Hello everybody,
I'm Kate Swaboda,
Author of The Courage Habit and creator of YourCourageousLife.
Com and director of the Courageous Living Coach Certification at TeamCLCC.
Com.
And here's today's meditation.
Today's meditation is all about the struggle to figure things out.
So often we want to figure things out and this has been my journey too.
And there's nothing wrong with wanting to figure things out.
There's nothing wrong with using that tool of our big beautiful brains to reason and think critically and weigh options.
But sometimes trying to figure it all out logically becomes a way to try to avoid the discomfort of a situation.
We cling to the idea that if we figure it out,
Especially if we figure it out fast,
We get to bypass pain or challenges or discomfort or suffering.
Because we cling to this idea,
We make ourselves bad or wrong when we have trouble figuring things out.
We think,
I should know this by now.
We think,
I shouldn't be struggling so much.
This should be simpler.
I should be able to logically,
Rationally look at this and know what to do or how to respond.
And then the very tool we're trying to use,
Relying on our brain and figuring it all out is often turned upon as well as we get upset that we're second guessing ourselves or over thinking it too much.
We turn against ourselves and further away from that process that we are in.
We forget during these times that no human that ever existed,
No matter how smart they were,
Even the most genius person on the planet,
No human that ever existed has ever lived a life that was totally without suffering or pain or setbacks or failures.
We forget about the ways that life brings us on a circuitous path that we can only ever understand in hindsight.
We forget when we are humbled by our pain and confusion that there have been a million forks in the road of our lives and thus there have been a million different opportunities to go left or to go right and that every single second is another opportunity,
Is another fork in the road.
We forget about the fact that sometimes the people who have chosen every right thing,
Every option that looked great on paper,
End up unhappy.
We forget about how many people,
In fact,
Tell the stories of their battle wounds,
Their scars,
And they hold them up with pride and they say,
If I had not walked through this fire,
I would not be forged into precious metals today.
And that fact does not mean that whatever suffering you might be facing right now as you try to figure it out,
Find your way through,
Isn't real.
It is.
But here's the thing about figuring it all out.
You don't have to figure it out any faster.
You don't have to be in a different place than this place where you actually are.
Maybe you're listening to this right now and you wish you had more answers and you feel that if you had those answers,
They would save you from suffering.
So you ask people what they would do.
You say,
Am I nuts for thinking this way?
You consider all the options.
It feels hard to turn your brain off.
But in this moment,
Please tell your big,
Beautiful brain right now that it gets to rest up,
That another fork in the road is approaching,
And when the time is right to choose,
You'll choose.
Tell that big,
Beautiful brain to spend less time on trying to make all the right choices and more time on accepting what comes wherever possible.
More time finding the courage to shift when you realize that the situation you are in does not align with your soul.
In other words,
You can't do this wrong.
You really can't.
There's no rush to figure it all out.
There's something to learn if you feel stuck in that place of trying to figure it out.
You get to learn to release.
There's something to learn if you are stuck in that place of second guessing.
You get to learn the ability to choose.
There's something to learn if you make a choice that ends up not being the right choice,
That you can recover,
Pivot,
Change it up,
And most importantly,
Love yourself to fullness along the way.
Our big,
Beautiful brains are good at so many things,
And there's magic and mystery in life that our brains simply cannot orchestrate.
May our prayer today be that we are always connected to this fact,
Always aware of our magnitude,
Always aware of how much potential and possibility there is in choosing,
And also aware of the limits of trying to orchestrate or figure out all of those choices.
We're not in charge of it all.
And thank goodness that we aren't in charge of it all.
And thank goodness we can never be too sure of which parts we are in charge of,
Because to be too sure of anything would dampen the mystery of this life.
What I know to be true about suffering is that our brain can be a tool to help,
Or we can use it as a weapon to hinder.
So take a break from trying to figure it all out.
See if what wants to come through,
What wants to emerge slowly,
Is a destiny flirting with you to go ahead and come this way,
Whispering in your ear,
Calling to you.
This destiny is nothing that could ever be written on paper.
And later,
You'll be so glad that you didn't have it all figured out.
