Do you crave certainty?
Do you long to know if you’ll get the dream job, the house or the guy? When’s the best time to take that extended holiday and was your last decision the right one? Are you curious to understand where you’ll be five years from now and the biggest question of all; what’s your life purpose?
I believe we all hanker after more certainty in our lives at some point or another.
We want validation that we are on the right path, even though frequently it’s a path we would like to get off. Unfortunately, the only certainty we have this lifetime is that it will be jam-packed with change.
Often, we see change as the enemy. But it doesn’t need to be this way.
When our focus moves away from demanding certainty, to embracing constant change, we are not completely overwhelmed when life doesn’t work out how we thought it would. Given how regularly this happens, learning how to adapt to change is a skill worth investing energy into. So how do we do this?
Meditation is a key way to create space between our thoughts.
Closing our eyes for just two minutes every day and focusing on our breathing, helps ensure our minds don’t always run the show, particularly when change is thrown at us from all angles. During these periods of transition or inner turmoil, it’s easy to begin to feel unbalanced. Our natural reaction is to resist change and try to push it away. Even though it feels uncomfortable, we need to walk towards change and situations we are accustomed to avoiding. They find us regardless, so it’s better that it’s on our terms. Reframing the craziness of life’s changes as something more positive also removes the fear of uncertainty and allows our life to go into flow. Who doesn’t wish for that?
Best Not to Know
I'm a firm believer that it's best we don't know how our lives are going to pan out. Why? There are two main reasons.
Certainty Equals Boredom
Certainty creates boredom. There's nothing left to imagine or aim for. Our futures are predetermined; we are simply the bystanders taken along for the ride. We switch off because we already know the end to our own story. I liken it to being given a completed jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces glued together. There is no enjoyment in the uncovering of the big picture because we can already see the end result.
Certainty Equals Playing it Safe
Certainty creates a mindset of playing it safe. We dream small to ensure that our planned future comes to fruition (not that we have any control over this anyway). Or we don’t dream at all, because what's the point right? But by doing this, we end up missing out on the good stuff; those experiences that we don't realise are for us. We let pass situations or events that we don’t believe we are worthy of. I know in my life, I would have played it safe. I wouldn't have dreamed as big as some of my greatest accomplishments or most treasured memories. Why? Because I wouldn't have realised that some of the things or events I had previously considered to be impossible, were actually just a thought and action away. In your life, what would you have played it safe on? What would you not have created for yourself because you didn't dream big enough? So perhaps uncertainty and change aren’t the bad guys after all. Maybe change and not knowing how our future will unfold, keeps life more interesting than we care to admit. When our perceptions change, life changes too, so start there. Good luck!
With love,
Sarah x