http://www.dailyom.com/articles/2012/35974.html
Although it's been diminishing in a big way recently, I used to believe that I would feel a lot better if I knew how things were going to turn out for me in the end: Will this relationship become a partnership? Where will this job take me? Is this health issue serious or just a fleeting inconvenience?
The need to relieve anxiety by knowing what my future holds has propelled me into having a few different kinds of 'readings' over the years. Sometimes I feel clearer and more at ease afterwards, at least temporarily, but almost without exception I end up feeling even more confused and anxious when I try to make decisions based on what I've heard. Maybe this is what's been going on there:
In many ways, not knowing what the future has in store brings out in us the qualities we need to grow. For example, it would have been difficult to commit yourself to certain people or projects if you knew they wouldn't ultimately work out. Yet, it was through your commitment to see them through that you experienced the lessons you needed to grow.
Not knowing the future keeps us just where we need to be ~ fully committed and in the present moment.
As you probably know, I'm not a fan of the 'lesson' paradigm, but I am big into 'growth and expansion' because I enjoy it so much. And when I think about it, it is much more entertaining to watch things unfold moment by moment. Skipping ahead to the end of the story and then coming back to the present knowing how it will all turn out kind of ruins the fun!
When I look back on it, I realize that whenever I heard during a reading that a relationship was not going to last long, I started acting differently from that moment on. I cheated myself and my beloved out of the joy of a fully immersed experience because I stuck one foot out the proverbial door.
As uncomfortable as 'not knowing' can feel sometimes, it truly does allow me to attend fully to the present, which is where all the good stuff lives. I wouldn't begin reading a mystery novel by turning to the last page to see whodunit, so why not let my life story unfold one page at a time? The suspense makes my experience all the more interesting and exciting.
2 comments:
Wow, this is something I've been thinking about and learning lately, big time. What I'm finding is that when I can really live in full acceptance of not knowing, I am so much calmer. I have spent much time caught up in the spin cycle of imagining how things will turn out (and often imagining the stress or pain that will come when I go here or there or do this or that). Everything gets a whole lot lighter when I just live in the fact that I really don't know how anything will turn out. Isn't it fascinating how that can happen? When you really give into the thing that most scares you, it becomes the calmest way of being.
ooh, I just love that last sentence of yours. so well said! thanks for taking the time to post a comment nicole. I'm glad you are here!
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