Not Knowing


You may have noticed something of a theme in these daily e-mails. As I said at the outset, my main goal is to provide a few minutes’ respite from the news each day. But another purpose is to offer ways to help stay grounded and centered in these uncertain times. That’s why I’ve sent messages about things like deep breathing, yoga, noticing sensory experiences, mindfulness, gratitude, and self-care. We all face the unknown, and we are all susceptible to fear or grief. But we can all benefit from staying in our body, staying in the moment, and building our capacity to observe our thoughts, feelings, and emotions without being judgmental.

Yes, we all want answers. Our brains are wired to seek certainty. We like patterns and predictability. We want to know what our future holds. But we live in a very uncertain time. And we can be more calm and centered if we are able to come to peace with not knowing. If you are frustrated by the uncertainty of this time, perhaps it will help if you think about the gifts of not knowing. One of them is clarity. The facts are that we really don’t know very much about our future, even in the best of times, and that we are not in control of anything beyond our own behavior. Oh, we may think that we know (remember the boiled eggs?); we may have all kinds of plans and expectations. But life has a habit of throwing us curves. So seeing the limits of our actual knowledge and power more clearly is one thing we can appreciate about not knowing. With this clarity can come grace and acceptance around our false starts and stymied plans.

Another gift is creativity. When we believe that we know the answer, we stop thinking about the question. When we believe that there is but one answer, we narrow our search to that. But knowing that we don’t know gives us the space and motivation to think more deeply and broadly.  If we understand that we don’t know what our future will look like, then we can stretch our imaginations around it. Many prospects might then rise before us. The seemingly impossible could become possible, not only for us as individuals, but for our community, our nation, and our world.

There are other gifts of not knowing, including hope, trust, humility, and patience. But the last ones I'll mention here are flexibility and openness. When we don’t know what lies ahead, then we can be more flexible about our choices and more open to different potential outcomes. 

We do not know when or how this pandemic will end, or when or how our lives will return to something that feels more normal. But we do know that those times will come. And in this time of not knowing, we can use our creativity, flexibility, and openness to imagine any number of new pictures. One of the questions I’ve asked a few different ways now is what we want to take with us from this experience when our social distancing is safely ended. Perhaps one way to answer that is to pay more attention to what is speaking to our spirits now. What is lifting you up today? What would help you listen to your deepest hopes and desires? What do you hope will happen? What could you imagine if you gave yourself permission to let go of all fears and limitations?

I’ll give the last word to Tennyson. Here is part of a requiem he wrote at a dark time in his life, after the sudden death of his dearest friend at age 22:

Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last – far off – at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.
~Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Until tomorrow, be well, and let the gifts of not knowing be a source of comfort and reassurance. We are all in this together.

Love,
Nancie/Mom/Mimi/Grandma

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