April - 2010

Dear Friend,

Spring Greetings from a waterlogged New England! The forsythia is erupting and the trees around the pond are budding, despite their bases being under a foot of water. The temperature has jumped from the 40’s to the 90’s practically overnight – with each day’s weather a new surprise.  This is New England transitioning from winter to summer – full of uncertainty.  So I have chosen uncertainty as this month’s topic – how can we understand and manage the inevitable uncertainties of life?

The purpose of this newsletter is to share with you simple and effective tools for personal, spiritual and professional growth.  I have used these tools in my own life, so I know their power as well as their challenges.  I have also utilized them in more than thirty years of professional work with others as a life coach, educator and psychotherapist.  I offer them to you to try, adapt, and practice as methods to nurture your own growth.

Please send this issue to any friends who might be interested.  Also, I would welcome your thoughts or comments on this newsletter.  Have a great month!

Warmly,

Natalie

Natalie@EldridgeWorks.com

P.S.  Interested in some support in clarifying your purpose or taking action on your purpose?  Contact me for a complimentary coaching call to explore whether coaching could help you reach your goals! 

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

~ Robert Frost

“I don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t know what I want.”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“I don’t know what I feel.”

How many times have these phrases crossed your mind or your lips on an everyday basis?  They are expressions of uncertainty in our lives. From what to say in a conversation to how to vote in an election - from what to order in a restaurant to whether to accept a new job or to leave a relationship –  life is filled with uncertainties and the necessity to make choices without knowing.

Robert Frost’s famous poem about choosing a path in the woods is a wonderful illustration of the process of choice amidst uncertainty.  First, there are always choices we are confronted with – different ways to move from this moment to the next, or this day to the next.  In the poem there were at least 2 paths and he could not take both at once…he was faced with a choice.

So he paused – “long he stood” – looking down each path as far as he could.  This illustrates the value of taking time to assess what we do know about the choices before us.  He used his senses to compare the two – to guess how they might differ – even without knowing where they led beyond the bends.  He also paused to take in his own, in-the-moment assessment of how he felt about each possibility.  That morning, they both seemed equally fair to him, both fresh and untrodden.  Then there is this completely subjective calling he felt bubbling up – that the one less traveled seemed to call to him as “wanting wear.”

In pausing to consider the paths before him, he both observed the apparent differences between the options and also heard his inner response to each path’s possibilities. That helped to move him to a place of choice.  It was not a “right” choice – or one anyone else should make. Even he might make a different choice on a different day, or at the next crossroads in his life.  This poem simply captures and describes a moment – a snapshot of the process of managing uncertainty and choosing a path forward.

Understanding Your Uncertainty

How do you respond to uncertainty in your life?  Most of us find that uncertainty brings some level of discomfort and seek a way to manage the discomfort that arises.  How do you make decisions in your life?  Do you consult with friends and family, or professionals, or do research on the Internet or in the library?  Do you trust that you’ll figure it out and put off the decision for a time while focusing on other things? Do you list your subjective pros and cons to various options, and clarify your priorities?  Do you sleep on it?  All of these are valid ways to respond to uncertainty, and can help us manage our discomfort and to decide what action to take – or not take.

Identifying your own typical process in making decisions can help you identify both your strengths and challenges in managing uncertainty.  What do you do well?  What kind of responses tend to trip you up again and again?

Using Frost’s poem as an example, I offer three qualities that make decision-making most effective: Pausing, Opening, and Trusting. They may occur in varying sequences or be emphasized to various degrees.  I invite you to use these three qualities to help you review your own style of making choices while managing the ever-present uncertainty of living.

Pausing

The quality of pausing, or stopping action, gives us the space to consider or reflect. With this pause comes time to recognize and acknowledge that we are uncertain.  Those familiar words, “I don’t know,” express this acknowledgment, whether we voice them with panic, acceptance, or wonder. The more we cultivate relaxing into our uncertainty, the more we can embrace not knowing. Taking deep breaths to calm the body state and slowing the mind from racing forward on familiar tracks can both help. In the pause, we relax into a slower rhythm from which new awareness becomes possible.

The pace of our world pressures us to make quick decisions or choices, encouraging an urgency that is more habit than necessity.   What can you do to support the capacity to pause in the face of uncertainty?  Perhaps the image of stopping in the middle of the woods to peruse the paths ahead can be useful.  Pausing in uncertainty can be an awakening process, bringing greater access to our senses and our attention.  Honor your need to pause by saying, “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

Opening

The quality of opening allows us to absorb and process new information from our external and internal environments.  This involves research – using our senses to take in the external data and our self-reflection tools to scan the subjective data of our internal experience including bodily sensations, thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and values forged of past experiences and choices. The more relaxed we are in the present moment, the more open we will be to the information available.  The more anxious or tense we are, the more apt we will be to cling to biases and perceptions from the past, and to respond out of habit patterns. 

When we feel certain, we are closed to new possibilities. Uncertainty actually is a prerequisite of discovery and learning. According to Voltaire, “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.”

Trusting

The quality of trust is required along with pausing and opening.  We need to trust ourselves, to trust our process of considering the possibilities with an open mind and heart, and trust that what emerges in our pausing will ready us to choose how to move forward again.  It is useful to remember that we have made choices in the past from a place of relative uncertainty, and we have survived.  Undoubtedly there have been choices we regret, but there have been others that have been very affirming. Through our experience with making decisions we have learned from our mistakes and from our successes, and become more practiced in what is relevant to our unique process of making choices in the face of uncertainty.

In Frost’s poem, I hear the undercurrent of trust as the protagonist makes his choice and moves on down one of the paths before him.  To me, it is this trust - trusting the choice that emerges from his considered uncertainty and taking action on it – “that has made all the difference.”

~  Action On Purpose Challenge  ~

Take time to reflect on what specific uncertainties you face today, and what decisions you feel a need to make despite uncertainty.  Review the qualities of pausing, opening, and trusting.  Which of these are strategies you use most?  Are there different strategies you would identify?  Are any of these strategies more challenging for you than others?

As you contemplate uncertainty, pay attention to what you learn about your own responses.  Embrace both the learning and the “not knowing” inherent in facing uncertainty.

“The only thing that makes life possible is permanent,

 intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.”

~ Ursula K. LeGuin

~  In the News  ~

Next Steps - Want to get going on a plan for the kind of life you want to lead in the future? Contact me for a complimentary coaching call to explore whether coaching could help you reach your goals!  Natalie@EldridgeWorks.com  For a great list of readings and resources, go here

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At www.EldridgeWorks.com, my virtual professional home, you will find information about coaching and psychotherapy services, as well as more about me.  I would love to hear from you about the website, or the Action on Purpose newsletter.  Contact me at Natalie@EldridgeWorks.com.