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“Leave fear to children. They create fears to avoid dangers. But in order to grow, we need to be brave.” —Un Professore
The second month of the new year has begun, and if you set into motion or have begun putting forth effort to make a change in any way to step more fully toward all that you are capable of, checking in now might yield a variety of observations about how the past month has progressed.
Whatever those observations are, if there have been hiccups or steps backward or doubt, or even fear that what you are choosing to do is too much, too grand, or too daring, then all of this ‘push-back’ that on the surface appears to be helping you by encouraging you to stop is in fact happening to paradoxically prove to you that what you seek is what you truly want and are absolutely capable of. Yep. Our fears lead the way to where we need and will find contentment if only we understand how the mind works during times of chosen change. The self-sabotaging that arises does so as a ‘survival technique’ of pulling back to what the mind knows even if what it knows isn’t the best place for us to reside or remain any longer.
Another term describing this reaction to change of pulling back has been called recoiling, and as the below video/IG post shares, if you are feeling yourself recoil, it is very good news: it means you are beginning to change in the way you set your intention to do:
What our mind views as familiar is where our Lizard mind prefers to remain – what we used to do, how we used to or usually do something, etc.. This understanding of the brain’s default system is something we’ve talked about in-depth in this, this and this post, and it bears repeating because each time we choose to grow to constructively step into our true selves, share with the world what we can uniquely give, we run up against pushback to stay put.
But here’s the thing about staying put: It may appear secure to do so. It may feel safe to stay where we want to reside for the rest of our days once we arrive or begin to live the life that feels secure, but there is no freedom there. Because to remain where we are is to stop living fully. In other words, when we pursue remaining secure at all costs, we are actually attempting something futile: controlling all that is not in our ability to control beyond ourselves. Andy Puddicombe explains below why preferring security, while at its most fundamental sense – a roof over our heads, money in the bank to pay the bills, etc. – is understandable and rational, is when we continue to seek security in areas of our life beyond the fundamentals, we actually prevent the ease we say we are seeking from being experienced in our lives:
“We might think that security is everything. But to secure something is to bind it. To keep it still. In contrast, in embracing uncertainty, we discover an ever-changing freedom and flow . . . [when we rest in uncertainty and allow things to unfold], ironically there is no hope or fear there because we’re not hoping to maintain or fearing we won’t be able to maintain [what we seek to keep secure] because we’ve already embraced the idea that everything is changing all the time . . . there’s no longer a sense of getting stuck or running up against obstacles or challenges in the traditional sense. There’s more of a feeling that everything is moving and flowing with a sense of freedom. [When we embrace uncertainty and let go of gripping security] we will find a greater sense of ease in our mind and our life.”
In order to grow, in order to see and experience the full beauty of life that we each are capable of experiencing by way of discovering what we can uniquely give to the world that also brings us to life, we have to be brave. We have to stop clinging to always wanting to know what will happen tomorrow, next month, five years, 20 years, or even this evening, wanting to control the world beyond ourselves, wanting a guarantee, timeline or to know how others will respond as it pertains to us.
Wonderfully for our well-being, by relinquishing the need to know and instead embracing uncertainty, we set ourselves free to live fully, to show up entirely in the present and to engage with the opportunities that serendipitously cross our path as well as see where we can grow to be able to seize the opportunities when they eventually arrive later along our life journey.
If we let fear drive the vehicle of our life, it (our one and only life) will remain in the driveway. If we observe the fear when it arrives and instead invite it to join us, but to sit in the passenger seat to drive with us, we are seeing what it actually is revealing to us: which direction to begin driving our car/life toward our curiosity, passion and infinite fuel-source for life energy even if we do not know what we will discover along the way. This is embracing uncertainty with clarity of self and trust in your unique journey. The ease we seek arrives because we are the driver. And when we know and trust ourselves, we can rest easy knowing we will both be brave and wise in how we travel along our life journey.
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