“Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing.”
William Congreve
It’s amazing how many years I’ve coasted along without taking time to re-focus and get clear about what I want in life again. Ever since I can remember, I longed for the security of living a pre-planned path, of having my life happen in a specific way. But deep down, I really wondered who this person called Shae was, why things didn’t always work out the way I’d planned, and what I was doing that was wrong. Ah, youth!
It pays to be clear—at any age. And clarity, especially in times of uncertainty, is an access to power. Being clear is the first step towards choosing freely.
For a while, I thought it was information that was missing for me to be clear. So I focused on learning. I eventually discovered that, more often than not, when it comes to fundamental issues in our lives like personal and relationship concerns, data doesn’t cut it. Relationships take two, and the only person we can ever change is ourselves.
The challenge is two-fold:
- We’re hardwired in our culture to resist change, and
- It’s extremely difficult to confront ourselves.
For a long time, I thought there was something ‘wrong’ with me because I couldn’t get my chosen path in life ‘right’. So I tried therapy for a little while to figure out what was unresolved and unhealed from my past and make things ‘right’ in the present. But what I really wanted to do was shift the future I was living into: a future that looked very much like my past. The future is not normally the domain of the therapist.
It wasn’t until I met and started working with a master coach that things began to get clear for me—including what I wanted for my future.
Now the various coaches I have relationships with have my permission to ask me the difficult questions I tend to avoid. I know they won’t provide me with answers and silver bullets. But they do help me observe my thoughts and review the outcomes of my actions without blaming me or making me wrong. With them, I feel safe looking at different perspectives and possibilities for my future. They are trusted partners with whom I can engage in generative dialogue without fear of manipulation or coercion.
Now, being attached to a specific way for my life to happen seems limiting, even dangerous.
I’m dancing on the edge of uncertainty as if it’s as sharp as the edge of this glass canoe.
And here’s where things get REALLY clear.
This blog post by Shae Hadden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay