Thriving Through Uncertainty

by Tama J Kieves

  Part of you knows that this world is not quite what it seems. It’s not solid, made of mortar and brick but of ideas, thoughts, and choices. Your vibration can change the electromagnetic composition of the molecules around you. Everything can change. And you long to discover the powers of your mind.

  Likewise, your suffering deepens your compassion and connection with others. You will be available to this world in a different way. So as much as part of you longs for ease, another part of you welcomes this candid encounter. Because real life isn’t about just buying a nice car. Real life is about having a ride.

  Of course you’re frightened—but it’s because you’re in the game. Your blood pumps and your breath quickens. You’ll bleed if the knife cuts, and that’s a good thing. It means you haven’t given up. You’re still invested.

  You didn’t come into this lifetime to avoid desire and risk and get to the finish line without a smudge, a scar, or a difference in your point of view. You want to have put everything into it. You won’t look back and wish you’d given up. You won’t wish you’d sat it out and watched others on television live fascinating lives. You wanted to get wet. You wanted to know. You did know.

  Yes, dear one, it’s good to be afraid. It’s important that you’re living a life that matters.

  That’s what I wrote. That’s what I know. That’s what I’m holding for myself—and all the awakening hearts who are gathering in this unglued revolution of transforming their lives. We are many, by the way.

  TURNING POINTS:

  You Are Being Given the Chance of a Lifetime

  You don’t want to be done. Done is boring. Done is when there is no juice left. You didn’t come here to be static. You came to be ecstatic.

  I know you just want to get through this time. But I want you to woo this time. Don’t rush. . . . Because nothing that is yours is a matter of harried timing.

  Any advice that limits your spirit is not advice. It’s damnation.

  It is working out right now. That’s the nature of life. It works out. A spiritual journey happens when we open our eyes to see it this way, no matter what.

  It’s not about the facts of your situation. It’s about how these facts serve as the catalyst for your transformation.

  You’ve already won. You’re already chosen. It’s already done. The whole world is simply waiting for you to choose yourself and the perspective that most sets you free.

  Acknowledge your courage. It is not easy to be born strong and to crave higher ground.

  You would never be happy at the end of your days having played it bulletproof safe, never knowing where your expression could have gone.

  Do Try This at Home: Jump-starts, Inquiries & Exercises

  Some of these suggestions are just right for you. Others, not your cup of latte, or at least at this moment. Follow your gut. Feel free to adjust to your liking.

  Pick three Turning Points from this chapter. Write them out for yourself. Post them where you will see them. Meditate on them. Journal about them. Do a Freewriting exercise. (See page 252 for more about Freewriting.) Create a piece of art. Pay attention to your thoughts, memories, dreams, and “random” ideas and incidents. Inspired thoughts spark inspired responses. My words begin the conversation, but what do these truths unlock in you?

  Leave the room. In a situation that you would like to shift, where are you trying to “decorate the room that currently exists”? Think about what you really want. Pretend you aren’t dealing with “what is” in the situation. You can have anything. What would you love to experience? What’s as crazy as wanting an exposed brick wall that doesn’t exist?

  Now make a vow. Where have you been tempted to give up on yourself or a situation? What vow will you make to yourself? Do a Freewriting exercise (see page 252 for directions) with this prompt: I am never giving up. Can you imagine calling forth a wrath of self-love?

  Release a past disappointment. Where do you feel as though you don’t have “big trust” because fill-in-the-blank happened? Are you willing to see this differently? List the gifts that came from this experience. Create an altar or light a candle. Give this situation to your higher wisdom for recalibration. Remind yourself that you are willing to see this differently. You don’t need to know how or when.

  List your touchstone experiences. List the times or experiences when things worked out for you. Or a time you knew you were loved or that there was a Presence. Recount these experiences often. Remember, if sacred love is consistent, the same love that was with you in that experience is with you now.

  Do an Inspired Self-Dialogue (see page 248 for directions). Ask your Inspired Self for the best ways to connect, deepen, or begin this ultimate relationship. Make this Presence your best friend. You might want to collect images that inspire you. I have a picture of a young African boy sitting next to a leopard. It’s my feeling of being side by side with a Greater Presence. Or imagine a “guide” you wish to consult. (For years, I loved Dr. Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation. She was smart and kind.)

  Write a letter to your fearful self from your future self. Let it begin: “Dear One, you are being given the chance of a lifetime.” What does your future self want you to know? Make it up. Write for fifteen minutes. Go.

  Do you have a question about this chapter? I’d love to know what’s on your mind! I may just get wildly inspired and answer you immediately. Send me your thought or question at www.TamaKieves.com/uncertainty-question, and you can also register for a FREE Thriving Through Uncertainty Coaching Call designed to shift your mind-set and bring you immediate clarity.

  CHAPTER THREE

  TRUST YOURSELF AND YOU WILL KNOW WHAT TO DO

  TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE

  Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.

  STEVE JOBS

  The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

  FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

  Shakespeare, the dude, wrote, “To thine own self be true,” and I think he would have made a fine life coach or business guru. Because moving in the right direction requires astonishing independence. You thrive when you become attuned to your own rhythms and desires, not when you follow others like a sheep to slaughter.

  It sounds great on paper. But if you’re like me, it means you have to go against the very thing that made you successful in the past. I was a poster child for the American education system. I learned how not to think for myself, so that I could do what I was supposed to do and score higher. I knew how to jump through hoops. I didn’t know how to choose the hoops.

  So when I first walked out of my high-status legal career to reinvent my life, I was a virgin to listening—and I was a mess. You might be, too, even if you think you’re not—because truly listening to yourself is a path of throwing out the window what you think is lucrative, spiritual, appropriate, responsible, generous, and every other prepackaged idea you have.

  This is a path of following your own arriving wisdom and inspiration, not education.

  And inspiration doesn’t always arrive smelling like sandalwood or frankincense. Sometimes it arrives like a drunken rebel in a library shouting at you and ripping pages out of books. It may not be a tendril growing up a garden trellis hitting the light just so. Instead it’s a raw insistence—a mule braying for all its worth, making you pay attention to a direction or suggestion you do not want to hear. And paying attention to ourselves is the price of admission to a genuine life.

  If you know me, I learn and teach from experience. So, here’s what I’m talking about. Years ago, I worked with a “complicated” woman I’ll call Laura, who hosted me in her sexy international city. Laura decided hosting gave her rights to my life, and apparently I had agreed. I spent a f
ull day theoretically going over “event details,” but really bearing Laura’s scary snarky judgments about everyone on the planet, except her peerless, adorable self. Then we embarked on her manic tour direction of every sight I had to see, and finally she suggested we walk this labyrinth in a church downtown. When I say “suggested,” I mean we were already parking.

  Laura explained the labyrinth dynamic to me. “The labyrinth is a walking meditation. Just follow the paths to the center and back out again. Go your own way and be with the experience,” she said, sounding all peachy Zen, when really, we both knew she’d be much better suited as den mother for a pack of Nazis.

  At the time, I just wanted to go back to my hotel room and cry, maybe catch an episode of Law & Order, the kind of show that is always playing on TV in absolutely any hotel room. I longed to eat takeout Chinese, bathe in the grease, and slide my way into numbness and comfort. Lo mein therapy for just $8.95. Yes, this was before I’d grown a pair of authenticity. It was times like these that helped me get there.

  But back to the story. When we arrived, the event was larger than I’d imagined, and crowded. I dutifully stepped in line with the herd of seekers to follow into the mystical maze. Once walking, I found myself wanting to jam into a fast lane. But it didn’t feel right to push past people who were being really contemplative. Maybe they weren’t just slow thick-skulled cows. Maybe they were listening to angels. Hell, I’d walk carefully if I were listening to divine dispatches. But I was in a hurry. I wanted to do this spiritual thing, get it done, get my answer, and get out of here.

  “I don’t want to do this,” said a voice in the back of my mind. I heard it like I heard so much of myself, like a radio playing a song you don’t really listen to. You know the words, can repeat them, but they haven’t landed, haven’t melted into you yet, like warm butter on an English muffin.

  I carried on putting one lead foot in front of the other. I felt exhausted on every level. It takes a lot to ignore your truth. In that hushed hall, my mind spoke as loudly as an American in Europe. “I don’t want to do this,” I heard. “Of course you don’t want to do it,” said another voice, the mean one within that always kept me doing what others thought I should do. “You’re a sissy. You can’t commit like the others. You’re bailing.” I trudged forward, not yet seeing the irony of walking in shame and burden toward enlightenment.

  Of course, what really kept me going was this: I was terrified that I’d miss something, that maybe I was “supposed” to be here, that maybe if I took just one more step, I’d have a revelation or divine intervention. Maybe a wizened monk or even a tooth fairy who looked like Lady Gaga would enter my consciousness with a message that could change my life, if only I stayed the course.

  Besides, everyone else seemed to be blissful, vibrating in a sea of open chakras, mantras silently streaming from their lips, no doubt realizing staggering inner truths. I looked around. It was obvious that they were receiving lifetimes of soul healing or, hell, maybe even dictated insider stock trading tips. I did not want to be the loser in the crowd that just felt tired.

  “I don’t want to do this,” the voice insisted again. And for the first time, I thought about it rationally. Would I really hear inner wisdom if some part of me were hurting and begging me to leave? Was it inner wisdom to listen to this exhausted part of myself? Who said it was inner wisdom to ignore my pain? What if this voice screaming for freedom was my inner wisdom?

  “I just don’t want to do this,” the voice said again with everything it ever had, everything it would ever have, demanding, pleading, begging, knowing, chanting, being reasonable and unreasonable. And just like that, my truth became clear. I wanted an experience of liberation and clarity. But I didn’t want to walk this damn labyrinth. I wanted to go back to my hotel and tuck myself into bed.

  Immediately, new negotiations began. “Well you can’t just walk out of the labyrinth. You can’t just cut across people’s path or move diagonally. You have to stay in the lines,” my inner Follow-the-Rules Girl said emphatically. She’d be a great IRS employee.

  Then I remembered the real rule of the labyrinth: find my own way to the center. Who said my way couldn’t just be to leave and take my center with me? Yes, it felt like crying uncle, or abandoning a peace rally. It seemed heretical, like spitting out a Communion wafer.

  But self-love is heretical. Freedom requires bold choices.

  And really, nobody in this conglomeration of clumpy self-contemplation gave a fig. I bolted. I walked out of the labyrinth and held my own hand. I held my own soul like a soft, wounded bird. I walked in the direction of comfort, self-care, mercy, and, ultimately, redemption. I walked in the direction of love.

  I didn’t know it then, but I wasn’t walking away from Spirit; I was walking toward Spirit. I was listening to myself. I was honoring my own timing and capacity. On my way out, I told someone there who knew Laura to let her know I’d taken a cab back. When I arrived at my hotel, which seemed like the real shrine to me, I got into a hot bath, cried, and slipped into the velvet of inner peace. Apparently, I’d found my way to center.

  “Self-love is heretical. Freedom requires bold choices.”

  I had to abandon what others thought was “spiritual” to listen to my Spirit.

  You will, too. Listening to your inner voice requires honesty, integrity, and courage. There are no formulas. It’s all fresh chemistry every second. Many of my coaching clients seem to trust their inner voice only when it suggests something like studying for an MBA or saving the whales. That is to say, only “virtuous” things count, things you could tell your Austrian aunt Helga and make her pat her dress in pride.

  But I tell them and I’ll tell you, you do not know what is most productive on this path. You have no idea how much creative progress you can make when you listen to your own unconditional genius, that within you which is not conditioned by society. Why would you attempt to create a life of unbounded freedom by listening to the advice of the bound one within you?

  Of course, I’m not advising you to simply follow the part of you that always suggests relaxation. You and I both know the voice of cruel self-limitation can sound kind and concerned. I’ve had a cunning voice tell me for years that I shouldn’t “strain” myself by writing, exercising, forgoing my beloved Diet Pepsi, or doing any of the things that would take me across the bridge into a new world. Resistance can mimic compassion. And the results can stagnate you.

  So how do you discern which instincts to trust inside you?

  Here’s a quick rule of thumb: It’s not what an inner voice advises that matters. Pay attention to the motivation behind the suggestion. Are you listening to love or fear? I didn’t leave because of fear. I was staying because of fear. For me, leaving that walking meditation wasn’t a reflection of my weakness. It was trusting in my strength. The desire didn’t come from boredom, petulance, or an unwillingness to go past my smaller self. It stemmed from self-respect, self-awareness, mercy, a sense of timing, and self-loyalty. No single action is always right. Guidance is exact, original, and unduplicated. There are no mechanical rules. Staying true to yourself requires receptivity and experimentation.

  Dare to listen with respect to your emerging truth. Your truth may not look the way you wish. It may have you make “undesirable” or unpopular choices. You don’t get to decide what freedom, clarity, or success should look like. You will only know how sweet a truth feels.

  TURNING POINTS:

  To Thine Own Self Be True

  Truly listening to yourself is a path of throwing out the window what you think is lucrative, spiritual, appropriate, responsible, generous, and every other prepackaged idea you have.

  Inspiration doesn’t always arrive smelling like sandalwood or frankincense. Sometimes . . . it’s a raw insistence—a mule braying for all its worth, making you pay attention to a direction or suggestion you do not want to hear.

  Self-love is heretic
al. Freedom requires bold choices.

  I had to abandon what others thought was “spiritual” to listen to my Spirit.

  Why would you attempt to create a life of unbounded freedom by listening to the advice of the bound one within you?

  No single action is always right. . . . Guidance is exact, original, and unduplicated. There are no mechanical rules.

  Dare to listen with respect to your emerging truth. Your truth may not look the way you wish. It may have you make “undesirable” or unpopular choices.

  You don’t get to decide what freedom, clarity, or success should look like. You will only know how sweet a truth feels.

  NO ONE HAS A BETTER LIFE THAN YOU

  Through fear of knowing who we really are and what we want we sidestep our own destiny which leaves us hungry in a famine of our own making.

  JOHN O’DONOHUE

  At the end of my life, I would be very sad if I had been comparing the privilege of my singular days here to anyone else’s experience. If I had wasted one teardrop, one glance, one errant thought on how someone had something better than me, as though that was ever possible, as though I wasn’t loved completely. This would make me sad, as I realized I’d been throwing the bouquet Life had selected for me back into its face, stomping my tiny, uneducated foot, demanding something lesser in the name of demanding something better.

  TAMA KIEVES (journal entry)

  Here’s a crazy little law of life, I’ve discovered. It’s really hard to trust yourself when you don’t want to be yourself.

  But dear one, you do not know who you are.

  There’s a cartoon in The New Yorker magazine that says it all. Two cavemen are drawing figures side by side on the wall. One of them is rendering some perfect-looking Leonardo da Vinci–type drawing. He peers over at his neighbor, who is scratching the stick figures of a five-year-old. The Leonardo character groans, “Man, I wish I could learn to loosen up like you.”