Emergency Practice #9
Tear up the maps, we're going off-road.
Somewhere along the way, I think I made the mistake of believing that the mark of a successful life was:
To make a good plan
To make sure things go according to that plan.
I’ve always been very good at the first one, but I’ve never managed to crack the second. No matter how hard I’ve tried to keep things on track, I’ve always got thrown off course by something. The list of things I could blame is endless: illness, sudden changes in fate, the people around me, my own fallible mind, lack of skill, lack of energy, lack of money, the season, the weather. There’s always been something. Always. And I have long believed that was my fault in some way.
The sediment of frustration and shame that has built up around me, layer after layer, thanks to this faulty belief has left me smothered and gasping at times. Why was I constantly being thrown curveballs? Why couldn’t I be better at life? It has also left me terrified of the future, as if it were some great Monty Pythonesque boot just waiting to stomp on my head the minute I dared to relax or try again.
I am tired of feeling like I’m always failing, and I’m so tired of feeling afraid. That’s why I’m working on reworking the script.
Today, I’m whispering the following to myself as often as I can:
I’m not supposed to know what happens next.
My path is not to try and control the future, but to wait and see what happens and then to respond, as creatively as I can.
Plans are just a place to start. Just an opening move.
Everything that happens is supposed to be unexpected. I’ve not gone wrong. This is just the next step in the game.
I was never supposed to know. Life is only ever, simply, lovingly, inviting me to respond to what’s happening right now.
I’m determined to not just accept uncertainty, but to make it my entire creative path.
That’s the practice today: to surrender, entirely, and then work out my next move, step by patient step, hour by patient hour.
Throughout the month of August, in order to help pull myself out of a downward spiral, I’m sharing a choice I’m making every other day. These choices aren’t trying to change or control anything. Each one is simply a fresh turn towards what I know will help my mind, body and the people around me.
Perhaps you’d like to try them too.
I am sharing this free series thanks to my paid subscribers who allow me to operate this newsletter with freedom and an open heart.
Yes, Josie! I’ve also been thinking along these lines lately. I think perhaps the illusion that we should be able to make life go the way we plan it comes from having lived in a relatively stable country through an unusually peaceful era. Most people in most places and at most times have by necessity taken uncertainty as a given. The current global upheavals, especially but of course not only the environmental crisis, suggest to me that we’re all going to have to adapt in the ways you describe so beautifully here.
"not to just accept uncertainty, but to make it my entire creative path." I love this, Josie, uncertainty as a portal to creative living. It makes a lot of sense to me at the moment. hope you are doing OK and thanks for sharing these micro practices with us.