Embrace Uncertainty - Controlling the Uncontrollable - Clean Slate

I created a chalk board out an old frame I found at a junk shop it is really big.  I wanted a place I could write quotes to remind me to be happy and to keep moving. It was nice to see the big blank space and it reminded me of a meditation I use to listen to that the speaker would say put your problems on the blackboard and use a sponge to wipe them away.  I really liked that visual and the clean slate it left behind even if it was only for a few minutes.

I have left the new blackboard empty for a few days not wanting to disturb the clean slate but yesterday I decided to write something.  "Embrace Uncertainty" - I think this is from Eckhart Tolle's book the New Earth.  I remember when I was in such turmoil about my whole life whether to leave my business and worried about what was going to happen to me.  I felt paralyzed by fear all the time.

When I found that phrase it summed up everything for me.  I wanted things to be certain.  I wanted to know exactly what the future looked like and that I would be safe.  We don't get this ever.  We may have times when we imagine that things will always be exactly as they are but life doesn't work that way. 

I built my life around trying to make everything the same every day so I would be less fearful.  All that did was make me and my life boring and predictable. I felt like I was in a prison.  I thought that a routine would give me peace so when the storms came I would be ready. But what I ended up doing was making me less flexible and always bracing myself every day for the impending storm.

Life throws all kinds of things at you all the time good and bad.  If we can just go with the flow and not focus on wanting to control the uncontrollable then we can move through most anything. It might not have been what we planned but we can find peace in the day we have been given.

This is the time of year for reflection and to look at what is or isn't working for us.  It is hard to give up things or situations that no longer represent who we are today.  It can feel awkward and unsettling at first becoming a new you and this is why resolutions mostly don't work.  We like the familiar and fighting this need for certainty keeps us stuck in places we don't want to be for too long.

Embrace the awkwardness being in that middle place where you haven't quite let go of the old and haven't quite become the new you. It won't feel strange forever and you know it is worth it in the end.