Wisdom of the Unknown

2nd August 2023 Written by Dvonne Loring

I have been in a broad season of uncertainty

It has felt hard, sticky, heavy, murky and disorientating

“How did I get here?” I’ve asked myself

Last year I was liberated by razor sharp clarity, a knowing filled belief and an assured sense of trust that guided me to make three life changing decisions

-To leave the community mental health sector

-To separate from a ten year partnership

-To create a business where I can support women on their healing journey

Discovering who I was by letting go of what was no longer serving me to create space for what was allowed me to immerse myself in untapped potential and possibility

“This is living and what it is to be alive” I remember feeling

This year I’ve been swimming waters of the unknown; it has felt like I’ve been drowning

Instead of liberation, I’ve felt imprisoned by the lack of answers

My world reducing down to a ‘stuckness’ in the not knowing and feeling at a loss

Directionless, unsure what the next step will be

“How can I support women who feel stuck and disconnected when I’m feeling the same?” I’d critically enquire with myself

Imposter syndrome bleeding out of me making me believe I’m a fraud

Roles and relationships that had been a source of safety and security for me are no longer available as they once were

I chose differently because that clutching to stability was choking me, not allowing the potential within me a space to arrive at the table

I’m here, looking around at my life with new eyes and also with old fears and doubts that need me and are asking “where is our new reference for safety now?”

This very question has had my mind fretting and my nervous system thrown into chronic dysregulation

I’ve been more hypervigilant, easily anxious and prone to worrisome deposition

I’ve been meeting parts that I’ve had to exile previously in my life to protect what formerly was the fragility of my sense of self

These parts of myself have a sharper and more sinister feeling of shame, doubt, terror, worthlessness and anxiety

Magnifying every thought of insecurity I’ve ever had and left me feeling like at any given moment I was going to break

I’d lost my internal footing

I couldn’t -feel- myself properly

It has felt hard

I have felt like I had regressed, gone backwards, lost momentum and that I’d lost the spirit that propelled me into the aligned change last year invited me into

Mmmm the pinch of grief…

Often what you do in these periods is reach and clutch at anything that can to provide you with relief

Makes sense when the discomfort is high

You might become critical, judgemental or harsh with yourself which suggests that something is wrong

What you mightn’t realise is that in doing this, you’re cheating yourself the value that is generously being offered here

To sink into the experience

Where your soul is wanting to whisper its wisdom into your being

I found validating relief and bathed in the soothing words of psychotherapist and author Matt Licata -

“If we slow down and reflect, we might discover how much of our “fixing” activity, the movement toward relief, arises not from true compassion but from an unresolved relationship with our own darkness…

Perhaps [these periods] don’t need to be healed, but to be held, to be heard, and to feel felt and understood, for someone to companion them as the hidden wisdom unfolds…

There’s a fantasy that we’re supposed to know what to do with our lives. And if we do not then this is clear evidence that something is wrong with us…which must urgently be remedied by figuring it all out.

Especially if accompanied by waves of uncertainty, hopelessness, and confusion… more evidence that we have failed or fallen short…

Self-help industry which has pathologized the wisdom of the darker, lunar shades of the spectrum.

At times it will appear that nothing is happening, which can lead to a framing that we are “stuck,” “not doing it right,” or “lost in some sort of ‘low vibration.’” The mind has a nearly unlimited capacity to fantasize, especially in ways that enact early patterning of shame, self-abandonment, and misattuned empathic failure.

But before we turn from the non-conventional allies of confusion and doubt, let us slow down and reimagine. In a world that is fixated with doing, with answers, and with resolving the contradictions and wildness of the human being, we must remember that death is required for new forms of love and creativity to emerge.

And give yourself permission to not-know, for now, without any shame, judgment, or pressure to resolve the mysteries of the heart.

There is profound wisdom and creativity in the core of not-knowing, in slowness, in patience, and in rest, but we must retrain ourselves to receive that level of revelation. In this reception, we see that not-knowing is a perfectly valid, honorable, and authentic place to be, and not in need of transformation. It is a pure expression of life, in and of itself, exactly as it is. Its value is not in its transcendence, but in its embodied embrace.”

I have been haunted by the lack of answers for the most part of this year which has compelled an urge to try and discharge myself from this place

But darlings, being here is allowed

In fact, it’s necessary

Your becoming is always ever happening, even when it might not appear to be that way and in fact appears the opposite

It’s the cycle of birth, death and rebirth

You’ll lose yourself in the process of finding yourself

Let this be an invitation to grow your tolerance for these unknowing states; they’re are as valid and sacred as any other

You have permission to not know

To listen to wisdom tucked within the silence

A new emerging version of yourself is meeting the world anew

Don’t rush it

Allow it