Uncertainty can be really painful for us. We like knowing what’s going to happen and how a situation will play out. It helps us prepare and strategize.

But what happens when we can’t know a thing? What happens when we can’t predict someone’s behaviour, or how something we’ve done will be received? What do we do?

It’s simple, yet hard. Do nothing. 

Rather than assigning false meaning to things and wasting our mental energy on scenarios and fears that might never come to pass… we can put our energy to taking care of the fear behind our habit playing out scenarios.

Uncertainty isn’t easy to sit with but if we can practice it, even for 30 seconds before we give in again to playing out the possibilities, it will slowly build our self confidence and cultivate more calm. 

What’s the point of practicing sitting with uncertainty?

Here’s the truth… Everything in life is uncertain and always will be. We can never truly know a thing until it has come to pass. 

But in pursuing certainty in our lives we limit ourselves to making the choices in our lives we are most able to predict. We play it safe. That might sound like a good thing, but in sticking to the parts of our life we can predict… we rob ourselves of being so much more than we are and having so much more than we already have.

Practicing being with uncertainty can hurt, yes. But so does a tattoo. So does spending $1000+ dollars on a new iPhone (don’t tell me that bill doesn’t hurt a bit, we all know it does). 

Sometimes the most valuable and meaningful things in our lives hurt a little bit, just like sitting with uncertainty. But what we get from doing this is more priceless than any iPhone or tattoo… Sitting with uncertainty and getting comfortable with it… gives us our life back.

As someone who’s struggled with anxiety and depression for a long time… Our society really isn’t structured for us to flourish.

There’s this completely backwards habit promoted within our society of ignoring how we feel in order to get things done. Work, school, studying, chores, friends, fun… Everything gets prioritized ahead of our feelings, especially painful ones.

As long as they’re small enough to ignore we do our best to avoid them. But this isn’t the answer to our happiness. It’s one of the worst practices we can cultivate for our mental well being.

The quickest way around our feelings… is through.

If we don’t make space to take care of our feelings first then we are cutting ourselves off from our own capacity for great things. If our bodies and minds are always half preoccupied by the feelings we’re trying to bury in the name of getting shit done, then we’re only dedicating a part of our minds and hearts to the task at hand. 

If we can practice noticing our feelings early on we can take care of them and help ease them before they take over our lives for a day, a week, a month, or longer.

Think of our feelings as our alarm system… The longer you ignore the warning alarm, the louder and more insistent it gets. But if you hear the alarm early and make space in your day to take a diagnostic of the system you can avoid pinpoint the problem and avoid a full meltdown. The same principle applies here.

Our feelings are a piece of ourselves we need to stop ignoring just because they aren’t always pleasant. They’re a vital part of our diagnostic system and they can give us very early warning signs that something needs taking care of.

So the next time you notice stress, anger, or sadness bubbling up in your system here’s a practice for you:

⁃Notice it
⁃Make space in your day to let those feelings come up
⁃Create a safe, soft, loving environment (in bed, in a bath, blankets, tea)
⁃Remove all devices and distraction.
⁃Sit quietly, breathe, and imagine a door opening up inside you to let the feelings out of. The box you’ve put them in.
⁃Have compassion and love for whatever thoughts or feelings come through. Judging ourselves in this space is a fast track to getting more stuck.
⁃Keep breathing and notice what your body and heart wants in this moment… That might be rubbing our arms, or our belly or chest. It might be saying loving things to ourselves, it might be massaging our face or our legs. It could be crying, screaming, or punching a pillow. Just remember to breathe and say yes to any loving thing you can do for yourself here. 

The caveat to this is that if you are afraid you might harm someone else, yourself, or if you are thinking about suicidal thoughts, ideation, or planning… it’s important to contact a professional. 

There’s nothing to be ashamed of in contacting a professional if our problems or pain are too big for us to hold on our own, it’s actually the most loving thing you can do. Reaching out for help is the greatest thing we can do for ourselves, so if we notice our thoughts going to dangerous places, please don’t hesitate. 

I’ve had to ask for professional support in those times and some of the strongest people I know have also reached out for help in times of crisis. We all stand with you and are proud of you for recognizing you need support and asking for it.

When our mind is spiralling, answering the questions with « i don’t know » or the worst answer, and then asking yourself again, « then what? » and answer that. 

Let me know if this sounds familiar to you. 

We’re triggered by something happening that makes us feel threatened or unsafe in some way, and we begin to ask ourselves questions. Questions about ourselves, about the future, and about the consequences.

“What if they fire me?” 
“What if I did a bad job?”
“Why did I do/say that?”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Do they hate me?”
“Did I look stupid?”
“What did they mean when they said/did this?”
“What is going to happen?”

We have so many questions rolling around in our mind, picking up speed  that we start to get overwhelmed. And that’s normal! I call them open loops. When we have so many open loops spinning through our head it’s scary, overwhelming and makes us feel small in the face of so many possible problems. 

So let’s start closing those loops with answers.

“What if they fire me?” … Well, what IF they fire you? Answer this for yourself. Then what? You’ll be fired… and you’ll need to find a job… Which you’ve done successfully before and you can absolutely do again. No, it might not be the ideal job, and it might be tough, but you’ve done it before and you can do it again.

“What if I did a bad job?”… If you did a bad job, then that sucks, and probably feels crappy. Give yourself a minute, and then keep playing that question out. “Then what?”. If you did a bad job, that means you can look at what you did, figure out what needs improving, and do a better job next time. You can show them that you’re capable of learning from your mistakes. And let’s be honest, when you’ve worked on teams, projects, or even just with friends… It didn’t matter most to you that they did a crappy job, it mattered most that they recognized it, and tried to be better next time… right? Why would your instance be any different?

“Why did I do/say that?” … Why DID you do or say that? Did you do it because you were nervous? Comfortable? Hurt? Trying to impress someone? These are all very human, and are okay. If someone said something shitty to you, nice to you, WEIRD to you and you had an ongoing relationship with them (work or otherwise) would you never speak to them again? Or would you write it off as lack of coffee, sickness, or just a joke you didn’t get?

We see that when we start to answer our questions, asking ourselves “Then what?”, and  practice flipping our perspective and imagining someone else doing what we did… it’s not that big a deal. Yes, they are painful thoughts, but these are not things we’ve never encountered before. You have experience with ALL of these life events in some form or another, and you’ve overcome in your own way. You can overcome these fears too IF they come to pass.

What if you ask yourself a question you just don’t have the answer to?

Try taking a breath and saying to yourself, “I don’t know, and that’s okay.” This may not help us the way you’d expect. With this answer we don’t get to play out the scenario and compare it to similar situations we’ve handled before. If we’re not careful the fever pitch of open loops could start up again.

What this answer DOES grant us, is something different, but equally valuable. There is nothing wrong with admitting that you don’t knoww something. It is just as important an answer as a fleshed out scenario. This answer allows us to be human and kind to ourselves.

Don’t get me wrong, It could still  hurt because we like knowing what will happen and being ready, but try holding some compassion and patience for yourself. 

You’ll find that even an answer of “I don’t know, and that’s okay.” Said enough times to enough unanswerable questions, can calm them down and allow your mind to let go of those loops.

“I don’t know, and that’s okay.”

It’s an answer, it’s gentle, and most importantly, it’s an act of self-love.

The difference between making a safe space to experience your feelings vs. ruminating in them too long.

The conscious choice
Keyva Gardner “emotions are a wave... sit. Fill. Release.”
Noticing, breathing, and stepping more into a mindful role with our feelings vs getting pulled into a spiral around them. 

Our emotions are an inherent part of our humanity. And yet, there’s this strange practice in our society of ignoring any emotion that we feel is inconvenient until it can’t be ignored anymore.

Are you sad? Get shit done.

Are you frustrated? Forget about it and do what needs done.

Are you feeling shame? Self-loathing? Hopeless? Well just keep trucking and forget about it! Fake it til you make it! 

But the thing is, bottling up your feelings or reprioritizing them will only get you so far before your neglected emotions build and build to the point where you snap and completely lose control over them. Then… we’re drowning. We’re surrounded by an ocean of these feelings and it’s overwhelming. 

We have another choice. We can honour our feelings as they arise. All it takes as making a little bit of time and a safe space to let them come through. I’ve talked about this before which you can read in my article The Way Is Through.

But what happens if just stepping into that space starts the downward spiral into your feelings? Maybe you’re afraid if you make a little bit of space for your feelings you won’t be able to stop.

There is a difference between honouring our emotions rather than soaking in them. When we make the mindful choice to make space for them, this consciously prioritization of that part of ourself alone seems to soften our emotions and helps them pass easier. 

I was listening to a wonderful meditation by Keyva Gardner and she made a wonderful point. Our emotions are like waves… Sit and let the emotions come in, fill yourself with them, and then release them and let them go back to the ocean.

Don’t cling to those feelings that come up. Make space for their arrival, breathe through them. When they start to ebb practice noticing that sensation and let them go. 

We want to maintain the practice of noticing our feelings. You can do this by taking mental notes “I’m in pain, I’m feeling shame, I’m noticing that I’m replaying this moment over and over in my head, I feel stuck around this thought”.

It also comes from the breathe. We want to practice deep breathing throughout the whole space we’ve made for our feelings. Our deep breathing will keep our parasympathetic nervous system active, which keeps us calm and focused rather than frantic and panicking as we experience what we’re feeling. 

Practicing calm when we’re experiencing painful feelings can help us longterm to reorganize how we process pain. It doesn’t have to be a threat. It doesn’t have to feel scary and overwhelming.  It can just be what it is - discomfort. 

And we’ve all been uncomfortable in our lives, in more ways than one. Discomfort is survivable. It’s not a threat, and it doesn’t break us. We need to remember this about our emotional pain too.