» Can we Be The Change You Wish To See In The World? What does that take? «
Embracing Uncertainty through Hakomi
It's likely many of us have felt pulled and stretched within our capacity to hold steady these last couple of years, and with world events going the way they are, it doesn't feel like this embodied lesson to keep our seat is gonna let up any time soon.
It is a focus in our Hakomi sessions to be able to develop the capacity to lean into our present moment experience, AND to cultivate a field of curiosity within that experience.
In a way, this capacity is the hallmark for being with uncertainty.
And it is an essential capacity to cultivate at this time in history.
Having followed the modern-day luminary Charles Eisenstein for many years, I am watching him now focus his vast gaze on humanity down to this same single premise: In order to come into a new story, how ready are we to let go of what is 'known'?
For that, we need to bump up against uncertainty and learn to carry that within our animal-body, to get as close to that edge as we can. Charles' signal that this capacity is the most essential quality to cultivate for upcoming global events is not lost on me.
It is the 'work' we do every time we come into a Hakomi session for our Self.
In a recent Substack post, Charles offered a contemplation on the US election result (yet another polarised event in our world) and I couldn't help feel the global antenna of his wisdom being a mirror for our own personal process towards wholeness. Those places within our psyche that are at war, parts pulling us in opposite directions and polarising, and exiling other parts of Self are echoes of world events.
I keep coming back to the profundity of 'Be The Change You Wish To See In The World' (from luminary, Mahatma Gandhi). It starts right here, in our body. In our mind.
So how are we going in our capacity to be with uncertainty?
Because Charles makes the prediction that "however much or little uncertainty you carry in this moment, it's going to grow."
Yup, that means more uncertainty.
More willingness to accept that what we know is only partial. There's just so much that we're not seeing. Not willing to see even. Our protectors are masters of that sure-fire defense; nothing to see here!
In order to lead us towards a more expanded story of Self, we need to have the willingness to go through the uncertainty. In relation to world events, Charles writes "Ultimately, it's necessary that we face such times if we're actually going to change. If, if the future is not going to be just some kind of recapitulation of the past, we have to go through a phase of not knowing, when the familiar fades, drops away, and something new arises."
What feels most essential in the work that I do with my clients, is learning to hold our seat when life feels unsteady. The certainty within which we are used to viewing the world (and our internal compass) is being disrupted in small and big ways. Surety and certainty are no longer sure or certain. If anything, uncertainty is our certainty. Change is our constant. Leaning into doubt is where we may hope to find composure.
I want to echo Charles when he writes;
I believe ... that sooner or later we are going to be asked more and more insistently to put down what we thought we knew and that whatever narratives that we are carrying right now, that whatever they are, they will become obsolete. Many of us will experience cognitive dissonance as we encounter new information that is very hard to fit into what we thought we knew, and that requires a greater and greater effort to shut it out and to keep believing the same, and not only to keep believing the same but to keep being the same, because our beliefs are inseparate from who we are.
I am continually reminded that what we think we're coming to therapy for is really just the subtext to a more essential soul lesson, where we are incrementally learning, at the pace that is right for us, to cultivating the ability, tenacity, stability and resilience to hold steady when our old touch-stones fall away.
What's left is our presence, awareness and a love that is kind of aching its way through our heart, compelling us to come back into connection with our most essential Self and to dance with the emergence of Life itself.
That's just my opinion :-)
I will finish up with this poem from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.
There is always
that edge of doubt.
Trust it.
That's where
the new things come from. If
you can't live with it,
get out because,
when it's gone
you're on automatic,
repeating something
you've learned.
Let your prayer be:
save me from that tempting
certainty
that leads
me back
from the
edge
that dark edge
where the first
light breaks.
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