You are living in complex, challenging times. Your role may be shifting, whether in relationships or work or health. You are feeling stressed and tearful at times. What can you do when you are uncertain?
A mother called to chat with me about the greatest job she had, building a home and family.
She is a planner. Next summer her daughter leaves for college, then in the spring, her last child leaves. She is also a career woman, wife, daughter, aunt, and friend.
We laughed at how wisdom doesn’t always work.
The wisdom of listening.
The wisdom of mistakes will happen.
The wisdom of change happens over and over.
The wisdom of at least I tried.
When uncertainty sits in your bedroom, it is an invitation to go within and gather new resources.
What wasn’t familiar to this mother was the idea of making friends with the unknown. Like meeting a new friend, unknown becomes your new friend. Here is how you get to know unknown:
When your life or role changes you are in the discomfort of not knowing what you will be feeling or doing.
Make time to be with just you, in a quiet place. Begin a chat with the part of you that is in the unknown.
Ask that part of you:
1. What do you want to tell me today about my not knowing what will happen? Example, you have been in situations before where you didn’t know what would be next for you, so what did you do then? Keep listening to what else you hear. If you hear nothing, make it up. Yes, make it up. Some part of you is talking with you. See what you learn in that moment. Write what you hear that part say. Just take a minute and write notes, not full sentences, because you will forget.
2. What do you want to tell me today about what I might be feeling? Write it. Example – lonely, sad, hopeful, excited, angry, crabby, foolish.
3. What do you want to tell me about what I need today, as I sit in the unknown? Write it. Example, get outside and go for a walk, ask for help, research, rest.
Practice asking these three questions THREE TIMES a day. Yes, that sounds like a lot of time. It goes very fast when you ask the questions. You will be in the unknown for a while. This is how you make friends with not knowing what will be.
It is natural to lose confidence when your life has a sudden or expected change, even for happy changes. Staying connected with yourself builds compassion. Compassion builds hope and opens windows you never saw before.
Who doesn’t need to practice some new behaviors? When we do the same routine and think the same thoughts, creativity and energy can get depleted.
Practice chatting with yourself and write it down.
If you could see the small squares of paper I jot a thought on, rather than the lovely notebook I bought, you would laugh. Yes, I even have jotted a note on the back of my check book because I couldn’t find any paper. Once, OK more than once, I wrote on the inside of my hand with a pen.
Keep the perfectionist out of conversations with yourself. Just begin getting to know this unknown part of you. Begin, I wonder what you will discover?
Take good care,
Natalie
Natalie Caine M.A.
Empty Nest Support Services
Life In Transition, What’s Next?
(800) 446-3310 or (818) 763-0188
Los Angeles
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Natalie Caine, M.A. natalie@lifeintransition.org
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