The Game of Uncertainty

Sometimes our brains struggle with uncertainty.

What if you don't get that job. What if you do?

What if the house doesn't sell?

What if something is wrong with your child?

What if someone you love rejects you?

What if illness, finances, time or a thousand other things make everything fall apart. What if you won't ever realize your hopes and dreams?

It can feel like an endless game of Jenga - when is the tower going to fall?

The good news is, you can increase your capacity to deal with uncertainty.

And by the way, your brain isn't REALLY afraid of those things.

It's afraid you won't be competent, loved, special or ultimately SAFE if those things happen. It is wired to believe that predictability is the best way to avoid danger. Having a sense of control feels safest. Being right is important.

But holding tightly to those beliefs will, in the end, create more problems for you.

Because life isn't predictable.

And you actually aren't able to control everything. (You aren't meant to either.) And always insisting on being right doesn't make you very fun to be around!

The poet John Keats coined a term he called negative capability. It’s “the ability to endure and even embrace mysteries and uncertainties”. 

It requires:

•  a humility regarding knowledge.

• a letting go of our egos in order to just see what is happening. 

• a temporary suspension of judgment.

Don't believe the lie that you must know how things are going to turn out in order to be happy.

You could fail and survive. You can mess us and learn from it. You can be wrong and still be lovable.

Things can, and will, turn out differently than you hoped. That will be hard and you may feel sad, angry or disappointed.

You are capable of feeling those emotions AND MORE. Hope on and trust in your ability to not know.

Believing this is how you truly solve for uncertainty.

Xo,

Meredith