How does the word uncertainty feel to you?
For most, the word alone will shoot the heart rate up, start the mind spinning and have us gripping a little tighter to our seats. That is a partly innate and partly conditioned response - innate in that the brain doesn’t particularly love experiences that challenge our security or safety. Understandably so - its job is to keep us alive.
And it’s a conditioned response in that most of us probably haven’t been taught an alternative perspective on uncertainty - most of the information or behaviours we’ve been exposed to through childhood and into adulthood point to uncertainty being bad.
That isn’t necessarily concretely wrong - we should have some apprehension around uncertainty. But having a fear response doesn’t inspire us to move forward and it’s not particularly conducive to growth. We can’t move through life without experiencing periods of uncertainty and if our default response to that is a pattern of fear and angst then we’ll find ourselves forever in that loop.
Every choice or move we make in life is empowering or disempowering, energising or depleting, decaying or inspiring.
Fearing uncertainty is largely an unconscious choice that disempowers us.
But we can consciously embed a different perspective that empowers us.
That perspective might sound a little something like uncertainty is fertile ground for growth - less certainty equals more possibility.
Think about what we get in times of certainty - it feels nice but it isn’t moving us forward in any meaningful way.
Uncertainty on the other hand offers the opportunity to ask ourselves some difficult questions, learn more about ourselves, define what we want next to look like and practice virtues like patience, compassion, love or discipline. Uncertainty is this immensely potent incubator for becoming who we want to be.
This post is less about uncertainty itself and more about how we choose to engage with it. A quote I always come back to, from Andy Puddicombe (founder of Headspace):
“We can’t change every little thing that happens to us in life but we can change the way that we experience it.”
I like the parallels between uncertain moments in our lives and what’s affectionately referred to as the pain cave in sport - both are moments in time when the heat is turned up and both are inevitable if we’re pushing our edges.
For some athletes there can be some fear around entering into the pain cave and what might happen when they’re in it - will the body be able to keep pushing or will the fatigue kick in?
The result is an apprehension and a desperate hope to delay the pain cave as long as possible. All that creates is additional mental weight throughout the race in the form of anxiety.
Courtney Dewaulter, the greatest ultramarathon runner of all time, takes a slightly (very) different approach - she can’t wait to get into the pain cave.
She has consciously chosen to see that the pain cave decides her potential - her capacity to endure time in there decides what she can produce. That’s given way to this perspective that every time she finds herself there is this wonderful opportunity to become who she wants to be.
So much so that she drops herself into a visualisation every time she finds herself hurting in a race. She visualises a cave in intricate details and imagines herself there, tools in hand, carving away at the walls making it bigger, smoother, and more expansive. The longer she’s there, the more time she has to build her dream cave and the more comfortable she feels in it.
You might call that a bit of an abstract strategy from someone at the more extreme end of the spectrum but I see a beautiful example of using the imagination to shift how we engage in challenging moments in support of what we’re trying to create.
I see someone who has dramatically shifted their relationship with uncertainty, gets themselves into that space consistently and is enjoying the fruit of doing so.
I see someone who’s made a conscious decision in service of feeling empowered, rather than disempowered, energised rather than depleted, inspired rather than deflated.
(From all reports Courtney is also one of the happiest, most joyful, most relaxed, most generous and most humble athletes going around - that tells me she’s someone who has spent a lot of time getting to know herself.)
For whatever reason the visual of a cave doesn’t click in my mind but what does is the idea of building deeper wells - deeper reservoirs of compassion, patience and love that I can draw on in the moments that life is asking plenty of me.
The more I find myself in positions where I’m drawing on those reserves, the more I’m expanding them.
That has become the conscious, empowering perspective I’m practicing. I don’t always get it right, no one does, but when I notice some fear, doubt or angst in moments of uncertainty, change or challenge I remind myself that whatever I’m approaching is an opportunity to build deeper wells that I can draw on in future experiences.
The Practice
A few questions to reflect on for this week’s practice…
What’s my relationship with uncertainty?
If this feels hard to wrap your arms around, consider a recent experience and what feelings or thoughts you experienced and how comfortable and capable you felt of experiencing it. We don’t want to judge the current state, more just understand it.What would I like to say to myself in moments of change, challenge or uncertainty?
What do you want to remind yourself of?What are 1-3 qualities you’d really like to build?
These might be qualities you already feel strong in but really want to double down e.g. patience, discipline, love, kindness, playfulness etc.For each of those qualities, see if you can explore the way that uncertainty, change or challenge will help you build them.
A Final Thought
“One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of shore for a very long time.”
- Andre Gide
Have a beautiful week friends - thanks for being here.
Love.
Jesse.