Gifts of Uncertainty – Part 2

Just one month ago, I began to share the gifts of uncertainty as presented by Joanna Macy: whole systems thinker, eco philosopher, spiritual teacher. You can read Part 1, here.

I cannot think of anything more relevant right now than naming the gifts of uncertainty. This perspective is not offered to gloss over challenging times but to recognize what we can learn. Resilience is the potential that uncertainty offers. Resilience is learned. Uncertainty is the sand in the oyster of our wish for things to remain the same and can awaken us to the need for resilience.

Here are two more gifts:

Recognize our solidarity and interdependence with all life

We are not alone. We are a part of one whole living system.

As emotionally mature people we recognize our interdependence, with other humans and all beings with whom we share this earth. We are part of one system. A pandemic reveals our interconnectedness and our mutual need for belonging, safety, and protection. We are knit together in a living system joined by vulnerability and courage. Our lives are intimately entwined.

Befriend our pain physical or psychic & the mystery that it holds

One of my first spiritual teachers, Stephen Levine, made a clear distinction between healing and curing: we can be cured of a disease and not be healed of our pain. And we can come to the end of our lives, healed.

We could find a cure for COVID-19 and not glean the teachings of these times. We could cure the disease but miss the metamorphosis that it offers. To befriend pain and confusion is the work of “the healing we took birth for” as he phrased it. That is what is being asked of us. Now.

Our collective resilience depends upon our personal resilience; our personal capacity to withstand higher levels of uncertainty. This requires befriending ourselves and our circumstances, on behalf of the well being of all.

Building Resilience

Resilience grows when we gently increase our capacity for uncertainty. We grow our resilience incrementally. This gradual process itself is an antidote to panic. When we attend to how we do what we do, we nourish the parasympathetic nervous system.

The parasympathetic nervous system returns us to calm.

Calm is important right now: not passivity, but calm.

One of the easiest ways to engage in nourishing ourselves is to attend to body sensation. Fear is a body based experience. When we turn toward those sensations of fear with curiosity, openness, even kindness, there’s a neurological re-set that happens. We begin to include all of our experience. This is the heart of somatic education: trusting body sensation as a resource. Emotional resilience is the result of learning to befriend body sensation. It is a trustworthy practice for many of us.