Thriving Through Uncertainty

by Tama J Kieves

Let’s just say it’s hard to take the biggest risks of your life in front of your greatest enemy. I was my greatest enemy. That’s why gentleness rocked my world. It led to inspired action. And these actions generated traction. And finally, getting deeper into the work invigorated my heart’s commitment—which is a whole different beast than a commitment from your head.

  Sometimes, we have an ill-advised idea of what showing up looks like. In a creative life, many people confuse rigidity with purity. But remember as we dedicate ourselves to wholeness, we may have many loves and devotions. And this is not distraction or avoidance. This is self-expression.

  When I lived in the mountains outside Denver and was writing my first book, I drove into the city weekly to teach classes and because I loved to hang out at bustling coffeehouses downtown. Ralph, an older gentleman in a writing group, lambasted me one night, yes—in a support group. “If you were serious about that book, you’d just stay in the mountains and write,” he barked. I immediately felt like a wannabe, someone who lacked the emotional grammar to go the distance. I didn’t know then that allowing myself to do what I really wanted to do was what was going to help me sustain the distance. I wasn’t creatively flighty. I was discovering the idiosyncratic mechanics of how I took flight.

  Having more than one interest or responsibility doesn’t make you less faithful to your dreams. I love writing, and consuming great literary novels, but I’m also an extrovert and a teacher and I love to share my experiences with other people in passionate conversations. I love both lives. Just as I have clients who are parents, and they are not only going to sculpt or work on a product launch for their business—another part of their lives is going to soccer practice and picking up bananas. They are not abandoning their passions. They are claiming more of them.

  I’ve also known dedicated people who work “regular” jobs to pay their rent while they steal scraps of time to devote to their souls’ goals. They may never feel like they’re doing enough. That’s only because they’re focusing on what they’re not doing.

  Focus on all the steps you do take to live your true desires. That’s how you maintain self-trust and progress. Focus on the behaviors you wish to encourage, not the other choices.

  If you are trying to lose weight, don’t agitate over your failure of will on the third day of your program. Celebrate the first two days of motivation. Only the wins count—if you want to win. In 12-step program lingo, “It’s all about progress, not perfection.”

  I know the sticklers will tell you that taking one exercise class or spending one hour with your camera won’t help, but I disagree. Every act of love for yourself makes a difference.

  That one time can boost your self-esteem, help reveal the heavens, stretch a muscle, or send a rush of dopamine to your brain, which, believe me, will increase the likelihood that you’ll return.

  Go ahead, stumble into grace. Start and stop a million times. Get there late and leave early. Whatever it takes. So what if some think you look spasmodic? You are an extraordinary truth seeker, an inspired explorer, or as Rumi says, a traveler in a “caravan of joy.” And that works just fine, because you’re moving in the right direction.

  TURNING POINTS:

  Dare to Be Unfaithful, Sporadic, and Unusually True to Yourself

  I invite you to be inconsistent and unreliable. I dare you to break promises to yourself and I dare you to make fresh new ones.

  You are here to follow an unpredictable light wherever it leads, not to wrangle unfathomable power into a silly, stupid box.

  A realistic and sustainable path doesn’t come from obligation or hostility. If you want something to go the distance, it needs to come from love.

  Following through is so much less important than following your inner guidance.

  It takes emotional honesty to explore and stay true to your instincts. It takes enormous courage to not follow through.

  To me, there’s beauty, intelligence, and grace in showing up lopsided, showing up fitfully, showing up sporadically. Showing up is showing up.

  Every act of love for yourself makes a difference.

  Go ahead, stumble into grace. Start and stop a million times. Get there late and leave early. Whatever it takes.

  THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU TAKE ADVICE

  Don’t follow any advice, no matter how good, until you feel as deeply in your spirit as you think in your mind that the counsel is wise.

  JOAN RIVERS

  Never take advice from unhappy people.

  TAMA KIEVES (journal entry)

  When it comes to living an inspired life, we are charged with learning how to listen to our own instincts. That means we allow ourselves to be uncertain and muck around, which makes most of us feel like failures—even while we are practicing the most heroic discipline of all.

  But here’s the thing. Uncertainty attracts advice—kind of like a cantaloupe on a picnic table attracts ants and blackflies. Everyone is suddenly an expert or knows one. Everyone knows just what you should do, even if they don’t know what you want. And let’s face it, they might not exactly be specimens of a life with wide-open happiness chakras or stellar finances, but—and I say this with sheer amazement—that doesn’t stop them from suddenly deciding they are the perfect consultants for you.

  Sometimes you may need to fight for your right to stay uncertain, because you are giving yourself time to move in the ways you need to move. And the only way to discover your own inner voice is to stop listening to the tired myths, patchwork or irrelevant data, and transitory solutions that others offer.

  I sat in a print-patterned booth at Panera Bread with Kate, a lovely woman who managed a premier health foundation and who listened with a heart that took you in, like a relief worker in a war zone. Recently, I’d started falling into an old trance of mine, the “I don’t know how to . . .” and you can fill in the blank. This time it was around business. Well, hell, it was always around business. But yours might be different. I mentioned my concerns about marketing and hiring team members to Kate, the wonder listener.

  “Oh, but you know how to get the right advice and results,” she said, sipping her soup. Bam! I felt suddenly hot. Here we go, I thought. Here comes the lecture on hiring brand experts, networking with colleagues, yadda, yadda, you should . . . And I felt sick of all of it. Kate had stepped on an emotional land mine. I’m sure every peace-loving Buddhist in a five-mile radius felt the shock waves of my reactivity. I folded my napkin carefully, as though it was an explosive.

  I waited for the spiel on obvious business practices. Hire a marketing firm. Hire a PR person. You could do so much with social media these days. There’s a program I saw where this woman tells you how to . . . This kind of information made me crazy because I knew “normal” folks would just dive in and be done. But I didn’t seem to be able to do it. Yes, I wanted results. But so much of what I’d researched just didn’t click for me. The information made me feel tired, not inspired.

  Kate was in my Inspired & Unstoppable Life Tribe, the group support program I run for anyone who is daring their dreams, and I liked her, so I risked being vulnerable and headed her off at the pass. “Wow, I’m on edge. I know you’re trying to help. But right now, I feel resistant to working with business consultants, gurus, and online courses, et cetera.” I left out the part where I wanted to throw my soup in her face. She was a student of mine and all. Pace yourself, I thought.

  “No, I wasn’t going there,” she said softly, her eyes, dark coffee beans, radiating wisdom.

  “You know how to get the right advice,” she said again. “You know how to get your answers. You know how to get them here,” she said, pointing to her heart. Oh. Well, somebody had been listening to my coaching calls after all—thank goodness, since I obviously wasn’t.

  And damn if that heat within didn’t just cool right down. I felt this wave of knowing roll in. And Panera Bread got all glittery, or I just felt that way
because I had been blessed, as though a high priestess had opened up the top of my head and poured in wild lavender and starlight, or maybe rich espresso and a muscle relaxant. It was safe for Buddhists again, and maybe a baby guardian angel or budding psychotherapist got her wings. I felt answered. This woman called me back to power and freedom in my own native tongue.

  She gave me back my way.

  It seems that I have to learn to trust myself about a thousand times a month. Clearly, I have spiritual amnesia. Or, more to the truth, I’m daring to live a different paradigm, uncovering and defining happiness for myself. That means that popular advice, often based on others’ values, can lead me astray from what I really want.

  “Sometimes you may need to fight for your right to stay uncertain, because you are giving yourself time to move in the ways you need to move.”

  When it came to running my business, I didn’t have the exact answers. Still, I didn’t feel secure with the “experts” who promised to whisk me into better results in seven quick steps. Sure, their promises feel wildly alluring because they give you the illusion of control, or the illusion that someone else will do the work for you.

  But too often, I’d seen that real life demanded a deeper commitment, especially if I craved excellence. Prepackaged answers often just skimmed the surface, providing shallow information without transformation. I knew I had to get my hands and heart dirty.

  I love learning from anyone and everything. Yet I know that my inspired answers have always demanded patience, integrity, and a powerful direction born of experimentation, fermentation, self-understanding, and readiness. I didn’t need more information that felt good to my brain but left my soul parched and wandering in the wilderness. Experience had taught me I’d eventually abandon all the “good ideas” and return to searching for the truth.

  “That’s because you’re a lazy baby,” the foul voice within hissed. “You don’t want to grow up. You don’t want to do what it takes. You want to stay a dreamer, thinking your answers will fall from the sky like shooting stars in a Disney movie, which by the way is formulaic and making people billions of dollars, because they are listening to sound business advice. You think your answers will float in on butterfly wings.”

  But really, I wasn’t motivated, not because I’m lazy or elitist, but because I’m honest. I can no longer force myself to squelch my instincts and go along with a program that doesn’t move me. I’m too far in. I’m too far gone. I’m too in love with the possibilities that have opened up when I’ve stopped beating myself up and embraced the path of listening to intuition instead. In the business world, they call the creativity of doing things a totally new way the “power of disruption.” It’s a gift, not a curse. I guess some of us are called to live, love, and work in ways that don’t fit into the textbooks—yet.

  I’m not saying I don’t take advice. Far from it. I am saying I do take advice, but only when I’m feeling excitement or the draw of my own integrity rather than insecurity.

  Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, says that an artist’s laziness is not a lack of discipline but a lack of enthusiasm. I love the word enthusiasm. It stems from entheos, meaning “divinely inspired, possessed by a god.”

  So, there it is. I am stirred by fireflies, a fire in the belly, and a tingling around my head more than by promotional promises. I am moved by divine instruction or the genius of the gut check. Unlike Coca-Cola it is the real thing. There’s a quieting or an electricity. It’s intrinsic communication. It’s not obligation or “should.” I am numb to “good ideas” because I require ideas that are good for me. It’s uncomfortable sometimes, but I have to wait for the real thing. True power has its own note. And the truth yields uncanny results. I’ve lived them; I can’t go back to ordinary.

  Do I crave immediate progress or solace? Of course I do. But I won’t end uncertainty on a head level anymore. I want to end my questions on a gut and soul level—a knowing level. That’s been the only thing that has given me stamina and moxie to do this wild life of following my creativity all the way into the national and international realms of speaking and business, on my own terms, knowing a peace of mind no one else can give me.

  So now I’ll ask you, why settle for the illusion of relief? That’s the junk food diet of the mind. You deserve the real thing, the kale and grains that feed your blood and bone. Easy answers are like french fries: We crave them, but they do not help us in the end. And french fries have certainly never done anything good for my rear end, but I digress.

  So, I beamed at Kate as we continued to talk and I slurped my chicken soba noodle soup. (Oh, that kale and grains thing—just a metaphor.) I basked in remembering how good the right advice feels.

  Not everyone has advice for you, though they will surely give it.

  Mind you, you may receive “sound” advice—brawny, data-packed, New York Times or Harvard PhD advice. Yet it still may be inadequate for you. It depends on your values and what you need in this moment in time. I worship results, don’t get me wrong. But I’ve also spent too many years of my life listening to “excellent” advice and achieving ill-fitting “tangible results.” Those tangible results broke my heart and left my spirit to float on the ceiling looking down at my bored, busy, aching, results-filled life.

  Remember, when you’re looking to thrive, you’re not looking for “credible” direction. You’re forging an incredible life. And if, like me, you’re daring to live from inspiration more than fear, then you are tasked with discerning the aliveness in everything you choose. Pay attention to advice. But pay more attention to how advice lands for you.

  When someone says something that’s right for you, your shoulders relax. You melt into the moment. You can’t fake it or force it. Even if it’s hard advice, something speaks to your gut or marrow. There have been times in my work life when I’ve felt drawn to do something that didn’t feel like bliss, but it felt right. I’ve also used many conventional business techniques or shortcuts because they worked and I could make them authentically my own. And I’ve hired experts. I’m not living off the grid just because I’m living with awareness. I’m just taking the extra measure to choose consciously.

  You know what is right for you. You know when you feel love and you know when you don’t.

  When you receive an answer that is not right for you, you say yes but your voice is high-pitched or flat with disconnection. The reason you don’t move forward is because it’s not your way or it’s not your time. There is a holy stubbornness in you. You are obedient to your cue. You are waiting to be called.

  Yes, sometimes you’re refusing to hear the truth because of fear of pain or change. But even then, you will eventually hear your answer when it is right for you, and that is all that matters.

  Kate and I finished our lunch and conversation. I left behind an unfinished roll and any guilt or doubt I’d felt from ignoring conventional wisdom. I stepped back into magic.

  TURNING POINTS:

  Think Twice Before You Take Advice

  Sometimes you may need to fight for your right to stay uncertain, because you are giving yourself time to move in the ways you need to move.

  I’m daring to live a different paradigm, uncovering and defining happiness for myself. That means that popular advice, often based on others’ values, can lead me astray from what I really want.

  I didn’t need more information that felt good to my brain but left my soul parched and wandering in the wilderness. Experience had taught me I’d eventually abandon all the “good ideas” and return to searching for the truth.

  I am numb to “good ideas” because I require ideas that are good for me. It’s uncomfortable sometimes, but I have to wait for the real thing.

  I won’t end uncertainty on a head level anymore. I want to end my questions on a gut and soul level—a knowing level.

  Easy answers are like french fries: We crave them, but they do not help
us in the end.

  Pay attention to advice. But pay more attention to how advice lands for you.

  The reason you don’t move forward is because it’s not your way or it’s not your time. There is a holy stubbornness in you. You are obedient to your cue. You are waiting to be called.

  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. Do what’s right for you rather than what’s written here.

  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?

  Create a despair repair strategy. Whom do you compare yourself to? Can you stop finding out information about this person? Disconnect from his or her Twitter account? Immediately focus on doing something good in your life. You don’t want this person’s story. You want yours.

  Move from rote to real. Pay attention to what you’re doing this week because others think it’s the right thing to do, someone else expects it, or you’re afraid to miss out. Go rogue. Practice not doing one or more of these things. See how good it feels to give yourself the time. What’s your labyrinth, the thing you’d really like to get out of? Go for it!

  Write a permission statement. Give yourself permission to begin something and then quit, or to do it badly. Make sure to shock your perfectionist.

  Adopt a “choose again” practice. Fire the “past police.” Forgive yourself for what you haven’t finished or accomplished. Call a truce. Clear the slate. Do you need to make amends to yourself? What do you need to do to let this go? Let it go. Choose again. Start now. And when you forget, choose again.