In 2023,
I was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.
OK,
I said.
That was not in the brochure.
Suddenly,
My picture of the future was dramatically altered.
And filled with uncertainty.
Tolerating uncertainty is a challenge for most of us.
Most of the messaging we're exposed to points to pain and suffering coming soon.
Plagued by questions for which there are no answers.
Will I have a job three years from now?
Will my children be safe in their school?
Will I lose my home?
How long will I live?
Our survival brain,
Which literally keeps us alive.
Is programmed to pay attention to the doom and gloom coming from our phones,
The news,
Some of our friends.
And it can leave us with a chronic background feeling that something bad is going to happen.
So what can we do?
How can we tolerate uncertainty and the feelings that come with it?
In the short term,
Two things help.
First,
Like any painful feeling.
Uncertainty has to be felt and processed.
There are many practices here on Inside Timer that can help us locate a feeling in the body.
Stay present with it.
And let some of that energy go.
Second,
We have to talk about what we're feeling with a trusted person or a group of people who will listen.
Hold Space and resist the urge to fix this or give advice.
But what about the long term?
How do we tolerate uncertainty for the rest of our time on the planet?
For me,
The answer comes down to how I choose to look at life.
And the only thing that's made sense to me so far is that there are two perspectives.
The human and the spiritual.
The human perspective on life is mostly dominated by the survival branch.
Our survival brain views life as random,
Lacking reason.
It's always on the guard for.
The next emergency.
It resists change.
It approaches life from a crisis management perspective.
When presented with uncertainty,
It tends to produce a vague list of negative outcomes,
And pretty soon,
Fear has invited all its cousins over.
The other perspective is the spiritual one.
From the spiritual perspective,
Everything that happens,
The good,
The bad,
The ugly,
The thrilling,
The traumatic,
The exhilarating,
All of it.
Is for learning.
Your parents,
Your siblings.
Your loves,
Your work.
Every mistake and every accomplishment.
Are all part of your soul's curriculum.
This is where the idea that we are souls having a human experience ties in.
The soul that I am uses the full range of my human experience to grow in wisdom.
And deepen.
And loving.
Awakening.
Is coming to see that the ups and downs of life.
Are simply part of my soul's curriculum.
Learning to be at peace with uncertainty can be.
One of the great testing grounds for awakening.
And the evolution of our soul.
Which brings me back to the word tolerating.
Tolerating uncertainty is not the goal.
Tolerate carries the faint suggestion that there is something wrong in not knowing what the future holds.
It suggests that not knowing is something unfortunate we have to put up with until life becomes predictable again.
Well,
I can report that.
Life is never predictable.
And sorry kids,
There is no comfort zone.
There is a better word than tolerate.
It's accept.
Acceptance might sound something like this.
Okay in regard to the future something will happen.
I don't know what.
But as long as I remain in acceptance,
I'll be present.
I'll be available.
To make the loving choices.
Going forward.
Acceptance won't eliminate the discomfort.
But as one of my teachers said,
Learn to live with discomfort.
And your world will change.
After the initial shock of my cancer diagnosis.
After the denial and the tears.
I remembered something.
About a year before the diagnosis,
I had set the intention to know God more.
Whatever that meant.
And slowly,
I began to wonder if I was getting what I asked for.
Three years have Bronson.
Deeply fulfilling and transcendent experiences.
One of them is this community called Insight Timer.
Now,
I'm not suggesting the cancer was sent to.
.
.
Teach me some kind of spiritual lesson.
I don't know.
What I do know is that once it arrived,
I had a choice.
White lens.
When I look at it through.
Most days,
I view the cancer as part of my curriculum.
As my invitation into what spiritual psychology calls the divine unknowing.
Where I stop insisting that I know what happens next?
And learn how to live fully awake.
In the unknown.
If this resonated with you,
I invite you to listen to my course.
Finding serenity.
A journey into the heart of change,
Acceptance.
Courage,
And wisdom.
I hope to see you there.
