Can't Know

This week I called my mom for advice, because moms carry wisdom in their bones.

After more than a year of loss and stagnation, this month it has felt like the world has shifted into fifth gear and is ripping west on the 10 again at 90 miles per hour.

I've been overwhelmed by the speed of change and the questions, possibilities, and obstacles this change has brought on. So I went to my mom and piled on every what-if that was in my head.

Mom came through with the best advice.

It's this simple: can't know.

Not I don't know, which implies that there is something you can do to change the amount of information you have. Can't know implies that it is out of our hands. It means there is no action we have to take; instead, we must wait and see.

There is something truly comforting about removing the burden of gathering information, of control, and allowing the universe to deliver information to us as it sees fit.

In that space of can't know, we let go of our need to control and we can see beauty where we once saw fear. Can't know opens the door to getting comfortable with uncertainty. Uncertainty is where things can get weird and the impossible becomes possible.

Uncertainty is where creation lives.

Something else that's been helpful during this time is reading Pema Chodron's Comfortable with Uncertainty, which you can purchase through Thriftbooks right here.