation and writing. If I am being completely honest, it was not a super successful endeavor, I ended up in shambles before dragging myself into bed, but when I revisited what I wrote down the next day I was surprised at what I found.

I’d been writing about feeling very disconnected from what is bigger than me, which is a place I often find refuge when I am anxious about what might happen. I was considering how I could find that feeling again, or if it was gone forever. While I was scribbling my frustrations out, I had written: maybe the fact that I can wonder this at all, the fact that I have the capacity to feel all of this, is proof that I am part of something much bigger than myself. Maybe that is all the proof I need? Or something?????? I don’t know.

I’m not going to elaborate on whether or not I believe the miracle of consciousness is proof of something divine, that’s not what this is about- instead, I wanted to point out that this moment for me was a small mindset shift. I was very deep into “what ifs” and hunting for an answer, but I chose, even if it was unconsciously, to entertain my curiosity and wonder instead. The loudest part of my brain, the most worried part, said that I would never feel better, and it said I could be sure of that. But somewhere in there I stumbled across a quieter voice that had questions instead of answers.

It didn’t change anything about my situation, but it has been percolating in my brain ever since and has me feeling very curious.

In the following days I began to venture into this new idea just a little bit more. What if I can meet uncertainty with wonder instead of rigidity? What if I could lean on trust and faith rather than needing to be absolutely certain? How might I feel if I chose to be curious about what I’m not sure of instead of trying to desperately to be sure? What might I find?

To be absolutely clear, I don’t have answers to any of those questions, but I sort of think that might be the point. When I have an alarm bell going off inside of my head telling me the only thing that will keep me safe is certainty, maybe that is a sign I need to ask questions, wonder a little bit, or venture off into the part of me that is curious and can have trust and faith even when I can’t be sure.

I hope you are being so gentle with yourself and find space for wonder and curiosity and trust. It’s so hard to be a person!!! But we’re doing it and that’s a miracle.

Sending you all the love in the world.

❤️✨💛