Not Knowing = Peace

One mom is worrying about her son who recently returned to using multiple substances, another is overwhelmed by her own and family's health, another exhausted by crises as her son is in and out of hospitals.  This is how we started our Peace Talks meeting, but not how we end it.  We end it with more peace ... this time the path to peace was enriched by not knowing.

One mom admitted, I really can't know he'll relapse again (and again), adding that he probably will.  Ouch!  Why?  Because that's still not embracing "not knowing".  See how the mind will create a story?  Any story will do because it gives the ego mind its life, power, a sense of control and safety.  But are we really safe there?  

I'm a coach, a therapist, and a mom whose in the thick of it with my son's mental health issues and addiction.  My mind can go into scary thoughts and images of the future in seconds. I can easily think I know or assume what will be (a sneaky form of knowing) based on repetition. But, none of that means any of it is true. It would be extremely unusual not to have fear, we're hardwired for it ... and we also are hardwired to create peace. 

In this session of Peace Talks, I invited moms, and I invite you now, to consider and just notice how much you think you know along with the truth and possibility that there's so much you can't and do not know. Consider assumptions and imagination.  We simply do not know the future, not ours and not our children's. I suppose that can be discomforting, and I propose to you here and now that it can actually be comforting.   

Here's why and how NOT KNOWING CAN HELP YOU:

1.  Open your mind to be willing to just not know.  The mind wants to know and it will relax as you become willing. 
2.  Notice you really can't know the future, you are not God, anything can change, and everything does. 

3. Knowing makes you project the past onto the present moment and the future.  That's a projection, your imagination.  Imagination is not fact. Notice the difference, and breathe into present facts.

4. Drop the illusion of knowing and open up to possibility, open up to being available now with the way things are now.  From here, inspiration follows.  Let your heart lead.

5. You come out of your scary imagination, move into acceptance, and you don't have to like circumstances, why would you?  You can accept, feel all the feels that come with painful experiences, and choose to be pro-active.

6. Drop the and's and the but's to your "I don't know" and sit silently in that one statement "I don't know".   Anything after "I don't know" adds to the mind's stories and it looking for evidence of knowing based on remembering past and imagining the future.  Neither exists except in your imagination.  Just notice and come back to present, to your heart, where your love is empowered in thought and action.

6.  It's far kinder to tell the truth that "I don't know" verses repeating the fear, the scary future, and scaring yourself in the process ... and putting your child in all that fear and painful images. 
7.  Try just sitting in "not knowing" with no story after that. "I just don't know" - end of story.  

I'm not saying things can't happen the way we imagine, but imagination can be used to support or sabotage.  

I invite you to notice when the mind will attach to knowing and instead become the observer, not the thinker, not the one imagining. You have that kind of power.  

*  What's possible if you just don't know? 

*  How does it feel to not know verses imagining a scary future? 

*  How do you treat your child if there's a willingness to navigate whatever may come, to be more curious about them and what they say and do, instead of assuming you know how they think and what will happen on their life's journey? 


This is a big topic, and can be big freedom when love comes in and inspires us if we give ourselves permission to just not know and then take care of the present moment and all we can do in it.  

It might be uncomfortable at first to not know, that's ok, just try it on, repeatedly if there's anything in you that feels the spark of truth in this.  I find so much relief in this practice, and definitely don't find relief when my mind plays the know it all role.  Not knowing helps me be more present, peaceful, pro-active, and empowered. 

I'd love to hear what you think about not knowing.  And please do let me know what wisdom is revealed in the "not knowing". 

Peace,

Joanne