How to deal with uncertainty

Ask Me Anything Question:

“I know you have ups/downs in your life.  You’ve experienced “curve balls” for sure! With the curve balls, and the lack of clarity about the way forward,  do you get anxious?  Do you ruminate on trying to problem solve?   Or perhaps you have a method of “compartmentalising” and are able to address it in steps?”

As someone who has been self-employed and nomadic for over three years now, and been thrown some significant curve balls, I do get anxious, I try not to ruminate, and I absolutely have developed a method for orienting myself, finding a direction amidst the mists, and taking the next right step. And it’s mostly about orientation, finding the information I need to move forward. The following points are a guide for your own orientation and information-gathering process. It’s quite nuanced; I’ve had to explore this topic from a lot of angles.

Orienting to centre of gravity

The unknown future has a really strong gravitational pull that can really take us out of our centre. So we must come back to our own.

I look for my midline. Once I have it, I have my own gravitational centre and I can move with intention, without being totally wind-swept by that bigger momentum.

Orient to the known in the here and now

Our biology inherently doesn’t like the unknown because it’s possibly dangerous, and energy intensive to engage with, and systemic oppression + life experiences combine with this to make compelling reasons to fear the unknown and not look for change. There’s safety and familiarity in the known which takes less energy to stabilise, even if our coping strategies in the known are unhelpful or energy intensive in themselves (looking at rumination!)

So I manage that, and build tolerance for the unknown along the way, by connecting with the resources that I DO have, things that I DO know and give more attention to familiar routines in the day to day, like little walks, time in nature, preparing my cup of tea in a ritualistic way, and read a few pages of a book before bed. Those bookmarks at the start and end of the day have helped me navigate changing location every month or two as a digital nomad and pet-sitter. They are also not self-improvement or fixing activities, they are foundational rhythms.

Orient to the known from a wider lens

I also zoom out to perceive from my cosmology, which is fairly animist: life is innately intelligent in finding pathways towards Health. Life includes death and dissonance. It’s not necessarily benevolent, but it’s not personal when things are hard. The way is the way, and I can choose how to respond to what’s in front of me.

When I sit in this place with these principles that are true for me, it offers a familiar pattern of movement with life, orients me to my place in the greater weave of life, the wider narrative, which I find resourcing.

Orient to the stage in the sequence

A more nuanced layer of this cosmology that’s solid and reliable for me is the cycles of life, that everything has a preparation, beginning, middle, end, and integration stage. It’s the underlying blueprint and sequence of the Tide of Life. Because I’ve mapped my experience in this sequence comprehensively for myself, and I know where my challenges I have a sense of the support I might need depending on which stage I’m at. 

Orient to Right Timing

This has been a powerful navigational tool for me. Learning to listen to the tide of life and to myself, and know when I need to pause for the Tide or whether I’m resisting the Tide (the Tide is inevitable, resistance is futile) 

If I push and use my will, often things don’t work out because I’m fighting against the tide of life, and I usually end up suffering more. For example, I habitually hold onto things way longer than their end date, or accommodate things that don’t suit me.

When I deeply listen and feel a specific felt sense of Right Timing,  I can ride a wave of momentum that I haven’t generated, and I often have experience or opportunities arise that I can take because I didn’t rush into the next thing out of fear of the unknown, so I was available for them.

It’s a skill that can be developed, and I’m not always able to apply it. It’s really difficult to apply when it’s related to survival things - for example, over the last three years I’ve done pet sitting for accommodation, and there’s times where I have leapt on a pet sit that wasn’t right for me, but I was so scared of not having somewhere to live, and then other opportunities came up that I wan’t available for because I wasn’t able to hold steady with the fear. 

If it’s not Right Timing, it’s time to wait. A pause doesn’t need to mean ‘stuck’, a pause can still mean actively engaged with the process. When it’s the right time, my own internal impulse to act, that gives me more choice and agency in my relationship to what’s happening. 

Orienting to Resistance

One of my teachers (Katja) says resistance as a force that creates new shapes and pathways - not something to ‘break through’ or eradicate. I love that so much! How am I being shaped by the Tide of Life?

There’s some nuance to explore when we are feeling resistance.

I usually ask, ‘Am I resisting, or is it time to pause?’

Sometimes there’s no information about next steps because the path is shapeshifting, and I just need to wait for further information. Sometimes I fight that and push through, and I suffer more. So I am learning to enjoy the pause.

Sometimes there’s no information about next steps because a part of me refuses to see it (eg because it will hurt and/or something needs to change or die), or I’m afraid to act on the information I’ve already received. But the next step is inevitable. Resistance is futile. It takes a lot of energy to avoid our fate.

Sometimes I’m simply looking in the wrong direction and ignoring the obvious because I got distracted by a side quest. This is good information.

Orient to self and internal locus of control

Part of the difficulty is a lot of folks have an external locus of control - we feel like life is being done To us, not for or with us. So when life withholds its external input, orienting to the cycles and right timing helps to meet the need for external input with something more nourishing and true as we build tolerance and power in our relationship with the unknown. 

When ‘out there’ doesn’t have an answer, I see it as an indication for me to look inside, because I likely have the ingredient needed for the next step. Whether that’s a death of an identity, or connecting to a deep desire of something that would really fulfil me, or something simple I want right now, it’s here, now. The way is the way. And when we follow the next right step, we are shown the way. Taking action in this way keeps us moving rather than being stuck, and movement = life and stuck = death.

Orienting to desire

Our deep desires are life moving through us.

What is alive, even when I feel like shit? This is one of the hardest things to do, to self-start our own spark and CHOOSE to be alive and feel the friction without running from it. Allowing it to be that easy. 

Orienting to healthy relationship in all forms

Waiting for Right Timing can feel so vulnerable, like reaching towards the uncertain future with no guarantee of response. To me, it feels somewhat like anxious attachment. And working with that attachment style is about building capacity to sit with the sizzle and activation that comes when we reach out and don’t know if we’ll be met. This is easier done when we connect with others and don’t feel so alone. Finding support connection within the experience can make a huge difference.

And sometimes you just need to sit with a friend to cry it out, ‘I don’t know what other do’ and they reply, ‘You’ll figure it out! You always do!"‘

That’s also how we develop self-trust - through sitting with uncertainty, and taking a risk. And when we don’t take risks because we’re afraid, we don’t develop trust in our own capacity. The rumination happens because we don’t know we have capacity to deal with it, and we won’t know unless we try. So It’s really important to have people who have your back, who remind you of your power and capacity. The only reason I’m even here doing this is because I’m surrounded by people who reflected back my capacity. This also goes for unseen support with whatever beings you are connected to. Let them in.

Fear as Intuition

We often have fear bound up into shapes in our bodies that won’t let us move forward. It loops - it’s behind the ruminating thoughts, it puts on the break on top of the accelerator, and it creates certain shapes and movements in our bodies. And when our fear is liberated out of those shapes, it becomes more of our spidy sense. our intuition, the ability to sense and feel into all the cracks and crevices in the future in a nonlinear way, and find available options that we couldn’t see before because we were stuck in a particular shape.

Think about how your body moves when you’re in fear and stuck and tight. There’s no options. When fear can move, there’s more nuance and articulation in the movement, and our intuition can reflect that. So start to work with fear, let it move through you rather than against you 

On Collapse

Collectively we are being invited right now into these qualities - to centre ourselves and our wellbeing, find right reciprocal relationship, find our midlines and centres of gravity. Our empire is collapsing and at some point, everything we know is going to go and we will have to deal with a lot of unknown. And everything I’ve mentioned, orienting to cosmology and locus of control and letting fear move into intuition will be how we survive, and rewrite relationship dynamics on a foundational architectural level while we’re at it.